Marshall Goldsmith. Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It (Kindle Locations 1027-1288). Hyperion. Kindle Edition.
Reputation is where you add up who you are (identity) and what you’ve done (achievement) and toss the combined sum out into the world to see how people respond. Your reputation is people’s recognition—or rejection—of your identity and achievement. Sometimes you’ll agree with the world’s opinion. Sometimes you won’t. But many times you may not even be aware of it. You cannot create your reputation by yourself (the rest of the world, by definition, always has something to say about it). But you can influence it. …
How to Change Your Reputation
One final question about reputation: What are you going to do about it? Here’s where reputation gets tricky.
The truth is, reputation doesn’t happen overnight. In the same way that one event can’t form your reputation, one corrective gesture can’t reform it either. You need a sequence of consistent, similar actions to begin the rebuilding process.
It’s doable, but it requires personal insight and, most of all, discipline.
When I first start working one-on-one with clients to change their behavior, they want instant results. If their issue is, say, making sarcastic comments, they assume they can stop the sarcasm overnight and their colleagues will instantly applaud them for it. It doesn’t work that way. I remind them that just as people’s negative impression of them was formed over a period of months or years—time when they were delivering a steady diet of sarcasm—they’ll need months of steady non-sarcastic behavior to undo that impression.
If you’re known as a sarcastic boss, you have to bite your tongue for a long time for people to recognize the change and start accepting the new you. You can go for weeks without deviating, but just one incident where the old sarcastic you reappears and people may wonder if you’ve changed at all.
It’s the same with any reputation. You have to be consistent in how you present yourself—to the point where you don’t mind being “guilty of repeating yourself.” If you abandon that consistency, people will get confused. The reputation you’re trying to form gets muddied by conflicting evidence and eventually loses its sharp focus.
No one knows this better in our society than politicians. When they’re campaigning for office, their primary goal is to pick a message and then repeat it ad nauseam to the electorate. That’s what the political pros and strategists mean when they praise their candidate for “staying on message.” It’s the only way office-seekers can establish what they stand for and, by extension, their reputation. Reluctant as I am to cite any political tactic as an example of model behavior, I have to admit that being “on message” is one that I’ve come to respect. I tell my clients it’s the easiest, most effective way to seize control of the impression you’re trying to make—and maintain it.
Take a look around you at work. Who are the colleagues who have clear, positive reputations—and what are they doing to achieve this enviable position? You won’t have to probe too deeply to see that an “on message” consistency is often their primary virtue. Without that consistency, we’d never see the pattern they’re creating. Chances are that that consistency is not accidental. It’s something they chose and articulated to themselves.
I used to marvel at an executive named Bill who rose to the highest ranks of his company and did it all within the hours of eight-thirty to five-thirty. He didn’t work late, he didn’t work weekends. He decided early on in his corporate career that his family was more important to him than work, so he set a personal goal of always being home by dinnertime—which meant that, despite being as ambitious as the next person, he had to get all his work done during regular work hours. He didn’t have the cushion of working late or on weekends. And yet his results were excellent. He was liked and admired by everyone he worked with, which went some way to explaining his ascent at the company.
But it didn’t explain everything.
“How did you do it?” I asked him.
“I always knew that my family came first,” he said, “so I vowed that I wouldn’t be one of those people who love trading office gossip or need to demonstrate that they’re in the loop about all the company intrigue. If I could cut all that out of my workday—the small talk on the phone, the water-cooler distractions, the beer after work, the impromptu sessions to complain about senior management—I figured I’d save a lot of time each day. I could do my job and get home at a normal hour. And I pretty much kept my vow.
“It’s funny though,” he continued. “At first I was the company oddball. I was capable and got good performance reviews. People saw me as no fun, no frills, a late-model Ward Cleaver. The only thing missing was the cardigan. But I was consistent and steady, and over time, that sober persona became my signature—and a virtue. People started to think of me as someone who could be counted on like clockwork. I was ‘dependable,’ which is a reputation I’ll take anytime. Because I didn’t traffic in office small talk, my bosses grew to consider me as someone who could be trusted with confidential information—which is ironic: the less interested I was in other people’s secrets, the more comfortable they were in sharing them with me. Eventually, my serious demeanor made people think I had leadership potential. People were willing to follow someone steady and dependable like me. I suppose they thought I wouldn’t let them down. And once people are willing to follow you, the sky’s the limit. All because I wanted to clock out at five-thirty.”
Bill may be being modest. Whatever qualities others are responding to, one key to his success is his consistency. His repeat behavior gave people an unambiguous way of viewing him—which is what happens when you’re disciplined about your objectives and follow through in your actions. After a while, people are locked into one way of interpreting your actions—because you have locked into it by choice—and your reputation falls neatly into place.
Another interesting fact about Bill: Even though his kids are grown and out of the house and he doesn’t always have to leave work by five-thirty, he still sticks to his schedule. That’s the best thing about creating a reputation for yourself: Do it right the first time and you may never have to change your ways.
By impacting our reputation we can impact our Mojo. Having a reputation that others find bothersome can make keeping your Mojo as easy as “pushing a big rock up a steep hill.” It is theoretically possible, but practically challenging. Having a great reputation—in an area that matters in your life—makes Mojo maintenance more of a joy than a chore.