The product management talent dilemma 12-06

Product management is one of the most critical talent pools for any company that is writing software but often does not get the right level of attention. Having a world-class product management function requires a multipronged approach under a holistic talent-management program. We recommend that this be a joint priority of the chief HR officer and the head of product. 
 Despite product managers’ central roles in software organizations, they are often neglected from a talent-management perspective. Four levers can address this industry-wide challenge.

Product management remains one of the most critical roles for any company for which software is a core growth driver. Amid the growing importance of data in decision making, an increased customer and design focus, and the evolution of software-development methodologies, the role of the product manager has evolved to influence every aspect of making a product successful. As a result, CEOs and technology leaders often identify the role of product manager as one of their top talent priorities. Paradoxically, results from the McKinsey Product Management Index reveal that companies are underinvesting in this crucial talent pool.

The McKinsey Product Management Index is a survey of product managers at leading software companies to understand the capabilities and enablers that create top-performing product managers (Exhibit 1). This research surfaced systemic gaps around software-talent management; in fact, fewer than half of the product managers feel prepared to play the roles expected of them or grow into future product leaders.

Exhibit 1

Product managers spend time across a range of critical areas and influence every part of the product

The McKinsey Product Management Index highlights the wide range of activities that demand the attention of product managers. The days and weeks of an average product manager are fragmented, which requires they be good at wearing multiple hats and prioritizing ruthlessly (Exhibit 2).

Modern product managers are involved in a wide range of decisions. For example, nearly 80 percent of product managers actively participate in design activities, over 80 percent are involved in go-to-market decisions, and nearly half are involved in pricing decisions. Additionally, 60 percent of product managers have basic analytics skills that enable them to dive into metrics and draw insights without relying on analysts.

Talent management is a pervasive gap

Despite the central role that a product manager plays, the talent-management practices associated with this function are surprisingly underdeveloped. This gap is evident across the industry—at large software companies in Silicon Valley, early-stage tech companies, and incumbents in other industries that are becoming more software oriented.

As an example, only 35 percent of the product managers have clarity on what it would take to advance in their organizations, roughly the same number feel sufficiently coached and mentored and around 20 percent say that their companies have highly effective programs to identify and retain the best talent.

We observe several underlying drivers for this gap in talent development. First, there are limited roles that involve managing people and teams in the product organization, and unlike in engineering, companies have not consistently defined an expert track for product managers. This can prevent product managers from growing or feeling that their careers are progressing unless they are managing more people.

Additionally, the leadership development model for product management—that is, the behaviors and mind-sets that product managers are expected to display at various levels—is often poorly articulated. As a result, the only way to measure product managers is on the success of their product. Product managers tell us that they believe career progression at their companies is a matter of being in the right place at the right time to become part of a hit product rather than of doing the right things.

What is more, product management primarily requires learning on the job, but few software companies have put in place mechanisms to support this learning. Product managers often start in other functions, such as engineering, design, or marketing, and bring a specific set of skills from their previous roles. But this transitioning talent needs support to wear the multiple hats required of product managers.

Compounding the issue is the fact that product managers make up a small talent pool at most companies and hence often end up lower on the agenda of HR leaders.

Several elements can help companies build a world-class product management talent program

There are four key levers to pull to build a world-class program for product management talent.

First, articulate the product management leadership development model for the organization. This should include a concrete, actionable description of what the organization wants and expects from its product managers. It should reflect the organization’s strategy and priorities and is not the same as the conventional list of competencies used to assess employees. For example, competency models are often expressed as innate traits, qualities, or values that product managers should have, such as “is decisive,” whereas a leadership model is expressed as concrete descriptions of desired behaviors, such as “acts to reach timely closure on decisions.” The leadership model should also articulate what it looks like to make different transitions in the organization. For example, how do the behaviors and mind-sets differ for an established, principal product manager from one who is transitioning to a director of product.

