Creating Personal Value by Giving Back

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick. And welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth to help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted to be speaking with David McNally. David's international business career included assignments in South Africa, Europe, and the South Pacific. He's the author of three bestselling books: Even Eagles Need a Push: Learning to Soar in a Changing World, The Eagle’s Secret: Success Strategies for Thriving at Work and in Life, and Be Your Own Brand.

As an award-winning film producer, David has produced two highly praised films, The Power of Purpose and If I Were Brave. His books have been translated into 12 different languages and developed into corporate training programs that have been released in over 20 countries.

David, we know you're an amazing person, so thank you so much for making the time today.

David McNally: Oh, it's absolutely my pleasure, Anita.

Anita Brick: Actually a few weeks ago we had a conversation in one of our staff meetings about the whole power of giving back and how that really does solidify a personal brand. At a basic level, how does one give back in the context of work?

David McNally: Well, I would like to put giving back under an umbrella—that umbrella I would call, Anita, the principle of contribution. I believe that one’s success in life is directly connected to the contribution that you make. So when we look at our professional lives and our personal lives and we look at, you know, what we want to get out of life, then we need to take a look at it as you know, what are we contributing to life.

And then giving back comes into that. And under that context—and I think this is a tremendously important principle for basically a business person also to understand, because when you look at businesses, businesses have to continue just to give back, if you like, to their customers for them to continue to succeed and prosper. You know, it's best not to stay isolated and say giving back is separate from business because it's a part of it as well.

Anita Brick: I mean, I know I sent you questions ahead of time so you could be thinking about some of them, but it seems like a lot of people were really compartmentalizing it. Like one of the Exec MBA students asked: I'm interested in many things, but not passionate about anything in particular. It's not that I want to be unfocused, but I could give back in many ways, but don't seem to make the time.

In his case, how does he figure out where to at least start making a contribution? Or maybe it's making the contribution. Maybe he's already doing that, but making it visible to himself so he can at least feel good about that.

David McNally: Well, I would suggest this individual is successful to a certain degree in his or her life. There has to be a contribution being made. Maybe that hasn't been truly understood in terms of the connection. When you look at one could do many different things, and I understand that that is not too uncommon. And you say, well, I'm not very passionate about anything.

One has to say, however, to even be considering the question, there has to be something inside of me saying, I need more, I want more. And that's that whole notion, therefore, of giving back and contributing. So my recommendation would be, amongst all the things that I can take a look at, all the things I could see need doing in the world … then, even though I may not be completely passionate about any of them, let me prioritize the one and say, well, if I had to select one, this is what it would be.

And then take the opportunity to participate in that, to get involved in that, and look at it as a kind of an experiment and just experiment with that and just see what that does for you. Is that giving you the result that you're looking for in terms of why you are asking the question in the first place?

Anita Brick: It's interesting because there was another question—I know the Exec MBAs—I mean, we're all busy, but they especially have so much going on because he's devoting so much time to work and family and his Exec MBA program. Where does he find the time to make a contribution?

David McNally: I think it is very, very important, again, as you said earlier, not to compartmentalize. I think one has to really acknowledge the contribution and the giving back one is already doing. If you are really committed to your work, if you're committed to making a contribution there, and then you're looking at your family; if you really, truly are prioritizing your family and giving back to your family, those two things in themselves are very powerful ways of giving back.

If you are saying to yourself, however, I just don't feel that's enough; I need to find something else, then again, you go back to … when you're looking at your day, many people talk, for example, about how do I balance my life. I like to say, you know, I think balancing one's life is very, very difficult. I always think of someone walking a tightrope and they've got that big pole and they're moving from one side to the other, and it's very, very scary.

I like to use the word blend, because I think there are times in your life where work requires a significant commitment, but then there are times when your private life, your family life requires significant commitment. And so it's being able to say, at what time do I need to focus on either of those? So it's more about blending, bringing together harmoniously.

And so on a day-to-day basis, it means, you know, living, if you say, consciously and saying, you know, the fundamental question is, what matters today? You know, what truly matters to me? So those questions that come under that is, you know, what do I need to do professionally? What do I need to do at work? What absolutely needs to get done today?

But what is important to my family? What is something that I need to be doing to contribute to my family? What do I need to be doing for myself to keep myself healthy so that I can continue to give back? And then what is that one thing that I could also be doing to give back to others, to a social service agency or a not-for-profit, whatever it may be that I feel passionate about.

