In Building Visibility and Promoting Your Reputation (Article 41) I was exhorting the need to do a little self-promotion of your reputation and brand to make sure that you gain the visibility you need to maximise your progress towards your goal. Hopefully, you’ve already been doing some thinking about the actions you can take while also adjusting your mind to the need to take these actions.
Now you are under way with that, here are 21 more ideas for you to consider adding to your plans. All of them might work for you. Several of them I am sure will stretch your tolerance of what is acceptable to do. All of them need to be taken seriously and considered in your context. Whatever you do, do not dismiss any of them without at first finding out how each could work for you.
- Take your reputation on tour. Yes, do the rounds — fix meetings with all the prominent/powerful people. Communicate with them face-to-face what you do, how you add value and how you believe they can benefit from your work.
- Know your value. Before you can go on tour, make absolutely sure you know how you are adding value. Avoid vague statements. Focus on demonstrating verifiable facts. This helps on tour and also in elevators.
- Catalogue your achievements. You don’t need to (and probably shouldn’t have to) wave these in front of others but, behind the scenes, if you have a comprehensive list of every result you have achieved, this can be used on the spur of the moment when the opportunity is right.
- Get the numbers. For the above ideas, always strive to get data to back up what you have done (and make sure to convert the data into something that the people you are communicating with will readily grasp).
- Collect feedback. Perhaps you are the expert, but how does your (internal) client base perceive you? Maybe linked to going on tour, reach out to people to ask what they think and what ideas they might have for further improvement. While you’re there, you can also be subtly communicating the value you are already adding.
- Dress differently. If you want to stand out from the crowd and be noticed, or visible, look different from the crowd — just make sure it is consistent with your reputational aspirations.
- Apply stakeholder management principles. If you set your influencing goal as establishing your reputation within a given group, the stakeholder influence process is a brilliant approach to figuring out the key people you need to engage with and, also, coming up with a plan to do that.
- Create disturbance. Do you always have to agree with everything? If your reputation is based on your particular expertise/knowledge, introduce objections and challenges to the organisational debate.
- Contribute ideas. Because of your reputation, you must be helping others with their work. Your specialist knowledge or experience allows you to see things differently and you may well be able to help other people solve some of their problems.
- Position your contributions. When you create disturbance, challenge or offer ideas, make your statements from your reputational standpoint; “from a process simplification perspective, that is likely to cause major problems downstream because …” or “from an outsourcing point of view …”
- Volunteer. Be a positive and willing contributor. Yes, I know you’re busy. And more things need doing than there are people to do them, so there is always work lying around waiting to be done with nobody taking responsibility for it. Provided the work aligns, or at least is related, to your reputational goals, put your hand up for it.
- Just do it. Rather than volunteer, just do it. If there is something sitting, needing to be done you might be able to get it almost finished before someone else recognises that it might be their job. Decide if you wish to graciously hand it back later, after gaining the visibility.
- Attend team meetings. Most team meetings are boring. Attending other people’s team meetings can be a welcome relief for the manager and also their team. Offer to come and share ideas, let them know what you can do and see if you can make a constructive contribution to their thinking, these efforts will all have mutual benefits.
- Write about what you do. Everywhere you can (be mindful of media policies though). Certainly, tracking down internal communication platforms, newsletters, blogs, forums etc. can prove well worthwhile. The people that run these things are generally desperate for contributions.
- Avoid arrogance and swagger. Self-promotion should never be about excessive self-aggrandisement within organisations. People will see through this quickly. If you have worked well on building substance, belief and confidence, make sure it doesn’t tip over into arrogance.
- Present frequently. Whenever the opportunity offers itself, volunteer to present on your topic. Make sure you build the skills to do this well.
- Network actively with communications specialists. In most organisations there are many teams who might be in a great position to help your visibility. These include internal communications, media relations, PR, etc. They generally like to be able to offer their assistance to anyone who asks.
- Do deeper research. Keeping to your specialism, begin a research project which considers the deeper aspects of what you do, the impact it might have and the improvements which could be made. Each time you connect with senior people while doing this, it will reinforce your position.
- Share best practice. Don’t keep it all to yourself. In fact, find other people who have something else to share in your domain, or close to it, and offer to become a conduit for sharing these ideas.
- Link your work to others. Don’t be an island. Consider how your work fits with all other functions. Remember that benchmarking is about transferring great ideas from one industry to another — this approach may help you to make a greater contribution.
- Ask for help from seniors. If you are trying to add more value to your organisation, bear in mind that senior players have an automatic vested interest. Meeting with them to gain their input and support to grow your unique contribution provides a superb opportunity to also make a reputational impression.
I’m sure there are many more things you can do in large, complex organisations to raise the visibility of you, your reputation and the results you are getting. Sometimes the best ideas come from the ideas which jump from suggestions like those above, or by combining several into one new idea.
So, what exactly are you going to do to gain greater visibility for your reputation?
Consider Building a Powerful Reputation and get building now!
Colin Gautrey
Provocative Coach/Mentor | Specialism: Impact and Influence
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