PROFESSIONAL BRAND NARRATIVE
BY: ERIC LEW
Introduction:
Over the past couple of months, I completed a
survey about myself and collected six responses
from past co-workers, and their perception of me.
This information will be useful when creating my
professional snapshot video and my professional
digital profile. The key takeaway that I learned
from this experience was how people perceive me
and how diverse I can be.
PeopleStyle:
Before I took the self-assessment, I thought of
myself as being Amiable, because I am agreeable
and value feedback. For example, I always ask my
teacher for additional feedback on assignments.
Although the self-assessment tested me to be
Analytical, I feel that this can be how I interpreted
the questions. With that being said I am an
Amiable PeopleStyle type.
The scatterplot below displays my responsiveness
and assertiveness in regard to my self-assessment,
the respondents, the average of all the respondents,
and where I see myself.
By looking at this scatterplot, I am all over the
place. The diverse representation of the different
categories was dependent on my place in a certain
group or community of people. Someone that
ranked me as being amiable might have been a
person of authority like my manager or more
experienced worker. However, the respondents
that identified me as Driver and Expressive viewed
me as being a leader and outgoing.
Cultural Map:
My respondents and I agreed on five of the eight
categories on the Cultural Map and were
significantly different on the other three.
Below is a bar chart representing the rankings for
each category, with my assessment scores in red,
and my six respondent’s average rankings in blue.
Significantly Different Cultural Map Ranking:
Most of the categories were similar to each other
except for the three categories: Evaluating,
Trusting, and Scheduling.
The Evaluating category results were the most
surprising to me. When it comes to Evaluating, I
prefer direct negative feedback and focusing on the
information at hand. Although this is what I prefer,
my respondents thought that I would prefer
indirect negative feedback which focuses more on
feelings. I think that giving direct negative
feedback is better in situations that require a
forceful and immediate response rather than sugar
coating or making a problem seem less severe than
it might be.
Next, I prefer building trust on task-based status
through working together. My respondents thought
I would prefer building trust on relationship based
status through sharing down time together. I
consider myself a sociable person and can see why
my respondents rated my trusting as relationship
based. In my opinion, trust is something I believe
needs to be earned regardless of it being through
work or a friendship, I can gain trust from people
regardless if I work together in a group or spend
time outside of the classroom with them.
Lastly, Scheduling had variability between ratings.
For school purposes, I prefer to have structure and
deadlines, so I know when to prepare and finish
assignments in a timely manner. However, most of
my respondents are people I know and spend time
with outside of school. They rated me as being
more flexible with my time and schedule, because
I am fine with pushing lunch or dinner to a later
time if it adapts to both of our schedules. From the
Cultural Map, I learned that I view myself as being
more uptight and disciplined when it comes to
school and professional work, opposed to what
other colleagues view me as.
My Core Values:
My top three core values are responsible, creative,
and disciplined. Below is a Venn Diagram
showing my core values according to myself and
my respondents.
Common Themes in Responses:
When the respondents were asked what words
come to mind when they think of me, there were a
wide array of words.
How Others Perceive Me:
My respondents provided me with a copious
amount of words that come to mind when they
think of me. The words that appear the largest
were the most commonly occurring adjectives
reported. As a whole, I am seen to be a very
driven, honest, and kind person which I can agree
with. Although, a negative trait of mine is that I
can be very talkative which can come off as
distracting or off topic when discussing material
with a group.
Surprising Responses:
I was most surprised at my own self-assessment of
me being Analytical, because this is the
PeopleStyle I would classify myself last as. When
I initially assessed myself during the first week in
Eller, I was unfamiliar with my surroundings and it
was a whole new environment for me. Growing
up, I was always taught to listen and learn from
others first rather than come off too strong or as a
“know it all” in order to gain respect from my
peers and professors. However, my average
PeopleStyle was Expressive. I was shocked that
this was my average PeopleStyle, because I take a
while to open up to people, especially in an
unfamiliar environment.
Key Takeaway:
The most important thing that I learned from this
assignment is that when I am working in a group
of people, the way I act varies depending on the
type of people in the group. Additionally, after
reviewing the results from the Cultural Map, I will
focus more on the trait of Evaluating. When I give
feedback to others, I tend to be too harsh which
might offend or hurt someone. Instead, I will
improve in this aspect more by being more
sympathetic and constructively give criticism or
address a problem in a way that will find a
solution. Another key takeaway is that I want to
ensure that the way I perceive myself is consistent
with how others perceive me as.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the responses I received were very
divergent, especially in the PeopleStyle. After
comparing the data between myself and the
respondents, there were a lot of gaps between our
assessments. My colleagues gave me valuable
information about how they view me as a person
and I will use this experience to improve myself as
a whole and for the professional, business world.
Throughout this process, I was surprised that none
of the respondents listed me to be creative, which I
feel is a huge part of who I am.