Second, provide the product managers with organizational enablers for ongoing growth and apprenticeship. There are many ways to do this, including rotational programs, regular cadence of product reviews (with focus on coaching and knowledge sharing rather than inspection), walking in the shoes of other functions (taking support calls or doing customer demonstrations, for example), conducting skip-level one-on-one sessions, providing formal mentorship programs, giving regular growth-based feedback, and so on. 

Third, leverage a field-and-forum approach to design an end-to-end learning journey. There are several principles and approaches for learning programs that we have discovered through our work with technology companies. The first is that product managers, like most adults, learn best by doing rather than by watching videos or sitting in classrooms. Additionally, product managers learn most effectively through activities that are grounded in their day-to-day context rather than through generic product management trainings. For example, we have run a product management academy program in which product managers take on ambitious projects and are coached through them on a weekly basis (Exhibit 3). It is important to note that these learning programs must be tailored to the different transitions that are critical for the individual organization. Additionally, it is important to put hard metrics on the “soft stuff” by tracking key performance indicators for these programs that measure both participation and subsequent effectiveness.

 Third, leverage a field-and-forum approach to design an end-to-end learning journey. There are several principles and approaches for learning programs that we have discovered through our work with technology companies. The first is that product managers, like most adults, learn best by doing

rather than by watching videos or sitting in classrooms. Additionally, product managers learn most effectively through activities that are grounded in their day-to-day context rather than through generic product management trainings. For example, we have run a product management academy program in which product managers take on ambitious projects and are coached through them on a weekly basis (Exhibit 3). It is important to note that these learning programs must be tailored to the different transitions that are critical for the individual organization. Additionally, it is important to put hard metrics on the “soft stuff” by tracking key performance indicators for these programs that measure both participation and subsequent effectiveness. 

Last, hiring should be a strategic priority for senior leadership. At best-in-class software companies, senior product managers often report spending 3 to 5 percent of their time (equivalent to a half day to a full day per month) on recruiting. Doing recruiting well includes getting three elements right:

1. identifying and articulating the organizations’ unique value proposition for product managers
2. leveraging diverse sourcing channels (using online communities like Hacker News, sponsoring meet-ups, identifying internal talent in other functions that are likely to produce product managers, and making “acqui-hires,” for example)
3. a recruiting process that is efficient, removes unconscious biases
   , and tests real-life skills (through cases, actual presentations on product ideas, analyses using real product data, interactions across functions to test the ability to work with engineering and design, for example)  
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How to Understand and Measure User Experience 04-11

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User experience is the foundation on which customer journeys are built and, fundamentally, a huge factor in how customers perceive, understand and trust your company.

Endless (electronic) ink has been spilled on different UX designs, challenges, opportunities, opinions, and methods. There is no one perfect approach. People are emotional creatures, and part of their reaction to your online presence will depend purely on aesthetics. Good user experience fits both the emotional and the transactional needs of your users. In this ocean of choices, therefore, the real question becomes: How do companies measure or quantify the success of their user experience?

What Exactly Is Good User Experience?

There are many different approaches to user experience (UX). Some companies, like Apple, create a “walled garden” or immersive approach, tightly controlling the user experience and forcing people to follow a specific set of tasks, without room for flexibility. Others, like Amazon, use a reactive approach, offering different responses and unique calls to action based on a customer’s behavior. There is no ‘correct’ UX and a company’s UX should be tied directly to their business model, their customer expectations, and their long-term strategy.


The ideal user experience occurs when people are able to do exactly what they want when interacting with your company. You fulfill their needs in a way that meets and even exceeds their expectations. Fundamentally, when customers’ expectations are exceeded, they experience a positive emotion, and providing consistent positive interactions with your company is the highest goal of UX design.

Why Quantify User Experience?

Measuring or quantifying UX is necessary for a variety of reasons:

• It allows you to generate a baseline cohesive strategy for customer interactions.
• It helps establish a foundation for any new initiatives or customer-facing products you produce.
• It lets you benchmark yourself against other companies.
• Hard numbers make UX initiatives easier to communicate and integrate into an organization.

UX is the foundation on which customer journeys are built and, fundamentally, a huge factor in how customers perceive, understand and trust your company. If customers try to achieve something on one of your digital channels and fail, it will lower their opinion of your company and eventually deplete your profitability.

