Personal Branding - Enthusiasts, Hobbyists, Trivialists, and Charlatans

“Worthiness is what gives meaning and fulfillment. Success without fulfillment is empty. That's like good looks without goodness. In life we need substance over form, not form over substance.” — Shiv Khera

I wrote a post some time ago designed to list the things that irritated me in the rough and tumble of contemporary business. I called it…things that grind my gears. I recently realised I missed a really big bug bear of mine….one that increasingly doesn’t just grind my gears….it smashes them to smithereens….….the dark art of …… personal branding!

We have Tom Peters apparently to blame for this invention. The original idea was that individuals should actively work on their personal brand. The kernel in this premise is that current and future employers will seek out those with greater notoriety and offer them great treasures to grace them with their expertise. 

Over the past 10 years, this personal branding business has become increasingly fashionable. Its prevalence seems to have tracked the rise of social media. And while I may be towards the extreme of finding it increasingly lacking in taste, I know I can’t have been the only one to find some of the more desperate attempts rather grating. The Onion, carried an amusing satire underlining this a few years ago:

SEATTLE—Sad, pathetic local web developer and blogger Phillip Cathin, 34, told reporters today that he sees himself as “a brand”.

“It’s sort of like I’m the CEO of the company called ‘Me,’” continued the sad excuse for a man, briefly pausing to check for any comments on his latest Tumblr post about the future of social media. “And right now, I’m defining my company’s story, style, and strengths so that people can see what I’m about and what I have to offer.”

Cathin, who sees his worthless daily blog posts, endless Facebook status updates, and aggravating Foursquare check-ins as “extensions of his brand name”, confirmed that he spends the majority of his miserable days attempting to leverage his 627 Twitter followers into a larger web network of “brand consumers”.

WHAT IS IT THAT GRINDS MY GEARS ABOUT THIS?

FIGURE 1 – DILBERT’S WISDOM ON MARKETING

When personal branding becomes unabashed self-promotion, I think it crosses a line. When the pursuit of self-aggrandizement overshadows an individual’s core work tasks or stretches credibility, it becomes fraudulent. Consider for example these cases:

(i) Personal networking at the employer’s expense: How do we feel about employees who make the case to attend conferences and panel sessions to promote themselves but at their company’s cost?

(ii) Creating personal propaganda during work hours: How do we feel about employees spending time during work hours to create and post content completely unrelated to their day jobs?

(iii) Naked pursuit of followership:  The dumbing down of serious issues to clichés designed only to attract followers?

(iv) Fame by association: The relentless posting of pictures with business/famous personalities.

(v) Fake awards: The proliferation of ‘CXO of the year’ awards which seem to have become a bit of a racket. Such awards in my view have always been a dangerous glorification of the cult of personalities but how is it plausible that there can be 1,000 CXOs of the month?

(vi) Humble bragging (a phrase coined by my friend David Selchen): Where posts appear to be humble acceptance of some honor but are actually very thing excuses to brag.

(vii) Misrepresentation of expertise: The number of profiles, Instagram, Twitter accounts that have emerged with individuals describing themselves as Thought Leaders, Influencers, Keynote Speakers….in my view significantly exceeds the evidence of their content or demand for public speaking engagements!

I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that there is a small but growing population in our organizations who are being drawn into this fad. This is ‘The Kardashian Effect’.  It is taking the substance of what Tom Peters was suggesting and distorts it….exaggerates it…..then tweets it with a picture of the latest contrived award received. I am not the only one to have noticed this. See this interesting piece on the BBC website which includes Sheryl Sandberg’s reaction to the concept of personal branding.

….BUT DAVID….DON’T YOU HAVE A WEBSITE?

Well, yes I do………...

FIGURE 2 - My caption competition submission.

Now let me try to persuade you I am not a hypocrite. I think there is a distinction between creating and sharing content for discussion versus unabashed self-promotion. The line for me is about the purpose of the content.  Where the purpose of creating and sharing content is the content itself, I see the wonders the internet allows for people to connect in much greater numbers to discuss shared interests. 

For example, if I want to join a discussion group related to ComicCon, or the next Star Wars movie, the content and debate about plots is the central point of connection. In my case, I like to explore and discuss matters of organisation effectiveness and change. I create content in this domain and am interested in others views on that content. Anything else that emerges from the content is secondary.

