【英语生活】塑造崭新的自己

What do people say about you when you are not there? This may not be a question you have asked yourself before.But your successful, politically astute colleagues will probably have spent quite a lot of time thinking about their reputation, image and impact on others. So perhaps you should start thinking about it. Your career prospects depend on what They are saying about You.

This is the era of the “personal brand”. A decade ago, the management guru Tom Peters urged business people to work on “the brand called You”. Some laughed at the shameless vulgarity. Others felt it too outlandish to take seriously.

But the time may have come to get to grips with personal branding. Competition for the best jobs seems to get ever fiercer and the changing nature of work – project-based, often across time zones – means it can be harder to make an impression, particularly on those who control your destiny. Even social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace are exploited to polish up the personal brand.

With these thoughts in mind, I decide to investigate personal branding at first hand, starting in a smart meeting room in London's swanky Knightsbridge.

Sitting opposite me is the branding guru Louise Mowbray, who for three years has been advising professional people on how to present themselves. My first impressions of her are encouraging: she is an attractive and well-spoken woman, who smiles warmly when we meet.

Her services are in demand from bankers, lawyers and other business people, all pondering ways to improve how they are perceived at work she says: “How can you make yourself compelling to your target audience? Can you establish a personal brand that is well-known, consistent and authentic?”

I admit to my guru that personal branding is not something I have ever bothered myself with. One has just sort of, you know, muddled along. “So how do you think you got your current job?” Ms Mowbray asks. “Er, well, luck, I suppose,” is my compulsorily self- effacing answer.

Ms Mowbray, whose career has included spells with Dunn & Bradstreet, TMP Worldwide and Quintessentially, as well as a brief stint with the Financial Times Group, does not think this is how people get better jobs. “Some people with the right skills and experience get overlooked when good jobs come up,” she says. “Why? Their brand is not working hard enough for them when they are not there.”

The goal is to become a “go-to” person, she says. And that means making a strong, lasting impression that marks you out from the rest. Actions are what count most. It is a case of “show, don't tell”, and “show” in an interesting way. “It's like what Simon Cowell says to the people he rejects on The X Factor or American Idol, ‘You're just not memorable',” Ms Mowbray says.

A powerful personal brand will make you the right person when the next big opportunity comes up,” says Ms Mowbray.

There must have been something my current employer liked when offering me the job, but I realise that I now need to do more. The time has come to do some serious work on Brand Stern.

A consultation with Ms Mowbray usually takes place in three stages. The first meeting is exploratory, to establish target “markets”. The client then researches how these different markets perceive him or her. The resulting information is discussed at a second meeting, with possible next steps being thrashed out. A third and final conversation – which can take place by telephone – analyses progress made and whether further action is required. The three- meeting package costs £1,200.

Ms Mowbray's use of the phrase “target audience” – rather than, say, “people” – is striking, and deliberate. She suggests taking a methodical approach toindividuals you come into contact with, dividing them up under several headings, or markets. As a first step to understanding how your personal brand is performing, you must take the slightly embarrassing step of asking some of these “target audiences” what they think of you.

Brand Stern's markets are divided up under headings: colleagues, interviewees, readers, peers in the media, contacts and so on. Out go impertinent e-mails seeking comments. Back come reassuringly impertinent replies. “You're smart, amusing, good- looking, tall and blond,” a former colleague says, knowing the last three labels, at least, to be false.

A current colleague says she is glad that every time I tell her I am going to write about my personal brand I start laughing. This, she feels, can only be a good thing. Another says I should consider drawing more attention to myself – “perhaps by pursuing odder, eye-catching assignments from time to time”.

The outside world offers a little more illumination. I tend to want to reduce complicated arguments to binary opposites, one interviewee says. And I clearly switch off fairly quickly if I start to lose interest.

I feed all the responses back to Ms Mowbray a couple of weeks later. She says there is evidence that Brand Stern is credible and respected, but she wonders if the markets aren't looking for something a bit meatier: “Are you damping down your personality? Do they want more of you?”

This is common in the formal world of investment banking, Ms Mowbray says. As professionals get older they can become more risk- averse, just when they need to project a powerful, personal brand. Not a phoney one, she insists, but authentic and compelling.

By comparing the mismatches between what the market wants and what you are giving them, you can spot which skills or aspects of your personality to develop. Only then will Ms Mowbray offer advice on image – body language, what tie to wear, and so on in a separate package. Her background in the luxury goods industries means she knows this world well. But the personality must be working for you first.

So will I now lurch out of neutral and start revving up my personal brand a bit? Perhaps. At least I know what I have to do.

Others may feel certain that this is the right time to do some urgent work on themselves. Successful companies worry about their brands, so why shouldn't you? And sometimes, as Ms Mowbray says, “we don't know what people really think of us until we ask”.

