The Brand Called You

Recently, management gurus in the United States have been offering a new kind of advice: To be successful, today's managers must think of themselves as a one-person enterprise. Popular management author and consultant Tom Peters, in his controversial Fast Company article called “The Brand Called You,” advises managers and professionals to know themselves, understand their customers, develop unique and marketable competencies that help them stand out from the crowd, reinvent themselves if necessary, and then package and sell themselves. “To be in business today,” says Peters, “your most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”^[10]

The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.

—Lucille Harper

Seeing oneself as a unique, marketable, and portable commodity may be a reasonable survival strategy in an era where the psychological contract between individuals and organizations no longer promises the security of lifetime employment. Yet, seeing oneself as a product to be bought and sold comes with a price. It can leave one feeling alienated from one's self, estranged from others, and of questionable loyalty to one's current organization. And in cultures that are based on an ideology of collectivism and loyalty to one's group and organization—such as Asian and Latin cultures—promoting oneself can be a lonely, difficult, and ultimately unrewarding enterprise.

As every manager who seeks self-awareness and professional development sooner or later realizes, there are no shortcuts. There are many long and winding paths to personal and professional growth, and each comes with its own possibilities, limitations, and trade-offs. Self-development gurus, books, videos, audiotapes, and workshops are seductive because they all address our fundamental human needs to be good at what we do, to be respected for who we are, to feel as though we have some control over our environment, and to find meaning in our lives.

So What's a Well-Intentioned Manager to Do?

It's hard to imagine that our self-improvement efforts will be successful without considering what is this “self” that we want to improve (and brand, if we choose to do so). Most of us couldn't imagine trying to fix a car without understanding how it works, yet many of us routinely engage in self-development efforts without understanding how marvelously complex we are as human beings and how we got to be who we are. In the following sections, I define the self-concept, explore the many different ways that we develop our self-concept, and consider the kind of self-concept that is most likely to enhance our professional effectiveness and personal well-being in today's diverse, global, and technologically driven organizational environment.