Subjectivity vs. Objectivity in Measuring UX:

The inherent challenge of UX is that it’s almost entirely subjective. As a result, many companies make the mistake of believing that user experience as a whole cannot be measured.

If a company assumes that UX is not quantifiable, then anytime it adds a new digital function, the outcome will be wildly dependent on the unique tastes and preferences of the creative team that designed it. Moreover, in the absence of benchmark information, any mistakes will be difficult to identify.

How to Quantify

UX will never be fully quantifiable. There is always subjectivity when dealing with the opinions of individuals. Furthermore, consumer tastes and general design trends change along larger social patterns and are not always easy to predict. User experience, however, is not totally design-oriented.
If a customer wants to provide payment information but finds no easy option for that action, this is bad UX design. If a customer has a question and there is no FAQ page, this is bad UX design. If a customer’s data is intercepted or otherwise insecure within your system, this is a VERY bad UX experience. UX builds on itself, from back-end fundamental elements to front-facing consumer visuals and this clear construction creates the potential for objectivity.

Simplify the Issues – Make them Granular

The failures listed above are simple yes-or-no switches. If there is no FAQ page, then you are not providing best-practice UX. This is a no. If you do have an FAQ page, this is a yes. If your customers can pay easily, this is a success. If they cannot, it is a failure. You can break down the payment process even further: do customers have to enter information twice? Is the form too long to fit on a mobile screen? By breaking down each touchpoint into a series of binary questions, you can assemble the structure for a meaningful analysis.

What Questions Do You Ask?

The hardest tactical challenge is defining the right set of questions. Centric Digital uses a set of precisely relevant questions when generating the benchmark for your business. We’ve developed a taxonomy of over 2,000 individual best-practice questions that are based on understanding a company’s outward-facing and internal digital user experience. These questions can be used to compare your company to its own previous states, to other companies in your industry and to trends across several industries. Here are just a few of our topic areas to give you an overview of how we construct our hierarchy of questions regarding a typical business website:

We begin with basic mechanics: Is your site easily accessible on mobile?

While you’ve probably achieved the standard of making your site compatible with the main online browsers, today’s crucial user experience challenge pertains to mobile access. Google’s “Mobile First” approach means that the search giant is switching its approach this year. It now crawls your site as a mobile user, rather than a desktop user. If it notices aspects of your site that aren’t effective in mobile (for example, links that don’t work or slow-loading pages), Google will downrank you in its search results. You can look at Google as an external force making quantified judgments about your UX, and evaluate your site along the same metrics.

This change in search ranking was driven by customer trends: Mobile users outnumbered desktop users back in 2014, and the mobile trend has only grown since then. Unfortunately, user experience hasn’t kept pace with this trend, and 45 to 47 percent of mobile users report disliking their experience with websites and apps. This percentage will undoubtedly improve as more websites catch up to the mobile online universe, but it proves that, for the moment, you can get out in front of the pack if you provide a pleasing experience.

Does your code avoid deprecated callouts or functions? Is your HTML optimized?

Although your site will be visited by growing numbers of mobile users, that doesn’t mean you can neglect to update your computer-based experience. Especially in the more developed nations, people expect omnichannel access to the digital marketplace. Even in the fourth quarter of 2016, conversion rates were higher on traditional websites than on mobile sites or apps. These statistics indicate that users may do some browsing on the phone that’s always in their hand, but they often switch to a computer to make the actual purchase.

Once you have evaluated these basic utilities, the hierarchy of questions moves to slightly higher levels: Are your site visitors using search effectively? Do they use the back arrow frequently? Excessive searching and backtracking without conversions are a good numerical indicator that there’s a UX problem with your website.

Does your company use Twitter for customer service?

Social media has become an important element in user experience, especially the use of Twitter as an alternative customer assistance channel. Twitter recently introduced special tools specifically for streamlining its customer support function because so many companies are using it for that purpose.

What does your customer journey look like?