If I contrast this to ‘what grinds my gears’ on the excesses of self-promotion, it is when the personal aggrandizement is the primary purpose. Where people use social media simply to promote themselves the content is clearly secondary. In fact, in many cases there is no content beyond something about an individual’s desire to tell others about their achievements and attempt to enhance their virtual stature. 

ENGLISH UNDERSTATEMENT – IT’S RATHER BAD FORM TO BE BOASTFUL

While I am convinced my views on self-aggrandizement are widely shared, I suspect one reason why this subject really grinds my gears is because I am English by birth. The societal norms and customs of the UK stay with me. Let me acknowledge this. I read recently a delightful piece about us British which might help explain my abhorrence at the tastelessness of this subject:

“A quality that is much revered – and exploited – by the British, understatement is frequently seen as being synonymous with good manners. Understatement is characterised by a number of negatives: a refusal to be effusive, overdramatic, emphatic or didactic. More direct remarks are frequently accompanied by tentative or provisional qualifications: ‘perhaps’, ‘it could be’, ‘I wonder if’, ‘maybe’. The overall effect is an aura of modest reticence, quiet understanding and considerate behaviour. Like self-deprecation, understatement is an attractive and effective quality, which is often more persuasive, and appealing, than a direct approach. Understatement permeates British humour.” -- Debretts

INTRODUCING FOUR PERSONAL BRANDING ARCHETYPES

So, returning to my thoughts on where participating in sharing content online crosses a line into unacceptable exaggeration, I have given a good deal of thought to how we might characterise ‘personal branding’ efforts. My goal here is to provide those who share my concern about staying the right side of this with a framework and set of archetypes. You will note, I have been highly objective in the labels I have chosen to describe the archetypes. It is important we do these things professionally….

FIGURE 3 - SELF BRANDING ARCHETYPES

In my grid, I’ve plotted ‘Purpose’ of engaging in creating online content. Here what I mean is what is the driving force behind contributing to some subject. Is it about engaging in a discussion about a common shared interest or at the other extreme is it simply about the individual? On the Y axis, I have plotted whether the subject matter is related to an individuals core expertise…their day job….versus a subject which is clearly unrelated to this.

What emerges from this analysis is four distinct archetypes:

(1) Enthusiasts: First we have those who are so passionate about what they do for a living that they are compelled to create content and share it with like minded individuals. They pursue deeper understanding and discovery on subjects closely related to their core business interests.  This archetype is clearly the best one of the four and, contrary to what you might think, these are very fun people to talk to at parties.

(2) Hobbyists: Where Enthusiasts create a continuum between their work and social media/networking content, Hobbyists pursue a parallel interest. It is easy to picture this archetype as subscribing to discussions about pastimes and sports. However, the point here is that they remain focused on contributing to a collective discussion and content where their contribution is secondary to the content/story/game itself.

(3) Trivialists: Here we have those who focus on promoting themselves and their professional stature. Their weapon of mass communication is the quote, picture, banal tweet, cliché, or picture. I think of these people as Horoscope writers in the age of 120 characters. These individuals’ pursue image over substance and individual ego over collective debate. 

(4) Charlatans: And finally, those who present a thin, false image of themselves which is very misleading. The image portrayed is designed solely to attract followers and is designed to optimize their perceived celebrity. Here we would have those terrible people who we hear about who have pushed Instagram and YouTube content that it subsequently turns out was not true.

I hope you see these archetypes as a useful frame. Sharing them has been quite cathartic.

IN DEFENCE OF TOM PETERS

I met Tom Peters in 1998 (humble brag?). I remember being very impressed. He gave a lecture at a conference and was courageous enough to question the company’s strategy and try to provoke some introspection. That company was Enron. 

I think when Tom talked about personal branding he was merely pointing to the rise of the internet, social media, and the need for all individuals to come to terms with what that would mean for them. I don’t think he ever intended to encourage people to push content solely to create facades. And I think he was right. We all do have to be mindful of how we engage and present ourselves in the social media era. I think I agree that we should all engage with social media. The question, however, is how authentically should we do so? For some reason I think some people see social media as a free pass to say and share whatever they like. Filters are removed. Ethical concerns are reduced. Care for others opinions and feelings are ignored. Personally, I do not think, that these last few observations are a good thing.

In fact, they really grind my gears….

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