Page 94 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

I was chatting with Stoneseed’s marketing manager this week and she was so passionate about our
brand image, message and values. Rightly so, thinking about it, there is a direct correlation between
Stoneseed’s ever-increasing success and the brand, we agreed and made a commitment to deliver
consistently.

If the world’s most successful firms have a brand, shouldn’t you? Again, the answer is ‘yes’ by the
way.

So, what is a Personal Professional Brand? And why consistency is King.

As I said at the start. You have a brand already, either by default or by design.

The difference is this:

The default type of personal professional brand is driven by your actions as perceived by your
clients. You have little or no conscious control;

A personal professional brand created by design is driven by consistent delivery of high standards
that you set yourself in advance. You are in control.

For instance, as a PM, you may be, on the whole, effective in your delivery. Projects are sometimes
late but you’re quite chilled out about that – never sweating the small stuff. Your projects are usually
within budget too and you are cheaper than many of your peers. This repeated behaviour is how
clients, stakeholders, colleagues, etc will come to think of you. When a non-urgent project with
limited business impact comes up – you’re their first choice! Doesn’t sound that exciting though,
does it?

On the other hand, you may have decided that you will be much more driven! You may have chosen
to deliver only the most impactful, business case aligned, strategic projects. You will care about
delivery timelines, budgets and effective deployment of resources. You may have decided to be
resourceful in adversity, to have a Project Management as a Service partner on hand so that you’ll
always have a solution. You may read extensively and take courses to improve your delivery skills.
You may be cheerful in both your outlook and your appearance! You can see how someone like this
would attract the sexier, more game changing, market disrupting IT projects to manage.

You can also see the difference between a personal professional brand that is created by default and
by design.

What’s interesting about the two ‘fictional’ project managers mentioned above is that they are, in
reality, actually based on two PMs I know.

Both set out, at the start of their careers, to set the world alight.

Both ‘designed’ their project manager selves to espouse that second list of characteristics. One of
them got comfortable, not lazy, but settled. The other never stopped reaching for the stars! So, here
they are, years later with very different reputations, very different CVs and very different market
values.

Consistency!