Your reputation is basically what others think about you.  Over the last couple of posts my key postulate has been about the value of  managing your reputation (in marketing terms, your brand).

The basic framework for personal reputation management is to first understand what you want your reputation to be, then what it is and finally craft a plan to either maintain it or change it.

Maintaining,changing or a combination, is both audience and current state dependent.  The key here is to not submit and hope but to be proactive.

So, what is my reputation?

Asking others this question directly usually does not work.  Most people are conscious of thier own reputation and treat the question more as an opportunity to advance their own agenda.

The best way is anonymous surveys overseen by an independent party that does not know you and has research based experience to craft and interpret insightful questions.

The internet offers a variety of options for this kind of service from free to costly and of course their are many consulting agencies you can pay to do this for you ( of varying quality).

Observation

Independent feedback is not always practical or feasible.  Do not give up, personal observation is a tool that can be just as effective.

This entails activities like:

• watching  how people behave around you or in context of activities you are involved in.  Peoples body language and they things they do and say in the normal course can be very telling.
• indirect probing about things that appear to be about something else. ( e.g., How are you enjoying this project?) As a project participant you can leverage the reponses as indicative of your own reputation.
• gently guide various people you interract with to share what they hear others saying about you, albeit indirectly.

In short observe how people behave relative to things you have involment in and course directly toward you.  Don’t be superficial in your self assessment.  Think deeply.