平台严格禁止发布违法/不实/欺诈等垃圾信息，一经发现将永久封禁帐号，针对违法信息将保留相关证据配合公安机关调查！
2010-5-30 13:53
Ten years ago Tom Peters wrote an article entitled “The Brand Called You” in the then-hip magazine, Fast Company. I read the piece at the time and thought it one of the ghastliest, most irritating articles on management ever written.Peters' idea was that people are brands – just as corporations and goods are. Each of us is chief executive of Me, Inc and it is our job to manage our brand actively. The article ended on a hysterical, threatening note: “You are in charge of your brand. Start today. Or Else.”
Yuk, I thought. We are not cans of baked beans. We are complicated human beings and therefore not suited to crass branding activity. So I didn't start that day to create the Brand Called Me. Nor on any of the 3,500 days that followed. However, a lot of other people did: in the past decade personal branding has become a big thing. I still think it's ghastly, but now, belatedly, I have decided that I am a can of baked beans after all. There are some differences in terms of size (I'm bigger) and colour (I'm less orange) and uniformity (my quality is more mixed). But like beans, humans can be branded. We each have a name, an image, a reputation and something to sell. Which means it is sensible to think about how these things could be managed better. This realisation has come slowly through the steady drip, drip of proof. Every day I am exposed to the marketing activity of Brand Someone Else. A man I've never met has just sent me an e-mail saying “Lucy, watch me on Bloomberg TV today!” Readers endlessly direct me to their personal websites. Even quite normal people boost their brands by routinely forwarding any complimentary e-mails to their bosses. I used to think this sort of thing was not only naff but unnecessary: that talent would always out in the end. This is fantasy. Talent might out, but only after a lot of huffing and puffing. I look at what is happening to some of my friends – clever, hard-working people of a certain age – who are stubbornly refusing to unleash Brand Them. They do no self-promotion at all, and are finding that, like cold, congealed baked beans, they are being left at the edge of the plate as a prelude to being put in the bin. With a rather more open mind I re-read Peters' article last week and found most of it perfectly reasonable. Branding, he says, is about three things: “To grow yourself, to promote yourself and to get the market to reward yourself.” It is hard to argue with that. The trouble is that I have some hang-ups that are getting between me and Brand Me. The first is a linguistic hang-up over the idea of me growing myself: I might be a can of beans but am not a tomato. My hang-up over promoting myself is more profound. Tom Peters is an American, which means self-promotion for him is as easy as breathing. But I am an Englishwoman born in 1959, brought up to think that self-promotion boils down to boasting and there are at least four things wrong with that. 1. It is bad manners, as it makes the person who hasn't done so well feel bad. 2. It is pushy and therefore vulgar. 3. To boast is to let your achievements get out of proportion. We should never forget that we are small cogs in a big machine. 