Anita Brick: With this particular question, when you think about being pulled into so many different directions, it could be small things. Like, as you were talking, I was thinking one thing that a person could contribute would be to share their expertise in their study group. I mean, it could be as simple as something like that.

David McNally: I think what that suggests is what I think is very critical for all of us, and that's to not put a value on the things that we do to give back and not to suggest that something is insignificant because it's not as big in our minds and in the way people perceive it as someone else might do.

You know, the world is transformed by millions of small acts, the small acts that people do every day, interacting with others and giving to others changes the world. And if we understand that, then we start to, ironically, value what we do.

Anita Brick: It's interesting, and I was actually very encouraged by the number of questions, but obviously there is an interest with both people, as we'll see, early in their careers and later on. There were two questions to me that were two sides of a similar coin. One person was concerned about not giving and not gaining their share, and this was an evening student who said, how would you handle a situation at work where your value is not being recognized, or other people step on your toes and take credit for your contribution?

David McNally: Well, I think that is obviously a challenging situation, and I could look at that from a couple of different dimensions. Obviously you use the word “your personal brand” earlier in our conversation, and as you know, I've done a lot of work in that area. And having a strong brand is really about getting credit for the contribution that you are making.

You know, one of the things that may be one of the dimensions of your personal brand is your style. A part of your style, for example, interpersonally, may be to not, for example, to be as assertive as you need to be, in any given situation. And so maybe what's happening is that you're lacking some sense of assertiveness in an interpersonal dialogue.

And that's why people tend to be taking perhaps your great ideas and then taking credit for them.

Anita Brick: It's an interesting point. Very interesting point.

David McNally: So that's another thing that one needs to consider, because you're then feeling like you're not getting rewarded for your contribution. But that's part of your own responsibility to make sure that you're not just giving in a way. And I'm going to contradict myself in a moment, but in a way, when you're looking in a business situation and you're wanting to build a stronger brand, it is very, very important that you give in a way where you also know that you're going to get credit for.

Anita Brick: It is, again, a fine line because there are people in organizations, even who are volunteering, who want to be the star and want all of the credit. So it's a fine line of being assertive without, I guess, being obnoxious.

David McNally: Well, it is. And, you know, the very word in itself, again, under this umbrella of principle of contribution becomes very, very important because if, for example, you separated out the word “back” from the “giving.” So just use the word “gift.” And so what that does is a couple of things. It says, OK, I'm not going to focus on giving back. I'm just going to focus on giving.

Once you do that, you might have noticed in my last newsletter, I use the expression “when in doubt, give,” right? And so there are a couple of facets to what we're talking about. But one facet, of course, is just the whole notion of having an underlying philosophy in life about giving. Because in, you know, when we look at our lives and how we measure success in our lives, we measure our success at a feeling level.

And therefore, if we are not feeling the way we want to be feeling at least four days out of seven, there's something suggesting to us, obviously, that something is missing. Right? And so what we need to learn about is that there is such a tremendous sense of satisfaction that comes with just giving, but people often don't understand what a true gift is.

There's the gift where, for example, well, giving in itself, I should say there's no thank-you notes attached to giving. There's no sense of someone owes me something. There are no IOUs in giving. A gift is a gift, and there's not an expectation of reward for that because it's a true gift. Now it’s very, very different when you look at a work situation where you have career aspirations and you are endeavoring to move forward in your career.

So it's very, very important that you then make sure that contribution that you're making, which is a part of giving, is being validated.

Anita Brick: I think in part that will depend on the style in the corporate culture and even where you are in the world culturally.

David McNally: Exactly. And it very much is concerned with the culture of an organization. Again, you now have another dimension to this, Anita, which is that dimension; is that potentially the person who asked the question may be in a culture that doesn't support their particular value system.

Anita Brick: Could be. That's when you have those deep conversations about, all right, the job. I love the work. I'm using my skills, I'm passionate about it, but the cultural fit, the values—that is not there.

David McNally: Yes. And if there's a lack of alignment in values, then again, you are consistently going to be coming up against not living your life according to the standards that you have. And that's where, of course, then career decisions and career choices come into it. You have to have a look at, is this a culture that I feel that I can impact?

Is this a culture that I believe that I can make a contribution to transforming? And if it is, well, then the battle is worth it. And I know—I worked on a major project, for example, for about two years recently where there was a very tough negative culture. But one person, a woman who had decided that she wanted to stay where she was, but she made it her personal mission to transform the culture.