The types of questions become more challenging to answer when you move into higher levels of evaluation because you’re discussing more of the subjective human response. As subjectivity increases, quantification is still possible, but it’s a bit less straightforward. At this level, understanding your customer is key. Your customers may be drawn from a different demographic than those of your competitors, so your user experience may need to be correspondingly different. Your granular and binary user metrics are drawn from a more holistic approach, one in which you map out your customer journeys to give a clear understanding of how, when and why a customer would need to interact with your company – both in the digital and real-world realms – and identifying points of potential success and failure.

Every Channel Should Provide Equally Easy Access

A unified customer service experience provides streamlined access across every channel. Do your customers have quick access to the answers they need? A thorough FAQ page on a website can serve this purpose, while a question menu may be more useful for a customer support line. Is the wording on your FAQ page similar to the wording your customer service representatives use? Consistency is part of your branding, and your company voice should be evident at every touchpoint.

Surveying Customer Responses

With a strong idea of your customer persona, deconstructing user experience becomes much easier and more effective. You are entering the realm of intuition, but intuitive navigation is a real thing and you know it when you experience it. To measure the emotional impact of your user experience, Centric structures questions regarding your customer touchpoints, evaluating interactions across all media. It’s also important to have a large enough sample of questions – having only 50 measures is not as helpful as having 200.

Emotions Are Measurable

As you move into evaluating the subtle levels of user experience and explore the question of whether your customers find your website appealing, you can also seek responses directly from users. Surveys, user testing and focus groups all have a place in evaluating the subjective experiences of users, and it’s possible to gauge responses on numerical scales.

Updating Must Become Routine

Your online presence is never static, and your digital strategy will never be “finished.” Robust testing and continuous development are ongoing processes; you must review, update and snapshot your questions repeatedly in order to maintain value. When building your digital strategy, regularly assess not only your user experience but also your UX measurements – standards and tastes change, and your company must remain agile to stay at the leading digital edge. 


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Squeezing more ideas from product teardowns 01-22

Some companies are using product teardowns to dismantle silo culture in product development.

Engineers and purchasers love product teardowns—the practice of dismantling products into parts as a way to spark fresh thinking. Few manufacturers, however, elevate the practice above Skunk Works status, and many executives pigeonhole it as a tactical exercise in cost cutting. Some companies, however, are throwing open the doors of their Skunk Works labs and using teardowns as opportunities to increase cross-functional collaboration. Along the way, they are saving more money, capitalizing better on customer insights, and improving the revenue potential of their products.


Technophiles of all stripes love product teardowns—the timehonored practice of dismantling products to their constituent parts to spark fresh thinking. Yet few manufacturers get the full value teardowns afford. Many senior executives marginalize the practice, viewing teardowns as Skunk Works exercises for engineers  or cost-cutting tactics on the part of the purchasing department. Such views retard creativity and ensure that the ideas generated  in teardowns go unexplored, moldering in functional silos.

But some companies go further. This interactive explores marginimprovement opportunities from teardowns that we’ve identified in our research and examines how companies are rethinking  their approaches to teardowns to save more money, break down the silo mentality, and even improve the revenue potential of  their products.

Industrial: Redesign for lower costs A manufacturer of materialshandling equipment was developing a new forklift truck with the goal of minimizing  both its own manufacturing costs and the customers’ cost of operating the product. Recognizing that the vehicle’s weight was the key design factor (a lighter vehicle would require less fuel to run  and would have lower materials costs) the company’s R&D engineers conducted systematic teardowns of competitor’s products to study new design possibilities.

Meanwhile, executives brought in marketers, who learned that customers would indeed value the  lower cost of ownership—and reduced CO2 emissions—brought about by the new design, but they would be unwilling to pay a premium for them. This knowledge spurred the company’s engineers and purchasers to work together to reduce the weight of the new forklift truck by 7% (200 kg), while ultimately lowering manufactur- ing costs by 12% through a combination of design changes, sourcing from low-cost countries, “clean-sheet” costing, and other traditional approaches.

