The key to career growth is not what you think it is

Man on a ladder at the peak of a mast, 1890-1953 (Photo credit: Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons)

Many people think that if they put in a good performance at work, they would be promoted up the career ladder. However this book says that performance counts for just 10% of the decision. 30% is your reputation. About 60% is dependent on who all know about you and what you do.

This model is called the PIE model - Performance, Image and Exposure, and Image and Exposure often are the difference between the two solid performers and their differing career trajectories.

Many people think it is not fair- that work should speak for itself. However, remember that almost organizations are pyramids, and when many people are good performers - the discussion that senior managers turn to when discussing good candidates for promotions are around image and exposure.

So what can you do?

First you have to get your manager and his/her manager to be your "sponsors" - and then find out who the key decision makers are for promotion discussions to the next level. Volunteer for cross functional projects so that you get as much visibility to them - without impacting your core job. Write for the company newsletter. Volunteer to train others. To present to senior management.

Then you will agree that performance is just table stakes for promotion.

The relationship between Social and Digital

Every social media conference I have attended, often hear at the sidelines, "But social is such a small part of digital, and digital is a small slice of overall marketing"

That's true.

Social is a subset of digital when you see it from the "media" lens. Digital is much bigger, it encompasses, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing, Online Advertising and many other things I don't know much about.

However, that view changes when you view how organizations have to transition to the new normal. IMHO, then the view flips. Digital is easier to do (internal or external) than social. When I mean easier I am not discounting the behavior change and other change management issues that are critical or something like a CRM or HRMS rollout.

But social, that's a whole new kind of beast.

You know why? Because more than change in behavior, social needs a change in mindset - whether implementing internal social networks or external social communities. It requires moving to sharing, listening rather than broadcasting. It requires organizations and leaders coming down from their pedestal and interacting with customers and employees on one-on-one human terms. It requires trusting that your customers can give you better ideas than your R&D department. It requires empowering and educating and trusting your employees to resolve customers' queries and sharing stories of the organization. It requires marketers to think from the customer-in perspective than the product or service out perspective. It requires new metrics to think about, new goals to measure.

It requires a cultural, structural and process change - in addition to technology.

That is why social is much much bigger than digital.

On that note see this report by the Altimeter Group on the Maturing of Social Media into Social Business in 2013

[Report] The State of Social Business 2013: The Maturing of Social Media into Social Business from Altimeter Group Network on SlideShare

A tweetchat on Social Media and HR

So my friend Sunder Ramachandran (@sundertrg) who teaches a course at ITM Business School on Social Media and HR asked Yash (@indianYash) and me to take some questions from his students - and it was a fun session.

Do check out the Tweetchat below

Employee Advocacy for Social Business #socbiz - Talk at #SBS2013 by @dachisgroup - Part II

Remember I had addressed the Social Business Summit at Mumbai? I today discovered the video had been uploaded some time ago :)

So if you couldn't attend the talk, here it is for you :) You can find the slides on this earlier post

SBSgautam-ghosh from Dachis Group on Vimeo.

30 HR and Social Media folks from India to follow on Twitter

Kunjal, the Rambling Recruiter has compiled a list of the Indian HR, Social Media folks to follow on Twitter.

You can find the list here.

The exciting thing for me is that 10% of the list - 3 people are from @HRPhilips team :)

And, this is the shortest blog post I have done in a long time :)