Soaring On Your Strengths

     Do you want to get promoted, make more money, or land your dream job? If your answer is “yes”, than I recommend that you pick up a copy of Robin Ryan’s book, “Soaring on Your Strengths.”

     As one of America’s top career counselors, Robin’s book gives you a step-by-step process to help you identify your natural strengths and use these natural strengths to differentiate yourself and create a “brand you.”

    After interviewing and gathering data from some of America’s top companies, Robin found that the person who gets that promotion, or dream job, is the person who is the best at defining their personal brand. Yet, many of us don’t really know how, and that’s okay, because Robin’s book can teach you how.

     I know that there are thousands of books out there offering career advice. So, why do I like Robin’s? I think it is due to the fact that each section provides precise action steps and exercises to help you identify your strengths and use them to promote your personal brand and help you get that coveted promotion. Furthermore, the information is practical and very down-to-earth, which is kind of what I am trying to provide with my blog.     

     Thus, if you’re looking for a great resource for putting yourself on the fast-track, promotional ladder, or you’re looking to land that perfect job, or find a career you truly love, then I would urge you to get a coy of Robin’s book, “Soaring on Your Strengths.”

Couture Choas and Talent Managment

Recently, I decided that I was tired of not having a qualified and competent internal candidate to fill a couple of open positions–as we all know, you never really know what you are going to get when you hire from the outside. As a result, I concluded that I would have to create some sort of process to ensure that I had an ample amount of qualified internal candidates from which to choose from. In other words, I would have to learn how to “manage our talent.” Hence, began my quest for learning more about this process that would hopefully get me the talent our organization needed to meet our business objectives. 

     Although I had heard about talent management before, I have to admit that I really wasn’t sure what it was, nor was I familiar with its purpose. As you can imagine, I had to do a little research. During my research, I found that one of the key components is succession planning. For those of you who don’t know, it is making sure everyone from the bottom up has a replacement–although most of the time it is used more for senior level positions. Can you imagine a company without a CEO? After all, the CEO is the one who is suppose to be leading the company. They are in charge. Not having someone at the company helm making the hard decisions would undoubtedly make investors nervous. Thus, not having a replacement would definitely have an impact on the bottom line. For this reason, it has become a hot topic in the business community.

     As I was doing my research, I came across this interesting article in the Wall Street Journal that I found applicable to the reasons for have a succession plan. It is about the death of Gianfranco Ferre. A famous Italian fashion designer, and founder of the label Ferre, who died very unexpectedly without having groomed someone to takeover. 

     The article also mentions the Chief Executive saying, in an recent interview, that the fact that Mr. Ferre still designs for the brand is a crucial part of the brand image. With this in mind, it seems that someone would have thought about preparing for Ferre’s death and maybe discussed a few what-if-scenarios. It will interesting to see how the death of this designer affects the company. 

IMPORTANCE TO HR 

     In a 2007 poll of 209 HR professionals, it was found that in ranking HR activities critical to their businesses’ success during the next 24 months, respondents put talent management at the top of their agendas, with roughly 75 percent saying it was very important.  

     I think if we were to ask the HR Practitioners who responded to this poll their reasons for putting talent management at the top of the priority list, we would find that it’s about making money. After all, people are the biggest part of costs. Thus, it makes sense that the savvy HR Practitioner would do everything they can to manage this cost by having the right amount of people with the right skills in the right jobs. If there is a mismatch, it can lead to costly layoffs and losing your talent development investments. 

     If you’re interested in reading the entire article mentioned in this blog, here is the link:  Gianfranco Ferre

The Art of Personal Branding

 

If there is one thing this year’s presidential campaigns have taught us, it’s the power of personal branding. This is evident in the fact that Hillary Clinton was the presumptive democratic presidential candidate up to Obama’s win in Iowa.  And I think we can all agree, it was due to Obama’s uncanny ability to brand himself early on as the candidate for change.

            “It’s time for me—and you—to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that’s true for anyone who’s interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work,” says Tom Peters, in his 1997 article, “Brand You” for Fast Company magazine. A message echoed by almost all career counselors. Peters goes on to say, “Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called YOU.” So the question is, “How do we go about creating a personal brand?”

On his blog and website, Harvey Palmer, describes three steps for creating your personal brand. They are:

1. DEFINE-your strengths, weaknesses, talents, skills and passion (If you need help, pick up a copy of Tom Rath’s Strength Finder 2.0).
2. PLAN-your action plan to develop and promote Your Personal Brand.
3. PERFORM-how you measure, challenge, and review the effectiveness of your Personal Brand.

     He goes on to say, that these three steps go hand-in-hand with what he defines as the “personal branding elements.” The personal branding elements are:

1. PHYSCIAL-how you interact, your image your confidence, your charisma.
2. INTELLECTUAL-your knowledge, your experience, your insights and ideas, your education.
3. PRINCIPLE-your principles, your code of conduct, your integrity.
4. ACTUAL-your actions, your output, how you meet the needs of others.

     As I read the fourth element: actual. I couldn’t help thinking how important it is, because a lot of organizations and individuals believe that their personal brand will remain strong forever without any changes. I feel that this is a big mistake.

     In a recent article, I read that Oprah’s television show ratings and her magazine sales have dropped dramatically. If you watch her show today, it really hasn’t changed much over the last five years. Conversely, the ratings for Ellen’s have risen. Oprah hasn’t done a good job of continuing to meet the needs of others (her audience). Thus, once you have established your brand, it’s just as important to manage it and improve it. 

IMPORTANCE TO HR

Personal branding is an essential part of your career success. It is even more important to the HR practitioner since we do not generate quantitative revenue. You must determine how you, as the HR practitioner, can add value and then start establishing yourself as the expert in that field. Use the steps outlined by Luke Harvey-Palmer and start building “ME Inc.”