The resulting vehicle con- sumed 4% less fuel than  its predecessor and emitted eight tons less CO2 over  its lifespan—making it more appealing to customers.

Front-tire diameter reduced, and front axle moved closer to payload allowing for lighter counterweight in rear of vehicle

Engine, gearbox moved closer to rear of vehicle, shifting center of gravity rearward to support new counterweight Counterweight reduced, repositioned to support vehicle’s new center of gravity
Front-tire diameter reduced, and front axle moved closer to payload allowing for lighter counterweight in rear of vehicle

Changes in fan design  from blower fan to box fan: 35% cheaper

Elimination of metal base-plate on product’s  cart: 4% reduction in cost of cart

Integrated plug and fuse assembly: 12% cheaper; faster to assemble

Fewer printed circuit  boards (PCB): 14% reduction  in PCB cost

Self-tapping screws  versus threaded inserts:  50% cheaper

High tech: Break down silos A medical-products company planned a series of teardowns to improve the design of its therapeutic medical device. To generate new ideas, executives invited colleagues from purchasing, marketing, engineering, and sales to see how their product stacked up against four rival ones.

Seeing the products together was an “Aha!” moment for the purchasers, who quickly identified a series of straightforward design changes that, while invisible to customers, would significantly
lower the cost of manufacturing the device. Meanwhile, seeing the configurations of competitors’ circuit boards spurred the team’s salespeople, marketers, and engineers to discuss the manufacturing implications of the company’s modular approach to design. The engineers had long assumed that being able to mix and match various features after final assembly was advantageous and had emphasized this capability in the product’s design. Yet the salespeople reported that most customers hardly ever ordered more than a handful of modules at purchase and rarely ordered more after assembly.

The conversations ultimately led to simplifications in the product’s circuitry that lowered purchasing costs  by 23% and helped marketers identify a new customer segment where the product might command a higher price.

Consumer goods: Reduce packaging costs The use of product teardowns extends to a product’s packaging too. However few companies examine the cost of trade-offs implicit in their packaging decisions, much less look to their competitors for ideas. Such decisions tend to be the domain of
marketers, given the importance of packaging in communicating a company’s brand to consumers. Yet we have seen organizations reap considerable savings. One consumer goods maker we know reduced its packaging costs for a key product by 10% by making straightforward design changes that allowed it to use less plastic in manufacturing the product’s bottle.

In this example, based on McKinsey research into packaging and manufacturing costs in the European fast-moving-consumergoods industry, we highlight selected cost trade-offs associated with shampoo.

S h a m p o o
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Recycled materials. White or clear-colored

                

Interactive
           

Squeezing more ideas from product teardowns

Some companies are using product teardowns to dismantle silo culture in product development.

In this interactive, we explore margin-improvement opportunities from teardowns that we’ve identified in the consumer goods industry and highlight how companies in the high-tech and construction-equipment industries are using this venerable tool in new ways.

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Build a Strong Company by Creating a Strong Personal Brand 05-23

Build a Strong Company by Creating a Strong Personal Brand

Before founding Influence & Co., I had no personal brand. I didn’t blog, I didn’t tweet — I didn’t even have a LinkedIn account. Outside of my small personal network, I was unknown.

Looking back, it’s no surprise that I had trouble gaining traction when I started in this industry. People didn’t take me seriously. At conferences, I was elbowed out of key events. Potential partners wouldn’t even respond to my emails. The frustration pushed me to become one of Influence & Co.’s first clients.

We began working on my personal brand, and it wasn’t long before things started to shift. As my reputation grew, so did my business. Nothing had changed internally: I was still the same guy running the same company. Soon, however, I was receiving invitations to speak at industry summits. Potential partners were knocking at our door. I was amazed.

That’s the power of a strong personal brand. By presenting yourself as a thoughtful, credible founder or leader, you can establish an authentic connection with the people who need to hear what you have to say. This connection allows you to shape public perception in a way that public relations and advertising cannot.

With patience and consistency, you can eventually leverage your personal brand into thought leadership. And thought leaders have access to opportunities that the rest of the industry does not.

