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Newsletter | Spring 2011 • Volume 19 • Issue 1

This issue: Your Professional Image

Dear Readers:

A 10-second snapshot of your behavior, communication style, appearance, or a careless e-mail can brand your professional image for a long time. Not only can it stain your professional image but it can also reflect your character. It does not matter if it is a true reflection of who you are. It may not be fair, but that’s the way it is.

The issue’s guest columnist is Lyndy Nierman, Senior Consultant for the BPI Group. In these hard economic times it is common for the downsized to go into the consulting business. It takes a lot more than expertise to become a consultant and Lyndy explores the traits necessary for the transition. These are not only traits that must be projected as part of a consultant’s image, but also are excellent guidelines for any employee, regardless of the position.

Pat Smith-Pierce relates some excellent examples of how indiscreet e-mails can torpedo negotiations or career development and contribute to a judgment of one’s character.

Finally, with the proliferation of social networking sites, written language is taking on a whole new form. While this type of shorthand may be acceptable for chats between friends, informal habits can seep its way into the workplace with undesirable results.

Your professional image is very fragile. Be judicious on how you are perceived by others.

Sincerely,

Dennis Hamilton
Editor

Past Issues

Holiday 2010 Newsletter

Fall 2010 Newsletter

Summer 2010 Newsletter

Spring 2010 Newsletter

Holiday 2009 Newsletter

Fall 2009 Newsletter

Summer 2009 Newsletter

Spring 2009 Newsletter

December 2008 Announcement

If you'd like to request a previous newsletter, please contact us.

CONSULTING REALITY
“Not all big bucks and power lunches”

Lyndy Nierman
Senior Consultant
BPI Group

Because it’s currently one of the booming service industries, consulting is the target of many laid off executives’ hope and ambitions. But the path from corporate management to management consulting isn’t always a smooth one. It’s not all “power lunches and days on the golf course”.

Career-changers often think they can cruise out of corporate life with years of experience and launch a lucrative consulting business. Corporate credentials aren’t enough. This is a tough lonely lifestyle that rewards only the most talented and tenacious.

Aspiring consultants should measure themselves against the following “trait test” – developed from my 25 years of consulting experience.

• Integrity. Consulting may seem like a “here today, gone tomorrow” occupation, but your reputation is part of the baggage that you carry to each engagement. Anything less than absolute honesty is professional suicide!
• Salesmanship. Before you ever land a consulting engagement, you have to convince a prospective client that you are the best person for the role. Polished sales skills are a must.
• Diplomacy. Consultants often are seen by the client company’s executives as competitors. It is important to be direct and forthright. You are on their side. Making them look good is a sure way to win their support.
• Listening Skill. Every consulting engagement requires extensive information gathering. Rushing to a solution before you have truly identified the problem is a grave but common consultant’s failing.
• Flexibility. No two clients are exactly alike. Effective consultants shift readily between organizations, grasp knowledge quickly and are sensitive to each company’s culture.
• Strong diagnostic skill. The ability to size up a problem quickly and accurately is imperative. Clients often want immediate feedback.
• Self-discipline. Forget about putting in a forty-hour workweek. Beyond the nine-to-five responsibilities of an engagement, you’ll find yourself researching, reading, and marketing, just to keep up with your competition.
• Resourcefulness. No one is an expert at everything. A good consultant, however, has access to sources of expertise in a variety of industries and specialties. This requires constant networking and a “quid pro quo” attitude.
• Self confidence. If your intervention backfires, there is nowhere to hide. As a consultant, you are alone on stage and your ego had better be able to handle it.
• Creative time management. Consulting is a feast-or-famine industry. It is also travel-intensive and rarely provides a fixed income. One needs to know how to balance their work demands with family and personal needs. Those who succeed enjoy unparalleled flexibility and freedom.

If these traits read like a personal profile, chances are you’ll make an excellent consultant. All of these traits can be enhanced and improved with some coaching and a lot of practice. So, before you dive into this new venture, work on improving these traits.

Consulting offers professional diversity, unlimited career growth, clearly defined accomplishments and freedom from corporate life. But, but be sure you can handle the pressure before accepting the leading role.

LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS!

