As I was preparing for this week’s group coaching call on the second part of the Escape Method, Audit, it made me think about some of the ways I used to describe myself.
The obvious ones were “Marketing Director”, “BP”, “Corporate Guy”, even “Maverick”.
But also “Yellow”. Do you know the Insight Discovery thing – the psychometric tests where you answer a load of questions about your preferences and out pops a colour – Red, Yellow, Green & Blue. It’s not really one colour, it’s a blend, with preferences toward Fiery Red (Bossy), Sunshine Yellow (Visionary), Cool Blue (Detail) or Earth Green (People).
I’m Sunshine Yellow. Can’t you tell? I absolutely hated the word Sunshine (in a company of scientists and engineers), but now I look I don’t think Fiery or Earth sound terribly appealing either. However, Little Miss Sunshine I am not.
I reflected on the coaching call how even though we wanted a balanced team, even though the primary colour was just a preference, there was no getting away from the fact that Red was the best. It just was.
I even remember wondering if the blinking Sunshine moniker hurt my career. “Red is my secondary colour” I wailed, refusing to take the Lego bricks to advertise my preference.
There weren’t many Yellow people in BP which I did like. A handful of creative, visionary people were more than enough.
Everyone was grateful for the Blues so they could look after the finances, risk, project plans etc. Ideally silently.
No-one wanted to be Green. And one thing that made me laugh out loud on the coaching call was how only the admins seemed to be green. It was expected that they’d care about people. Glad someone was
My boss literally guffawed “I have no green” when he saw his preferences (he was 90 odd percent red, obviously).
Let me remind you that green was the people one. As though he were saying “I have no preference for people”. As a leader (of… erm…people) for goodness sake.
And don’t get me started on empathy. OK I have now started.
It wasn’t until I left BP that I began to be proud of my empathy. Until then I’d felt it was something I needed to hide – something that was too soft and fluffy. Not Red enough.
The world has changed – or maybe is changing – and empathy is now regarded as a superpower in Forbes and the Economist (even if not yet in many boardrooms/leadership teams/team meetings).
But again it’s these labels.
They can harm us. They can restrict us. They can hugely underplay what makes us distinctive and valuable. And they’re vast over-simplifications.
Set against my wife I’m not very creative. I’m actually the one who says “I’ll just whip up a spreadsheet”.
The point I made on the call was we need to deconstruct these labels, look deeper, keep asking what do we really mean by then and why is it important. Stop accepting what we’ve been told, drop some of the baggage that was more about someone else than us, stereotypes and the crude short-hands.
Before the call I went through one of the exercises to describe myself: And even though I knew the purpose of the exercise I still fell into the same trap of writing job titles. One was Marketing, one was Internal Comms (which I always hated) – and one was ‘Writer’.
Writer underplayed the much broader content development I do and can do.
As well as the fact that most of the content I develop is pretty technical – engineering and science.
But also what made – and makes – me a good technical content developer is my empathy – I easily step into someone else’s shoes and try to tell their story, not some over-simplistic, blah interpretation. But rather how would they tell their story if they had my skills and experience?
I’m an empathetic technical content developer. That’s one of my skills. I’m not saying I have to put it down on my CV or describe myself that way at parties. But I need to think of myself in this way – empathetic, technical content developer – because those words better describes the full range of what I do and why I’m different.
And that is how I position myself for jobs. That is how I think of myself so I don’t diminish my offer and value to others. And how I keep my confidence high.
You could argue it’s just more labels and you’d be right – but each part is more thoughtfully selected, has more depth and speaks to something more authentic to me.
Don’t undersell yourself. Don’t be Yellow. Or even Red.
But to avoid it, you need to get to know yourself pretty well. Gaze at that navel a bit over the holiday period and keep asking yourself “and why’s that important?” – until you’re satisfied with your answers.
I’m receiving some lovely photos of people travelling and on beaches with Corporate Escapology which is really lovely. Please send more! If you haven’t bought a copy why ever not? Did I mention it’s a Best Seller on Amazon? And in Waterstones.
I’m going to be running the second Group Coaching Escapology Live in September – if you want to join the waitlist drop me a line. It’ll be just £50 again for five one hour session and if this first one is a guide you’ll meet some fascinating, interesting and like-minded people.
And I’ve updated the 31 day Summer Escape Plan on my Instagram with videos this year – it’s free. Here’s the template and each day I’ll post a video and a pretty simple challenge to help you get into the right mindset for exit and help you prepare. Happy to share feedback and ideas as you make progress.
