Myths and facts behind profiles & stories

If you see the profiles of professionals on LinkedIn, you will realise that everybody there is a leader; not only a leader but also a thought leader. Everybody is a good storyteller & philosopher. 5 out of 10 HR professionals have received Top HR leader, HR thought Leader, HR professional of the year, young professional etc etc. awards in their career. CEOs & CXOs are doing great branding on the platform. Few are writing stories regularly; few are sharing their experience, and few are sharing what they like. Most of them are just copying and pasting though. Few of those professionals are helping others and the overall community by sharing such stories. I am sure most of the companies must have their social media experts working for them, specially for companies and top leaders. Individuals are engaging with others on the platform regularly. On the other side, there are companies who have their own pages and they are also positing positive stories about their organizations.

If you believe in both, individual and organizational profiles and stories they put on the platform, it seems that the world is a better place to live now. Every organization is a great place to work, every company has the best practices, every company has got some or other award in management. Seems, all the problems and worries, company management and employees used to have in earlier days are now vanished.

In spite of having all this, still people are changing their jobs, companies are facing some basic challenges of revenue and cost optimisation. It is obvious situation because of Covid19, but in normal situation company stories look like “हम साथ साथ हैं (we are all together)”

Long back traditional media has enjoyed the status of 4^th pillar of democracy, but now everybody is the author, journalist and storyteller. Content is the king. If you have good content and you know how to present that content, you are powerful. However, you should know how you create & present the content.

I am just referring here about the professional contents and professional social media platforms like LinkedIn. The contents can be presented more positively, but the question is how to make it relevant as a user. Based on those profiles, head-hunters, recruiters approach the candidates for opportunities. Talent gets attracted reading stories presented on company pages and the posts senior managers post on the platform. Leads are generated based on the product information presented on the company pages. However, the main question is how to understand the authenticity of such content. How to understand the person who writes thought leader in his/her profile is really a thought leader. Titles are misleading, roles can be judgemental. People are not aware of what's happening on the market. There are recruiters who think that HRBP is a very junior role and CHRO is junior than other roles in HR, because an officer is always junior than a manager in the corporate world. This is strange to know, but this is the reality. There are facts and there are myths shared daily on the platform by users. Everybody is a marketer. The million-dollar question remains what is authentic. The person who is sharing stories about leadership lessons may be the worst leader actually and he may have the blind spot. The organization which is a great place to work may have issues and employees may have other opinions about the same company.

As said by somebody it is very relevant to think, “दिखावे पे मत जाओ अपनी अकल लगाओ (don’t go by face value & use your wisdom)”. Research more & try to understand the person behind the person and company behind the company.  

Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle; Vitality in Human Resource

Internet & internationalization: A Window to the World

In the era of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter we actually have become global citizen. The virtual travel is very much possible. Different people, nationalities must have in your friend list. Do you like to learn from them? How you do your research on Google about different countries and culture?   

Is it important to know the world in which we live and learn about far-away lands? What is the impact of acquiring knowledge about other countries and cultures and becoming a "window to the world"? If we develop an attitude of learning about others and an open mind in our interactions with other cultures, we are taking another key step towards success.  

All of us — whether we are able to travel because of our jobs or through our own finances or we are unable to leave our homes, cities or countries but travel through internet-cyberspace — can be "windows to the world." 

A Means of Communication 

A window not only allows air and light to enter a house; it may also reveal the wonders outside to those inside. A window is a means of communication and every human being should become a "window" within his or her family, people, and culture. 

From our homes, we can become virtual travellers, using the Internet to expand our cultural horizons. We can learn more about other countries perhaps by placing a world map on the wall in our room or office and focusing on a new country for a period of time. We can familiarize ourselves with each country's geographic shape, politics, culture, cuisine, religions, important places, economy and flag. We can mark the map to show each country to which we have “travelled." 

Prepare before you travel 

Those of us who travel physically can prepare before our travels by reading a good book about the place or places we plan to visit. We can also take along an album of good photos of our family, a good book with photos of our country, and some small but valuable gifts that communicate something about our country and ourselves to the people we plan to meet in our travels. 

The right attitude 

But the most important element to become a "window to the world" is our attitude, our way of thinking, feeling and acting when we interact with people from lands and cultures different from our own. 

