Brand “Self” and its IQ

I have always been a huge fan of Tom Peters. There are few authors I have read so extensively. The one I like most if his “Wow!” series, “Brand You”. There are so many interesting and insightful things and yet so elementary. Stuff we so easily forget and ignore.

Couple months in to one of my jobs, my manager planned an offsite event for the team to know each other, help build a little camaraderie. It was an all day event that started off with an interesting exercise. We each had to answer a couple questions about ourselves professional and personal, sort of like “What kinds of things do I like most about work?”, “What is my favorite movie?”, “What is my favorite color?”, “If I could be some one else who would that be?”, and so on and so forth. We each answered our questions and then sat in a circle. The manager than asked us to pass those sheet two people to the right and again with the person diametrically opposite.

Once we had all settled, the rustling of the papers, it was time for fun. One by one, each of us opened the sheets, we sequentially went about asking the person diametrically opposite answer the questions in that sheet about the third person who had actually filled it out. What an interesting exercise it was.

I started to think of Tom Peters at the very moment! What kind of a brand do you project? Do we clearly understand your value proposition and project it to our peers, colleagues and friends in the right frame? What do we do to address anomalies? How do we change perceptions? How do we measure this brand performance?

Do we know our Brand Value?