WHAT WOULD THEY SAY ABOUT YOU IN THE CHECK-OUT LINE?
Imagine that you are in the checkout line at your favorite supermarket, and you happen to glance back and see your boss, a colleague, or an ‘influencer’ in your company. If you overheard them talking about you with someone, what would you hope they’d be saying? Would you use adjectives like ‘fair,’ ‘successful,’ and ‘collaborative’ to convey what you'd want to hear?
I’ve read many marketing and branding books and articles, some of which draw a true distinction between the two concepts, and others that blur the definitions, and seem to view marketing as the strategic means to building the brand.
James Heaton, CEO of Tronvig Group, a brand and marketing strategy consultancy and self-described “learning organization,” had this [in part] to say about "the difference between marketing and branding" in an article of the same name: "Branding should both precede and underlie any marketing effort.
Branding is not push but pull. Branding is the expression of the essential truth or value of an organization, product, or service. It is communication of characteristics, values, and attributes that clarify what this particular brand is and is not.\ Branding is strategic. Marketing is tactical. Marketing may contribute to a brand, but the brand is bigger than any particular marketing effort. The brand is what remains after the marketing has swept through the room. It’s what sticks in your mind associated with a product, service, or organization—whether or not, at that particular moment, you bought or did not buy."
As you consider your brand as a professional, business owner, community leader….is it congruent with what you’d overhear in the checkout line at your neighborhood ShopRite, Acme, Wegman’s, Winn Dixie…? One of my favorite marketing leaders described a brand as “a promise” that we give to the people who see us. It is the truth that belies or affirms any marketing we have done of our skills, our talents, and our ability to draw people to us and influence them in a positive way. Have you concentrated more on the marketing and not enough on the brand? Or have you thought more about your brand, but not adequately marketed it so that the expression of your “promise” is seen by the right people at the right time? Maybe it's time for a strategic reflection of both. What would a [brand] new you do differently – for yourself and/or for your business? Let's Chat!
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MUTUAL MENTORSHIP: TEACH, LEARN & PAY IT FORWARD
Mutual mentoring is a new form of workplace mentoring that helps connect senior leaders with the next generation of talent to share differences in work style, experiences and perspectives. Mutual mentoring provides benefits for all participants, including cultivating a culture of learning, increasing employee engagement and skillsets, boosting talent retention, overcoming generational gaps and promoting leadership development.
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Our work requires us to look both inward at why we think and feel the way we do and outward at how it might be impacting how we manage our work and professional relationships. It requires us to strive for the sense of belonging that exists when everyone feels included and free to bring their full, authentic selves to work.
Mutual Mentorship offers cross-functional and multi-hierarchical employee populations opportunities to describe their challenges and share their successes in managing today’s culturally complex, fast-paced, and sometimes extremely ambiguous business environment.​
Mentoring Partners discuss topics that are distinctive to their experiences and how in particular those experiences impact their perspectives and work life. In doing so, the relationships can:
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promote understanding for more junior employees around business processes, strategic thinking, and success factors
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develop the courage and skills to “unmute” in ways that support both senior and junior mentoring partners in managing uncomfortable conversations and situations, while continuing to have respect for one another's value - and values and,
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co-create strategies that consistently improve work and work culture.
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Interested in knowing how a Mutual Mentorship Program can develop your leaders and build your business? Let's Chat!
THE GREAT AND POWERFUL CAUSE HAS SPOKEN
Merriam Webster's "Word of the Year" in 2023 was Authentic. Corporate leaders and HR talent seekers needed to understand what it was that their newest applicants and hires were demanding, and managers scrambled to make sense of how to adapt this apparent fervor for showing up as oneself to how the work needed to get done.
One of my favorite definitions of Authenticity comes from a 2016 Psychology Today article which looks beyond beliefs and actions in listing the 7 characteristics of authentic people:
1. Have realistic perceptions of reality.
2. Are accepting of themselves and of other people.
3. Are thoughtful.
4. Have a non-hostile sense of humor.
5. Are able to express their emotions freely and clearly.
6. Are open to learning from their mistakes.
7. Understand their motivations.
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What, then, if the rampant greed, craving for individual recognition and "gaslighting" (Merriam Webster's 2022 Word of the Year) is not at all what the great and powerful cause will be for this next generation and it becomes, instead, a dictum of what this emerging group of leaders who are poised to run our businesses and impact our world will and will not accept? The great and powerful cause for this newest generation of leaders will be to change organizations and institutions that have been traditionally governed through control to ones that will be powered by influence - and authenticity.
So, what does that mean for HR practitioners? How will we describe this outspokenness – this zeal for candor and impatience with pretense? Will we admonish them to be mindful of where they are, or will we both guide them and cheer them on as they take us to where we just might need to be? Let's get going!