Creating 'Me Inc'

Book review of Control the Narrative: The Executive's Guide to Building, Pivoting and Repairing Your Reputation

What do big brands do? Differentiate their value, carve a unique identity, and leverage it to gain traction. Individuals can do the same — in fact, each of us has a personal brand by default. Reputation assets relevant to our goals can be leveraged to influence perception and attract opportunities. It is on this premise that Lida Citroën builds her new book.

Should we bother about perceptions others may have of us? Many of us feel that what matters most is our belief in ourselves. Such people are only half-right, according to Ms Citroën. When we leave to chance how others will perceive us, we are actually giving away a lot of our own power and control. We also risk being misunderstood and considered irrelevant or generic, she says. This could limit opportunities and stand in the way of career advancement. On the contrary, building an intentional brand has a definite upside — it helps us drive the process of reputation development and gives us immense power to control the narrative that builds around us.

Adding strength to her arguments, Ms. Citroën quotes from a 1997 Fast Company article: “Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.” Place this in the 21st century context, and personal branding turns out to be as crucial as any other career attribute. Competition is unprecedented in all arenas and it comes from across the globe. Also, there is a whole new space for us to position and promote ourselves—the digital platform.

Control the Narrative presents us with a set of powerful tools that can help build a sustainable personal brand. The most important part of the brand-building journey is chalking out a solid reputation management strategy. But first, it is important to clearly understand the factors that influence reputation: Perception, judgement, beliefs, and trust. Ms Citroën analyses the finer aspects of each, and also how they work independently as well as together. For instance, she delves deep into neuroscience and explains how perception is coloured by past experiences, emotional filters, expectations, culture, bias, and so on.

Control the Narrative: The Executive's Guide to Building, Pivoting and Repairing Your Reputation

Author:  Lida Citroën

Publisher: Kogan Page

Pages: 256; Price: Rs 2,243

Personal branding, she writes, entails creating “a web of interlaced impressions that drive an intentional perception” with the target audience”. This does not mean that we create a “spin” in other people’s minds so that they perceive something inauthentic as real—personal branding as well as its strategy has to be rooted in trust and credibility, and must be led through values. These values—the ones we believe in—will typically remain the same throughout. But there are many variables prone to change during the journey — like the target audience, our vision of the ideal brand, and the tactics for building strategy. 

This is perhaps why it is important to keep the strategy “less fixed, more fluid” and “less linear, more circular”, unlike in a business plan or product strategy.

Once a personal brand is created, it becomes our value proposition. It is then imperative to make a strong commitment to ourselves to live up to the standards we have set—in other words, have a brand agreement. 

Ms Citroën picks an example from her life to show how brand can serve as a filter to stay consistent with one’s values. She turned down an opportunity despite the monetary gains it may have offered because it was “off brand”. It did not align with her values and the legacy she wanted to create. Personal anecdotes such as this as well as other real-life situations make the narrative extremely engaging.

As we can see, creating one’s own brand is not a linear, one-time event. It is a fluid, ongoing practice of assessment, refinement, and results — unfolding who we are and how we want to be known. There has to be constant monitoring and measuring of brand efficacy, and necessary shifts are to be made if anything seems off course. Further, any career or life move may demand navigating a shift in direction. What is needed in that case is a “reputation pivot” that entails carrying forward assets that are relevant and sifting out those that are not. Reputation repair is another area discussed at length and is set against the backdrop of today’s digital reality. It is this high degree of contemporary appeal that sets the book apart.

What comes to the fore throughout is the author’s expertise as an executive branding and reputation management specialist. She winds up with an interesting observation: “With all that technology provides, it hasn’t replaced human interaction, empathy or our desire to be connected to others who offer us value, experience and relationship. As humans, we are logic- and emotion-driven beings that seek to trust, support, and learn from the people we are attracted to. That’s why personal branding will never go away and why reputation is so critical.”