Take, for example, the LinkedIn Influencers program. “When I write on my personal blog, an article will get roughly 5,000 to 10,000 views,” says Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO at HubSpot. “But let’s compare that to how my content performs on the LinkedIn platform. I’ve posted 30 articles as an Influencer. The average number of views across those articles? 123,000!

This kind of visibility can transform your company. But how do you get there in the first place? How do you build a personal brand that propels both you and your business forward?

Here are a few simple tactics:

1. Share critical updates with the industry.

Recently, Matt Cutts wrote an article declaring guest blogging as an SEO strategy to be dead. “Stick a fork in it,” wrote Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team. “Guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy.”

Cutts’ words reflected an imminent change in Google policy. This was a huge announcement, one that could reshape the digital content landscape.

The day after Cutts posted his article, I published a response that both informed my readers — and clients — about the upcoming changes and offered strategies for adapting to this new reality.

When you offer insight into the trends that are driving your industry forward, you’re helping readers manage change. They’ll reward you with their trust; they’ll share your content with their networks. Let people know that you’re looking out for them.

2. Write about those who deserve credit.

Who in your industry is doing things right? Who is driving innovation? Who is raising the bar?

Sure, you could ignore the fact that people outside of your company are doing great things, but you’d be missing a major opportunity to strengthen your brand. When you celebrate others, you create meaningful relationships, ones that could evolve into partnerships, creative collaborations, or recruitment wins.

Practice being gracious and humble — it’s not something we see much online. This will humanize you in the eyes of your reader and endear you to your followers.

Don’t be afraid to acknowledge greatness. In the long run, you benefit, too.

3. Avoid self-promotion.

Earlier in this article, I wrote about my journey to becoming a thought leader. There was no self-congratulations. My intention was simply to acknowledge the power of personal branding.

Nobody is interested in self-promotion; it ruins credibility. Readers want insight, honesty, and transparency.

Though the concept of “personal branding” may sound inherently narcissistic, it’s more about serving your followers. Your fundamental goal is to provide readers with content that will enrich their lives.

Branding Yourself and Your Business

Even if you’re uncomfortable with the attention, the spotlight is no longer optional. People are going to talk about you and your business, whether you want them to or not. Therefore, it’s critical that you actively manage your reputation.

Surround your name with high-quality, valuable content. Build a platform, and make it easy for followers to connect with you. Strive to improve the lives of your readers.

Dedicate time and energy to nurturing a vibrant personal brand. It will open a world of opportunity, both for you and for your business.

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The Five Deadly Personal Branding Illusions 06-24

The Five Deadly Personal Branding Illusions

By Liz Ryan

What the heck is a Personal Branding Illusion? That's a good question, but it begs the question "What is a Personal Brand?", so let's start there.

A personal brand is nothing complicated or smarmy. It's just a way of describing yourself to people who don't already know you. People protest "Oh, I don't have a personal brand, and I don't want one" but that's like saying "I choose not to cast a shadow when I walk in the sun."

You've got a personal brand, whether you like it or not. Sometimes, people talk about you when you're not there. That's not a bad thing. It's been this way since men evolved from apes (no cracks about how that process is ongoing, ladies).

You've got a brand. Newborn babies have their own brands ("Ooh, have you seen Amanda's little Dexter? He's so strong, he can hold his head up already and he has the cutest mop of curls!")!

People form opinions about us, the same way we form opinions about people and organizations and things every day. So if the term 'personal branding' makes you want to hurl, and I sympathize completely, keep in mind that 'personal branding' is just a newish term for self-description and reputation, two phenomena that have existed for millennia. The only thing modern about personal branding is its name.

Personal branding is a combination of the way you describe yourself to other people - in your resume for instance, and in conversation - and the way other people describe you. That's pretty much the whole show, personal-branding-wise. A personal brand includes your social media presence, any content you produce (or curate, on a site like scoop.it) and even your style of dress, the way you wear your hair, your accent and the vehicle you drive. All of it is part of your brand.

