Today, I was talking to chief of diversity of an international company. In our conversation, we felt that employees today need training on personal branding to propel their careers in a big multinational corporation . So, I decided to start working on designing a workshop to offer training on building a personal brand.

The quote below summarizes how this can impact our corporate careers:

In times past, you could be obscure yet secure – now that’s harder. – Micheal Goldhaber, Wired

Most of the people who work in large corporations, basically want to come in to work and want to go home at a decent time. Say 5 O’clock or 6 O’clock or what ever. They want to go home and that’s it. So even if you put in an extra hour , it is not going to be very easy to be better than 90% of the people who work with you. It is their commitment to go there, be there and do the minimum required tasks. To be a good employee it doesn’t take that much. Is that what you wish to be?

In school if you end up in one of these competitive MBA programs you know how hard everybody tries. You want to be in the best groups, you want to do the extra project, you want to fit in and you want to get good grades. There are some acclaimed teachers or right professors – you want them, you want their internships, it is so much more competitive. When you get to work, it is then you find out that a lot of people don’t want to be competitive. They do just what ever they are supposed to do to make a living.

Creating a personal brand is an ongoing pursuit – a journey to become more competent and trusted authority on a topic. In the real world, even if you are on someone’s payroll = You’re on your own.

Here is a book by Tom Peters that handled the topic of Personal branding in a very insightful manner.I was truly glued to it till the end: Brand you 50.

The real question is , “Are you the best in what you do?