当你不在场时，大家会怎么谈论你？在此之前，你可能从来没有这么问过你自己。但你那些成功、政治上精明的同事可能已经花了大量的时间思考他们的声誉、形象以及对他人的影响。因此，或许你应该开始思考这个问题了。你的职业前途取决于他们怎么讨论你。如今是“个人品牌”的时代。10年前，管理界教皇汤姆•彼得斯(Tom Peters)敦促商界人士致力于“你就是品牌”(the brand called You)的建设。一些人对这不知羞耻的粗鄙行为示以嘲笑，其他人则觉得它过于奇怪而不必太当真。

不过，现在可能已经到了该认真对待个人品牌的时候。争夺最佳工作的竞争似乎变得前所未有的激烈，而工作性质的变化——以项目为基础，经常跨越几个时区——意味着你给人留下印象可能会比较困难，尤其是给那些掌控你命运的人。甚至像Facebook或MySpace等社交网站也被充分挖掘，用来提升个人品牌。

带着这些想法，我决定进行第一手的个人品牌调查，调查就从位于伦敦奢华的骑士桥(Knightsbridge)区的一间雅致的会议室开始。

坐在我对面的是品牌领袖路易丝•莫布雷(Louise Mowbray)，三年来，她一直在教导职场人士如何展示自己。我对她的第一印象非常好：一位谈吐文雅的魅力女性，我们见面之时，她温和地笑着。

她的客户有银行家、律师以及其他商界人士——所有在思考如何在工作中改善别人对自己看法的人。她说：“如何让你对自己的目标受众具有说服力？你能够建立起一个众所周知、始终如一、真实可信的个人品牌吗？”

我向她坦白，个人品牌从来就不是困扰我的事情。你知道，我是一个有几分混日子的人。莫布雷问：“那你是如何找到现在的工作的呢？”“嗯，噢，我想是运气，”我故作自谦地答道。

莫布雷并不认为这是人们找到更好工作的方式。在她的职业生涯中，曾在邓白氏集团(Dunn & Bradstreet)、TMP Worldwide、Quintessentially工作过，也曾在英国《金融时报》集团有过一段短暂的工作经历。她说：“一些拥有合适技能及经验的人在好工作出现时遭到了忽视。为什么？当他们不在场时，他们的品牌没有发挥足够的功效。”

她表示，我们的目标就是要成为一个“关键人物”。而这意味着要制造出一种能让你脱颖而出的、持久深刻的印象。行动是最为重要的。这是一个“秀而不说”的问题，并且要以一种有趣方式的“秀”。“就像西蒙•科威尔(Simon Cowell)在《美国偶像》(American Idol) 或The X Factor上对被其否决的选手说的，‘你只是不能被记住'。”

莫布雷说：“一个强大的个人品牌将会在下一个好机会到来时，让你变成恰当的人选。”

在我现在的雇主给我这份工作时，我身上一定有他喜欢的东西，但我意识到，现在我需要更多做一些。现在已经到了认真打造斯特恩品牌的时候。

莫布雷的咨询服务一般分三步。第一次是试探性会谈，目的是建立目标“市场”。然后客户要研究出这些不同的市场是怎么认识自己的。由此产生的信息将会在第二次面谈中讨论，可能还会研讨下面的步骤。第三次也是最后一次谈话（可能会在电话上进行）会做出分析，并且会确定是否需要进一步的行动。三次会议的一条龙服务花费1200英镑。

莫布雷使用“目标受众”词组，而非“人们”，这让人吃惊，但又显得很周全。她建议，对你接触的个人采用系统化步骤，将他们按照一些类别或者市场进行划分。由于了解你个人品牌状况的第一个步骤就是表演，你必须采取令人尴尬的步骤，即询问其中一些“目标受众”对你的看法。

斯特恩品牌的市场分成了以下几类：同事、被采访者、读者、媒体同行、熟人等等。发出的是一些寻求评价的无礼电邮；回来的是一些令人安心的不中肯答复。“你优秀、有趣、相貌堂堂、高大并且金发碧眼，”我以前的一位同事写道，明知至少最后三点是不对的。

现在的一个同事说，她很高兴的是，每次我告诉她我要去写关于自己的个人品牌时，我就开始大笑。她觉得，这只可能是件好事。另一个同事表示，我应该考虑为自己吸引更多的关注——“或许通过偶尔从事一些比较古怪、吸引眼球的任务”。

一个被采访者说，外部世界提供了更多的启发。我往往想把复杂的争论简化为二元论。并且，如果我开始失去兴趣，显然我会相当快速地切断电源。

几周后，我把所有的回复都反馈给了莫布雷。她表示，证据显示斯特恩品牌是值得信赖、受人尊敬的，但她疑惑，我的市场难道不想找一些更有内容的东西吗：“你正在削弱自己的个性吗？他们还想从你身上得到更多吗？”

莫布雷表示，在正规的投行世界中，这很普遍。随着职业人士年龄渐长，他们的风险厌恶程度就越来越高，而这时，他们需要设计一个强大的个人品牌。她坚称，这不是一个骗人的东西，而是值得信赖、引人注目的品牌。

通过将市场需求与你的供给之间的不匹配进行对比，你可以发现，哪种个人技能或者你个性中的哪方面需要发展。然后，莫布雷才能提供个人形象方面的建议——肢体语言、系什么领带等等，这是另外的一条龙服务的内容。她在奢侈品行业的背景意味着她很了解这个世界。但前提是你的个性必须对你有帮助。

那么现在我就要走出中立者的行列，开始加速个人品牌的建设吗？或许。至少我知道我必须做什么。

其他人可能会很确定，现在是为自己做一些紧急工作的恰当时机了。成功的企业会担心他们的品牌，所以为什么你不应该呢？正如莫布雷说的，有时候，“我们在问了之后才知道人们到底是怎么看待自己的”。

译者/董琴