Your Technical Skills Are Not Enough
So, you are a data professional, with great technical skills. Unfortunately, your skills simply give you a ticket to play; they have opened the door, but your success depends on much more than these ‘hard’ skills that you have invested so much time, effort and money acquiring.
Welcome to the world of Personal Brand; not a skill but the enabler of your success. Schools, universities and most companies will never tell you this, but your Personal Brand is the conduit through which you raise your head above the pack and take control of your career, shining a bright light on you, when choices are made for promotions, earnings, learning opportunities, quality engagements and recruitment. Your Personal Brand is how you cut through the noise of an ultra-competitive labour market, saturated with equally qualified technical experts. So, if you haven’t thought about your Personal Brand, it’s time you did, to highlight your relevance and real value to yourself and your important stakeholders.
But let me be clear: Your Personal Brand is not some marketing initiative or slogan but rather a beacon to illuminate your path forward, building trust and credibility to enable you to have deep impact.
Think Of Personal Brand as Your Own Culture
In world where everything can be copied and replicated, your Personal Brand, more than anything else about you, has the power to truly differentiate and distinguish you from others. In this way, your Personal Brand governs your career success. Fundamentally, your Personal Brand is:
- The way others perceive your value;
- Your reputation;
- How people describe and talk about you, especially when you are not around;
- What people remember about you;
- The factor which determines the extent to which others want to work with you.
For these reasons, your Personal Brand is how you unlock your potential and enable your sustained success. And, because everything you do has an impact on your reputation and how others perceive you, it would be foolish to fail to take control of your Personal Brand.
How to Build Your Personal Brand as a Data Professional
For the past 20 years, I have sought to uncover the DNA of performance. What I can say, unequivocally, is that curiosity and empathy are predictive of success. And, here is the kicker: this golden rule transcends career success and drives satisfaction in our broader lives. For this reason, curiosity and empathy must be part of our DNA.
Beyond these two qualities, the process of building your Personal Brand starts with self-awareness. There is no short-cut here: You must know who you are and the values you stand for. There are many tools, templates and frameworks to help you surface and articulate your values and I stress that this is perhaps the most important work you will ever do and the footing for a satisfying and rewarding life. Reflect, explore, evaluate and pressure-test who you are at your core, remembering the words of Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth living.
And, then you must demonstrate your values every day, what I refer to as ‘values congruent living’. Consistency is the key which fuels our reputation. If you live your values and demonstrate them in all you do, then your Personal Brand and your success will take care of itself.
After articulating your values, here are key questions to help you define your Personal Brand:
- What do I want to be recognised for? What do I want to be known for?
- What reputation do I want to have? How do I want to be perceived by others?
- How do I want people to describe me and talk about me?
- In what ways can I add value to others and be relevant / important to them?
What’s clear is that the shortest route to growing your value is to contribute more to others! So, ask yourself: How can I contribute more to others; what do I need to do? When you consider this question, what potential changes in your behaviour come to mind; what direction do you want to be moving in to better live your values? By determining your unique values and demonstrating them in an authentic and consistent way, you can become known for your defining qualities.
Your Personal Brand is about living your values in a conscious and intentional way; it is how you represent what you stand for and the way you create value in the world. Do it right and you will elevate your credibility and differentiate yourself from others to advance your career, broaden your influence and, have greater impact – helping you and those around you to flourish. Your Personal Brand is literally the currency you use to manage your relationship with others.
In terms of how to fuel your reputation and build your Personal Brand, consider the following:
- Become the best communicator you can be and seek to grow your network every day;
- Demonstrate interest in others and understand their needs, challenges and objectives;
- Learn how to collaborate and form alliances with others to make things happen;
- Be a catalyst for others, a conduit that facilitates solutions to problems;
- Look for opportunities to build partnerships and help others;
- Share your learnings and publish in a way that says you have insights into your subject matter;
- Create your portfolio of success – examples are proof that you can deliver;
At Ingrity, we have a philosophy: Demonstrating our company values is how we build our Personal Brand and deliver value to our customers. In fact, we believe that by living our values, each and every day, we will unleash the potential of ourselves, our customers and our communities.
At Ingrity, the four values that represent our Personal Brands are:
- SHOW UP and contribute to others – add value in all situations
- STAND UP and share your perspectives to help others – make a constructive contribution
- OWN UP and take responsibility so others can rely on you – be someone others can trust
- SCALE UP and grow your capacity – continuously evolve and learn so that we all progress
At Ingrity we believe that how we Show Up, Stand Up, Own Up and Scale Up defines our Personal Brand. For this reason, the title of this paper should be: Living Your Values to Build A Strong Personal Brand, because this is what we are really talking about. This philosophy is a pathway to create value for yourself and for others and to drive success, not just for you and your career but for those around you.
To truly embody your Personal Brand, continuous effort is needed: We must always look for opportunities to demonstrate our values and constantly shift our mindset from delivering tasks to creating value. Further, we must pivot our focus away from ‘self’ and towards others – never stop helping others and remember the role of grit, effort and hard-work in building an enduring career and rewarding life – realising your potential is tough work and there are no shortcuts.
Cultivating your own Personal Brand and living it authentically each day is the sure-fire pathway to a sustained and lasting sense of self-worth – this is surely the greatest success we can have.