Here's an acrostic for the word RESPECT, listing the seven key areas we need to master to become a "window to the world." We can develop these skills if we want to raise our poly-cultural quotients and become more effective in international relations. 

• Respect: Recognize the differences among countries and cultures, but avoid the tendency to criticize based on our own reality. Ask tactfully and politely about what looks different in order to learn. Never say something is “bad,” “wrong,” “dirty” or the like. 
• Elasticity: Develop the ability to open yourself to something new, to be flexible, to sample a new food or try a new dance, to sing a country song, to visit an open market, and to dare to try new things. 
• Synergy: Seek a flow in your relations with people from other cultures. Remember that when we unite our talents with those of others different from us, the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Synergy multiplies results and prevents unnecessary conflicts. 
• Purpose: Establish a clear purpose when you travel or interact with someone from another culture to ensure the relationship flows harmoniously and everyone benefits from the interaction. 
• Emotions: Foster nourishing emotions, such as serenity and joy, to ensure any trip or inter-cultural relationship is productive. 
• Care: Plan and organize your meetings with people from other nationalities or cultures with care to ensure the effectiveness of those encounters. Take time to show you care. 
• Time: Respect other people's time. In some cultures, time is considered an extremely valuable asset, and respecting other people's time shows respect for the people themselves. 

Being a "window to the world" helps us become better persons and better professionals, able to recognize diversity and to take advantage of it, not only for our own benefit, but for the collective benefit as well. Mastering the areas above will help us become more effective international visitors, guests, hosts, providers, partners or customers.  

Why are you on Social Media?

If you have the talent and you want to exhibit it to people, you don’t need dedicated media. You have YouTube. Just record your talent, post it on you tube and circulate the link through e-mail, Facebook and Google plus. You can also create your own channel. Now we can’t say that we don’t have any exposure. We have lot of exposure…  

Social sites are very effective tools if used properly. Different social sites have different characteristic and utility value. Facebook is for leisure and fun, LinkedIn is for professional networking, you can share your slides on slideshare, on BlogSpot you can express your opinion and views, you can upload documents, videos, slides. But your objective should be clear. However most of the time we get confused and don’t have the clear objective.

Facebook is the media where people get the opportunity to glorify themselves. At one stage everybody wants to be recognized and this hunger of publicity and recognition is fulfilled on Facebook. If you see the posts and updates, you don’t actually get something which has the value. People exposed their personal life on the Facebook and make everything public. You come to know about the person, where s/he is, what s/he is doing, where s/he is vacationing, what s/he is drinking, what s/he is eating, when s/he is doing the romance with his/her girlfriend/boyfriend or spouse and so on… and once it is on internet, you already made it public.

So you are on the public domain with all the details. Anti-social elements can use these details to damage your reputation. There is the case where person updated the status about travelling, and when he came back, his house was cleaned by thieves.  You also must have read the funny story recently in newspaper where the thief send the friendship request and got caught. (this also is one of the benefits of Facebook!)

I use most of the social media and I can definitely say that I am benefitted a lot. If you use following tips, you can leverage on the social media…

Objective: When you start using the social media, firstly your objective should be clear. LinkedIn is for professional networking and your professional branding. Use this for the same purpose. Facebook also can be for personal branding, but there is a trap. Ask the question yourself, “why do you want to spend time on Facebook?” is it just for the leisure, fun, networking, making friends or creating your own personal brand? You can find your old friends and colleagues on Facebook, but would you love to be in touch with them only in virtual world or want to take it further? Will you network with your boss, colleagues etc? 

Your Facebook profile has the identity, it is your brand. People may judge you based on your posting, likes and comments. Sometimes, HR professionals may dig into your profile to assess you.

Whatsoever is your objective is, keep confidential and (so) personal information out of the facebook.

You can use Facebook for two purposes,

1) Just for making friends (as far as possible known friends and old classmates).  Suggestion is, don’t make it too personal. You can actually keep this for your close friends and relatives. Choose your friends very carefully. Remember, the posts what they are sharing will be on you wall and it may have adverse effect on your reputation.    

2) Creating your personal brand in the virtual world. You can actually use your talent and intellect here to make your image. Yes, image building exercise!

You can also create your personal page on the Facebook if you want to make it for professional use. Here you share the stuff which is not personal and you allow to join anybody.

Keep in  the mind that Big Brother is always watching you.