4. Boasting clashes with the public-school English idea that everything is effortless. Any success must be taken in one's stride. Some of this baggage is irrational and outdated, but it weighs heavy on the psyche nevertheless. Still more profound is the hang-up over money. Peters says we must get the market to reward us, which can be hard to achieve when you were taught that to ask for more money was greedy and undignified. I remember one occasion when I plucked up courage to ask for a rise but then felt such a rush of self-loathing I retracted the demand. I have no idea if I would have got more, though I expect I would have. In this area, those who ask, get. I realise all this sounds ridiculous as I have a named column with picture, which implies some pretty determined behind-the-scenes promotional activity. Yet fortunately, the newspaper undertakes much of this on my behalf, leaving my own brand-building efforts amateurish and patchy. Recently I had to compose a paragraph about myself saying why I deserved to win a prize. “Lucy Kellaway's hilarious Monday columns . . . ”, I began, deleted it and started again. “Lucy Kellaway is one of the most. . . ”, I paused, lost for appropriate adjectives. And so it went. It was most painful. To make it clear: my aversion has nothing to do with being nice or modest. It doesn't mean that I'm not vain or grasping. My ego is quite large and ugly. All this means is that I can't do certain things without bending myself out of shape. I realise that there are any number of career coaches who (at a price) can teach one how to boast, and loads of therapists to help on the hang-ups. But I have a better idea: to outsource it altogether to a branding agent. My agent would handle all discussions about money. They would be responsible for saying nice things about me so I didn't have to say them myself. They would advise on brand building. They would manage my web presence, designing a website and undertaking my self-googling activity. They would have their ear to the ground for job moves and do tiresome networking on my behalf. This is what it boils down to. Ten years on, I am ready to take office as chief executive of Brand Me. Task number one: recruit a brand manager. 十年前，汤姆•彼得斯(Tom Peters)在当时的热门杂志《快速企业》(Fast Company)上发表了一篇文章，题为《你就是品牌》(The Brand Called You)。我当时阅读了这篇文章，并认为这是管理类文章中最可怕、最令人愤怒的文章之一。彼得斯的观点是，人即是品牌，就像企业和产品一样。我们每个人都是自己的首席执行官，积极管理自己的品牌是我们的工作。文章以一种具有威胁意味的歇斯底里式口吻结束：“现在由你来管理自己的品牌。就从今天开始，否则……”
我认为这很可笑。我们并非罐装烤豆子，我们是复杂的人类，因此不适合被愚蠢地打上标记。因此，我没有从那天开始打造“自己的品牌”，在之后的3500天里也没有。然而，许多人这样做了：在过去的10年里，打造个人品牌已经成了一件大事。 我依然认为这很可怕，但现在（尽管有些晚）我已经确定，我终究还是一罐烤豆子。两者之间有一些区别，我在体积上更大一些、橙色没有那么深，而且我的质量没有那么均匀。但是，就像豆子一样，人类是可以被打上品牌的。我们每个人都有名字、形象、声誉，以及一些卖点。这意味着，思考如何更好地管理这些东西是很明智的。 随着证据一点点显现，我才慢慢认识到这一点。每天我都会面对别人宣传自己品牌的活动。一个从未谋面的人给我发了一封电子邮件，说：“露西，我今天要上彭博社(Bloomberg)电视台啦，记着看电视！”读者不停地把我引向他们的个人网站。即便是非常普通的人，也会例行公事地向其老板转发言辞恭维的电子邮件，以提升自己的品牌。 我曾经认为，这种东西不仅蹩脚，而且毫无必要：人才终究会被人发现。这是白日梦。人才或许会被人发现，但必须经过许多吹嘘和宣传。 我研究了在我的一些朋友身上发生的事情，他们都是各自年龄段中既聪明又勤奋的人，并且固执地拒绝放手打造自己的品牌，根本不进行自我宣传。他们现在发现，自己就像冰冷的烤豆子一样，被留在盘子的边缘，然后就会被丢进垃圾桶。 最近，我以一种更加宽广的胸怀重读了彼得斯的文章，发现其中大部分内容都非常合理。彼得斯称，打造品牌有三项内容：“发展自己、推销自己，让市场奖励自己。” 很难反驳这种观点。问题是，有一些障碍让我无法推销自己。首先，是有关自我发展这种想法的语言障碍：我或许是一罐豆子，但我不是一个西红柿。 我在推销自己方面的障碍更为严重。汤姆•彼得斯是个美国人，这意味着，自我推销对他而言就像呼吸一样简单。但我是个出生于1959年的英国女人，我受过的教育使我认为，自我推销归根结底就是自夸，而且这么做至少有四个错误。
然而，更严重的障碍与钱有关。彼得斯称，我们必须让市场奖励我们，但当你受到的教育告诉你，要更多的钱意味着贪婪和有损尊严，这就很难做到了。 我记得这样一个场合，当我鼓起勇气想提出加薪要求时，却突然感到一阵强烈的自我厌恶，于是便撤回了要求。我不知道我是否应该拿更多薪水，尽管我是那样期望的。在这个行业中，谁提出要求，谁就能加薪。 我意识到，这些听起来都很荒谬，因为我有一个带照片的指定专栏，这暗示着幕后必定隐藏着某种推销活动。但不幸的是，这份报纸替我代劳了大部分这方面的工作，使我打造个人品牌的手段既业余，又不完整。最近，我不得不写一篇关于自己的文章，说明为什么我理应获得一个奖项。“露西•凯拉韦欢快的周一专栏……”，我开始这样写道，然后又删掉重写。“露西•凯拉韦是最……”，我停住了，想不出合适的形容词。我就这样反复地写，这简直痛苦极了。 说白了：我的厌恶情绪，与保持正派或谦虚没有任何关系。这并不意味着我不虚荣、不贪婪。我的自负严重到了丑陋的地步。这一切意味着，如果我不昧着良心，就无法做这些事情。 我明白，有许多职业咨询专家可以教会你如何自夸（当然你要付钱），还有许多临床医学家能够帮助你克服心理障碍。但是，我有个更好的主意：把这项工作外包给一个品牌宣传代理人。 我的代理人将处理所有与钱有关的讨论。它们将负责说我的好话，这样我自己就不必说出口。它们将提供打造品牌方面的建议。它们会管理我在网络上的形象，设计一个网站，并承担我的自我搜索活动。它们会努力寻找换工作的机会，并为我打理烦人的交际事务。 这便是彼得斯结论。十年过去了，现在我准备好了担任自己品牌的首席执行官。第一个任务是：聘用一个品牌经理人。 译者/ 何黎 《FT商学院》 |