If it makes you queasy to think that people would judge or classify you based on your clothes or your accent, then ask yourself "Have I ever made a snap decision about someone just by looking at them, without conversation?" Most of have to answer "Yes" to that question.

We evolved to do just that, so don't be too hard on yourself. Human beings form mental models for people, things and situations, called frames. Once we set a frame, it is hard to shake it, so if you believe, for instance, that IT people are unhelpful snobs or that HR people are useless profit-suckers, it may take a lot of evidence to the contrary to shake you out of that frame.

Why all this talk about frames and stereotyping? I touch on that topic whenever I talk about branding, because in order to understand personal branding we have to accept the idea that people form opinions organically and instantly. Personal branding, in person or in writing, hits an observer viscerally, not analytically. We react to people not as collections of skills and experiences but as whole entities.

When we meet a person for the first time, we usually get a quick gut reaction: "This guy seems pretty chill" or "Get me away from this jerk." It's the same way when we encounter a new person from his or her online presence. We get a bead right away.

That's why these Five Deadly Personal-Branding Illusions are so important. When you write about yourself on a resume or anywhere, you want to convey something real about you, not something boring and dead and zombie-like. These five illusions, all common and all regrettable as branding choices, may seem at first like good branding solutions. But they are booby traips, because each of them manages to talk about something way less cool and interesting than you are. Do any of these Five Deadly Personal-Branding Illusions sound familiar?:

The Five Deadly Personal-Branding Illusions

Tasks

When we think about branding ourselves in writing, our minds usually go to Tasks first. "I write, I edit, I proofread," we think. "That's my personal brand." But a list of tasks doesn't say anything important about you. This is a low-power branding strategy. It conveys "I spin, I weave and I sew, your Majesty!" There is something way more elemental and powerful about you than a list of the tasks you typically perform. You may have to dig a bit to figure out what it is.

Trophies

It's tempting to brand ourselves as a product of a great school and a veteran of hot-brand-name companies, and figure that our personal branding task is done. But trophy-type personal branding is another power-less strategy. So, you went to Yale - that's awesome. Lots of people have gone there over the years. What makes you who you are, apart from your alma mater? It's kind of pathetic to broadcast that the coolest thing about you is the set of schools and employers that chose to accept you. Isn't your own story way more significant?

Zombie

We can fall into the trap of branding ourselves using Zombie Language a la "Results-oriented professional with a bottom-line orientation." If I had a Tic Tac for every time I've read that exact phrase on a resume, I'd be crushed by a mountain of Tic Tacs right now. You are not a zombie, so don't brand yourself like one.

Praising Adjectives

Countless horrifying resume-writing and personal-branding books advise readers to use self-praising adjectives like Savvy, Seasoned and Strategic when they describe themselves. This is the lowest-power branding strategy going - who praises himself or herself, in polite society? That's just another form of grovelling. "Look how highly I value myself!" is a push-away message for people who aren't impressed by words that anyone could borrow from the dictionary. Why don't you tell us a story about some of your accomplishments and let us decide which adjectives apply?

Abstract

Some folks' personal branding statements are so abstract that we have no idea what's being discussed. "I solve complicated, high-stakes problems" is an example of this type of branding. Toddlers and preschoolers solve problems that are high-stakes and complicated to them, as we all do every day. We don't want to read your assessment of the gravity of your good deeds. Lay out the deets instead, and let us make the call.

So what do you do for a personal brand, avoiding the five booby traps listed above? You simply tell your story. Use the first person, and write a paragraph or two that lays out where you came from and what you care about. Skip the corporate-speak jargon and sound like a human being. It's amazing how freeing it is to write about yourself without buzzwords, without stooping to praise yourself, and without reducing yourself to a bundle of disembodied Skills and Competencies. Brand yourself as a human being with a point of view, a history and a voice. Write your story and then distill it down into a summary that any human being could relate to. There's your personal brand.

If the human voice in your branding turns off a weenified amoeba or two, rejoice: you've dodged a bullet! My Buddhist friends say life is long, but it still isn't long enough to spend a minute more than necessary working among people who don't get (and therefore don't deserve) your gifts.

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