Management Leverage Blog

By its very nature, you shouldn’t have to look too hard to find an example of an employee with a robust personal brand. Let me introduce you to Dan Schawbel, a 23-year-old marketing specialist at EMC².

Poke around on his blog and figure out why Fast Company magazine calls him a ‘personal branding force of nature’. Like all examples, not all of what he does will fit your personality or situation (it doesn’t fit mine), but that doesn’t mean you should write him off completely. Study him and learn. What aspects of Dan’s strategy can you adopt into your own career? Tweak them to fit your own brand.

Where do you think Dan’s career will be when he is 33? I’ve been on this planet almost twice as long as Dan, and I am humbled.

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I taught two executive MBA classes this summer. One at SMU and the other at an amazing university called Universidad Francisco Marroquin in

Guatemala. The hard-work-fallacy seemed to frustrate the execs in

Dallas. They didn’t deny it, but habitually ignored it in their own careers. The Guatemalans, on the other hand, did not embrace it, but accepted it and worked within its confines. Every class has its own personality, and this difference between these two classes was startling.

If the world were truly just, a gifted writer would land a lucrative publishing contract. A talented actor, with the gift of moving us to tears or laughter, would be a shoe-in for the red carpet. A mind-blowing rock band in

Austin, TX would be an MTV staple (if MTV still showed videos).

And a hard-working, productive employee would be promotable.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

We know that hard work and talent don’t guaranty prominence in Hollywood, on Broadway, on iTunes… or in

Washington, DC. So why do we fall prey to the hard work fallacy where we work? Why do we think that if we just keep our head down, keep plugging away, one day we’ll get the recognition we deserve?

Is hard work, productivity, efficiency (etc.) necessary for career success? I sure hope so. But these qualities will only get you so far. Eventually, its not who you know, but who knows you, not what you know, but who knows that you know it, and, of course, who likes you. Only then are you promotable.

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Nope. But it will get you a job.

Cameron Martel has an interesting post today about the purpose of higher education. Like Cameron, the idealist in me would like to encourage you to get an education for your own personal growth, But realistically, yes, a business education will get you a job.

But it won’t get you promoted. People are usually hired for their technical skills–accounting, finance, marketing–the things you learn in business school. But promotions (at least eventually) depend on soft skills such as getting things done through others, strategic (and ethical) influence (aka office politics), and conflict management.

My advice is to stay current in your technical skills. But load up on training in soft skills.  Career frustration abounds when you follow the oh-so-logical path of getting better at you were hired to do in the first place. 

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