How - Dov Seidman [100]
In a fractured world, reputation is also continuity. When people went to work for a company at an early age and had a reasonable expectation that they would continue to work for that company until they retired, public reputation, while valuable for promotion and advancement, was not as critical to career. The embrace of the company and the tradition of employment continuity sheltered individuals from the need to constantly represent themselves to the outside forces of the business world. Being able to say “I’m an IBM man” provided a lifetime of reputational capital. That is no longer the case. External structures, like a company, no longer provide personal continuity; only your reputation can. The average worker entering the job force now will work for an average of 10.5 companies over the course of a career.2 As more and more members of the workforce become dedicated to knowledge-based work, it takes less to redefine your career. The specific industry or area of specialty is less important. Therefore, when employers evaluate new hires, they rely less on industry-specific job skills and more on personal characteristics and reputation to judge a person’s potential. Your reputation and your Rolodex—the network of contacts and supporters—become a far more integral part of your personal package than they ever were before. Both are built over time by your HOWS.
Conversely, the company can no longer assume that its corporate reputation supercedes that of its personnel. In a transparent world, people can see between the lines of what you do and discern HOW you do it. Nuance becomes revealed, and reputation accrues to those companies whose individuals represent those nuances to the world. As we become more interconnected, more responsibility is shifted to frontline personnel, and more personnel are pushed to the front lines. They become the face of the company; through their actions, they have a profound effect on how the organization is experienced by the market. Thus a company becomes the reputational sum of its parts, and its reputation becomes more vulnerable to the actions, both positive and negative, of those individuals. The transgressions of a single actor can bring a company down.
To have a reputation that is worthy of merit, others have to impute something to you, that you are a good leader or a good executive, that you are consistently creative or a reliably hard worker, that you treat people well and fairly, or that you are honest. They only do that if they trust you, because reputation is a series of mutual connections. Consider reputation, therefore, as the sum of the trust circles you have developed over time, radiating out from you across companies, industries, and areas of endeavor. You build a good reputation when those who encounter you—employees, co-workers, and customers—trust you.
And whom do we trust? Those who are consistent, to whom we ascribe and impute integrity, those who say what they mean, mean what they say, and always follow through. “The ability to be consistent in life is one of the most precious and powerful things,” famed Las Vegas developer and hotelier Steve Wynn told me. “Franchise comes from consistency, whether it’s hamburgers or people.” Over the course of the last 30-plus years, Wynn has built a series of high-risk projects—including the Mirage, Treasure Island, and Bellagio hotels—each more successful than the last, on the strength of his personal reputation. His personal brand has become so synonymous with a memorable experience that he autographed his latest project, the Wynn Las Vegas resort. “I’ve been successful because I’ve consistently given people an experience that is not only exciting, but occasionally unique. Consistency is a