Patricia Smith-Pierce
CEO and Founder
The Insight Communication Group

As Lyndy Nierman points out in her article, there are a number of traits that can make or break a consultant (or any professional, for that matter). At the top of her list is integrity.

While you communicate your integrity by the way in which you perform your jobs, people often neglect an equally important aspect—what they say in writing. Especially when using e-mail, text messaging, Facebook and Twitter to talk to friends and colleagues, people forget that anyone can access what they say.

Once the message is in cyber-space, it can be retrieved by anyone who is good at working with technology.

To their chagrin, pilots for a major airline discovered that when they were negotiating for a new contract. They discussed strategy, opinions of the offers as well as of the key players and much more via e-mail and texting.

Unfortunately they were using company-supplied computers. The company was able to get into the back messages the pilots sent and so was able to head the pilots off before they could alert all members as to strategy and the use of a possible strike as a tool. In the end, the pilots had to settle for a contract far less than what they had before the negotiations began. Their representatives told them it was the use of e-mail, etc., to share messages that undercut them.

In another instance, a group of employees texted what they felt were witty comments about one of the partners with whom they worked. The group thought the partner was a “dweeb” and made fun of much of what he said and did. Imagine their surprise when none of them received promotions at the next review time. They discovered the partner had spoken against them, citing their integrity as a major issue. When it’s in print, anyone can read it!

Not only can anyone read what is said in print but everyone knows someone who forwards most messages they receive via social media to anyone they think might be interested. What one person may think is simply interesting, another person may find damaging or a tool to cause trouble. You never know who will read the messages you put in print.

As Lyndy says, “your reputation is part of the baggage you carry to each engagement.” Watch how you communicate in print. Be sure that your reputation is the best it can be.

“CYBER-SLANG” AND THE WORKPLACE

Dennis Hamilton
Consultant
The Insight Communication Group

Your professional image is a major factor in your career progression, and is at least as important (in some cases maybe even more important) as your skills. This can be established within minutes or even seconds and can remain with you for years, either fairly or unfairly. A 10-second snapshot of behavior or traits can label you forever.

Take the example of informal communication. These days we have a multitude of social networking sites, chat rooms, blogs, and whatnot, and these have spawned a new language that, for right now, we’ll call “cyber-slang.” There are all kinds of abbreviations used, either to be cute or save space.

• “The ppl at ur party were 2 L8.”
  
  
• “OMG, u r so ng at b-ball! LOL.”

Read any blog on the web and you will see enough misspellings (not just typos), lack of punctuation, and faulty grammar to make you yearn for your old high school English teacher.

While this shorthand may be okay for texting your buddies, one must be careful about making this form of communication a habit, and having that habit spill over into the workplace.

Picture sending an e-mail to a vice president attaching an important report, and using cyber-slang in the text. A lazy professional image is now formed, and may stick to you like gum on your shoe on a hot day. You could have effectively installed a ceiling over your career and severely limited any progression.

People react the way they are trained, so if they are trained well and form good habits, they will probably react well. If bad habits are learned and practiced, it will take a long time to un-learn them and re-learn good habits.

Take the case of an individual that Pat Smith-Pierce was called in to help with his communication problems. The person was being considered for partnership in a large firm, but the executives were uncomfortable with his communication style. The individual refused Pat’s assistance, saying his skills were enough and he didn’t need (or want) any help. He not only did not make partner, but later he was fired, largely because his communication undermined his efforts with clients.

So, learn and practice good communication habits, both verbal and written, and get training to change poor ones. Go ahead and use cyber-slang with your friends but from 9:00AM-5:00PM, keep it professional. Your image and career may depend on it.

NEWS ABOUT THE INSIGHT COMMUNICATION GROUP

Pat speaking to the group at Session One of the ASCEND SIgnature Series for Professionals - Enhancing a Professional Image

The Insight Communication Group has added a new offering: Enhancing Executive Presence. This multi-faceted, individually designed program focuses on a number of areas important to executives including Building Professional Relationships, Executive Communication and Presence, and Nonverbal Communication. See our website for more information or contact our office.

Pat Smith-Pierce will present the second in the ASCEND Signature Series for Professionals. This session, for Asian professionals, will highlight The Art of Breaking Bad News. For further information, contact either Kevin Yu (kevinyu@yunistone.com) or Peng Li (pengli@deloitte.com).

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