Empowering You and Others

Empowering You and Others
Written by Alyson Keller, CEO - Centre for Enabling Leadership NZ Ltd

The world of business and commerce is changing on a continuous basis and this places an equally critical need for the people involved to also be conscious of the need to keep developing their total skill portfolio. However, it is still surprising the number of people who fail to recognise the need to keep refreshing their offering to their employer, family, and friends. They appear to be unconsciously incompetent in that they don’t know what they should know about to keep up-to-date and in touch with what is going on as well as what is needed to remain effective.

Do you recognise yourself in any of the following scenarios?

¨     You are no longer as fit and healthy as you used to be several years ago

¨     You have difficulty keeping up with the changes that are taking place around you

¨     You are unaware of the impact your appearance has on your career prospects

¨     You tend to be ill prepared when involved in important interactions

¨     You are working long hours and getting limited sleep and relaxation

¨     You have stopped taking time out for sport and other active leisure activities

¨     You don’t make time for a good lunch or snack break each day

¨     You never appear able to keep up with your work demands

¨     You haven’t invested time recently in additional learning and personal development

¨     You tend to feel tired and listless more often and this stops you doing more of the things you like

 We could make the list much longer, however, the message should be very clear in that if you were able to put a tick against two or more of the statements you should stop and reflect on the impact those scenarios have on your life and effectiveness.

 
Personal Branding

It has been interesting to note the increasing number of people who are taking an active interest in the concept of thinking of themselves as a product to be marketed. Their interest has been stimulated by the recognition that everything about them communicates a message about their capability, motivation, ambition, and credibility. Almost everyone knows about the 30 second assessment that most of us use when meeting people and how this is influenced by the way we dress, our posture and manna, the way we engage, and the way we interact through our speaking and body language. Empirical evidence from many HR professions shows that many of the candidates who appear for interviews had certainly not thought about their brand by the way they appeared and how they handled the interview.

 Letting things slip also happens to people who have been in a job for years simply due to being unaware of the changes that are taking place all around them. This is illustrated by the “Boiling Frog” metaphor. If you place a frog in a basis on cold water and slowly heat it to boiling point the frog fails to notice the danger and does not try to escape. However, if we drop a frog into boiling water it immediately senses the danger and hops out. Therefore, when we have been in a situation for a long time we often fail to sense the need to change and this applies to family and friendships as much as to the working environment.

Developing Self-awareness and Self-management

Learning to look around us and observe what is going on coupled with obtaining feedback from those we trust and respect can provide a wealth of useful information. We can learn to improve our dress and the way we present ourselves to better meet the needs of each situation we encounter. Our posture and demeanour can be improved along with the way we communicate our brand. One of the most important components of branding is being as certain that we understand the market and what it wants. When taken to the individual level this places a demand on us to listen to what people say to us as a means of really understanding what they want.

 In today’s fast paced every changing business environment we tend to be swamped with information from a wide range of sources. Therefore, the more fixed we are in our mindset the less flexible we will be in tuning into more than one of these channels. When we recognise the difficulty that most of us have in truly listening to what others say we need to get objective feedback on how we listen. Research findings identified that most people found active listening to be difficult as it requires a fundamental desire to hear and understand what the other person is saying. Therefore, it requires a great deal of focused concentration coupled with a genuine desire to show respect for the person communicating. Although it appears to require a lot of hard work the benefits from becoming an active listener can be well worth the effort. However, to genuinely connect with those you are interacting with requires us to be authentic in your desire to understand what is being communicated to you.

 The bottom line of personal branding is in being able to hear and understand what people want and in being able to respond in a manner that influences them to appreciate what you have to offer. Being able to differentiate your offering from all others will place you in an enviable position of being able to chose the offers you will most certainly receive.