This one isn’t serious.
We are told it’s important to build a personal brand. It saves us from “constantly starting from scratch” (Harvard Business Review). We can have our cake and eat it too: “a positive personal brand is beneficial to both you and your organization”. So to both your personal development, and capitalism. Isn’t it nice?
Define a brand
We need to identify three things: what makes us unique, our values, our contribution. I like poetry, fiction, social and philosophical theory, visual arts, some parts of mathematics and sports. I don’t really like to work for the organization for which I work. Does that make me unique?
I also have values. I’m not particularly fond of conventional work, although I value activities like reading, writing, reading about mathematics. I appreciate intellectual curiosity, I just don’t find contemporary notions of work appealing, almost no one does. I share a sentiment with Bertrand Russell in cherishing a certain kind of idleness. Family and friendships holds value to me (like it does to many), I identify as agnostic or atheist in matters of religion, doesn’t really matter, I value some kind of spirituality, I value free speech even when people say very dumb things, I value respect too, I’m realistically resigned, we have to accept many things in life, I think eudaimonic happiness makes more sense than hedonic happiness, the Greeks were on the right path with their emphasis on virtue and practical or ethical wisdom. I value a certain kind of hard work that leads to an increase of our well-being, (finding cures for cancer, advancing computer technology). I value art and literature as much, probably more.
Paradoxically, what we do down the road with these technological improvement is often very futile. I’d prefer not to consume products, I’d prefer not having to work with technological tools to produce products. I value the process (we need it to be a rich society and have cures for cancer) but the outcome is often pointless, participating in a materialistic orgy, making us a bit shallower.
What are my contribution? At work, I try to help others and the organization that employs me accomplish their objectives. Whatever they are, until it makes no sense. We need a limit, we can’t be Eichmann in Jerusalem. I’m pretty good at it. I think I’m good at figuring out what that limit is. It’s all about the process, I have hard time thinking the outcomes actually matter, but I’ll never rule that out, it would be depressing.
How good of a brand is that?
Find initiatives and organizational goals that are aligned with your brand
That’s the next step. My brand doesn’t particularly care about helping organizations. Could I end up leading a part of a project focused on building digital societies? Sure. It could be about teaching others, it could center around rethinking our mission. It could be about sales of a new product; the development of a new product. A lot of things can align with my brand. Unless you have specific values like “helping people use tools to improve their business line”, and who has those values?, pretty much anything work-wise can align with your values, because again, work for a corporation or an organization is work, not the eudaimonic practice of philosophy-prudence or whatever.
Connect with colleagues who have similar interests
I don’t really care about having a better workplace, about making better products; as long as it’s not toxic, as long as people are relatively open minded (but you can’t be totally open minded, you can’t promote poetry instead of sales), as long as people try to care. I try to care! I want to care, I just find it difficult! Ultimately, I don’t care about product market fit, I don’t care about KPIs, I don’t care about re-engaging and circling back with our key stakeholders and inter-agency partners, I don’t care about ensuring that all invested parties are kept in the loop and have an opportunity for meaningful input, I don’t care about marketing, about sales.1
What’s the point?
In another article, Harrison Monarth tells us that personal brand is about visibility and the values that we outwardly represent. A brand is not about our values, it’s about some values we want to outwardly represent. Monarth has this formula: figure out what drives you, align your values to the organization’s goals, understand who your stakeholders are, make yourself visible.
If you are a normal person, what drives you isn’t aligned with your organizations goals. It’s desirable to be a good employee, it’s appropriate to work hard, it’s sensible to put yourself out there by creating content that helps people, but it doesn’t make sense to align your values with your organizations’ goals. I don’t know what it means to align my values with the goals of my organization, it’s empty talk. Every organization aims to achieve efficiency, provide excellent services, and either generate profit or manage expenses effectively. These are not my values, I do not align myself with them, and I am not misunderstanding what the executive coaches say. Normal healthy people have values that don’t align with profit making and efficiency. The executive coaches are the ones hollow and misaligned.
Historically, branding was used to differentiate one person’s cattle from another’s by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal’s skin with a hot branding iron. “Brand” is about characterlessness, cattle, mass-market candy bars; a brand serves to create and store dollar signs.
Having a “brand” is obviously kind of bullshit, like a lot of stuff, but it’s the price to pay to live in a society where we have cures for cancer. Not everyone gets to earn a living teaching philosophy.
Footnotes
I care to the extent that I care about the process; the process of reaching one’s full potential in any given activity or role, perfecting oneself, striving for excellence in all endeavours.↩︎