And she was a very strong leader and in a very, very powerful way, in a methodical way. She started to change many of the attitudes and behaviors that had created the negative culture in the first place.

Anita Brick: It's interesting. You know, the other question that I associated with the one you just answered was sort of the opposite of that. And someone said, I feel that making a contribution is part of my responsibility. Isn't it selfish to think that I need to have personal gain, things that are going to advance my personal brand?

David McNally: You know, again, these are wonderful questions because they make us look and examine just the words we are using in and of themselves. You know, I like to use the phrase “language is the software of the mind.”

Anita Brick: Right.

David McNally: Let's just look at the whole notion of being selfish. And of course, the word itself. We immediately impose a negative connotation on it, but as you know, I was very involved in producing a film, and you mentioned it earlier, called The Power of Purpose, and that film was about the young Canadian boy Terry Fox, who had lost his leg to cancer and ran this great marathon across Canada.

And when I have a dialogue with people about that film and we're debriefing, people often say, he was so unselfish. Well, it's worthy of discussion because when in one of the interviews that he had with the media, he said this, and I quote him virtually word for word, “If people feel pity for me, they don't understand. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing.”

In a way, he was selfish in that he was doing exactly what he wanted to do. It's impossible, I think, to really give to something that you're passionate about, to contribute to something that you feel is very valuable and needs doing in the world and not get personal gain. Now, how we're measuring that personal gain may be another point of discussion. The rewards are just a part of it and you can't stop it.

Anita Brick: It is interesting because usually when we make a contribution about something we truly love and are passionate about, it doesn't really feel—it's certainly not work. And in fact, often—I mean, not to sound cliche or corny, but when we make a contribution in something that we love, we often get more than the person or organization to whom we're contributing.

David McNally: Well, we do. Because I think what we're doing is that we're starting to really get in touch with, you know, some of those bigger questions: why am I here? And giving back, again, is all a part of, you know, what is my purpose? What do I feel that I'm being called to do? And as we go through different phases of our lives, obviously in the early stages of our career, we are working hard. We are endeavoring to get ahead, we're paying back school loans or whatever it may be, and our focus is naturally towards our career and doing those things that we need to do. And if we are involved in some sort of volunteer activity, that's a wonderful thing too.

But as we go on and evolve as human beings, and especially if we have a reflective sort of a nature—and I don't think anyone's going to ask the questions that have been asked if they are not prone to some sort of reflection about why am I here—then what you're actually doing is that, you know, you're saying again, you know, what's my purpose and how can I get on purpose?

And once I start to live on purpose and be true to my purpose, as you say, all of a sudden I'm getting up in the morning feeling passionate about the day ahead, and I'm going to bed at night—and even though the day may not have unfolded in the way I thought it would, you know, I go to bed with that sense of satisfaction that today I did the very best that I could do.

Anita Brick: And it seems like tracking—and I think this evolves over time. What we feel our purpose is, is sort of where our skills and our interests and our values all intersect, because that becomes our brand, right?

David McNally: Yes. If you look at the underpinning of any strong brand, whether that be a corporate organizational brand—many of the people listening to this, of course, will have probably been involved in the clarification of their organization's mission, vision, and values. And the reason for that is because, you know, they provide, obviously, the reason why an organization exists, they provide the direction in which the organization wants to go, and then they provide the values around which this organization is committed to operating.

Now, the reason that we have a mission, vision, and values for our organization is because upon that foundation, we can move ahead and succeed. And so it's very connected to our performance when we're looking at our own purpose, vision, and values. Why am I here? Vision. What do I want to create? Values. What do I believe in? Once I'm in alignment, I've got the foundation of my brand.

Now the brand part of it, however, is the external part, and that is what I need to do externally to fulfill the vision and mission. Because the brand is what people see. A brand is a perception of you by other people. So if, for example, we are not being perceived the way we want to be perceived, then we need to be taking a look at it.

Why are those perceptions not the ones I want people to have? And that can be related to the roles that I have. I'm not fulfilling them in the way that I need to be fulfilling them at work. I'm not capitalizing on all my strengths, my attributes. My standards are not as high as they need to be. Maybe from a stylistic standpoint, maybe I'm not as adaptable and flexible as I need to be.

These are the things that people see, and these are the things that people judge us by.

Anita Brick: It's a very good point, and I think that when you think about leveraging all of that to strengthen our personal brand, being conscious of this, because I think sometimes people outwardly blame rather than look back and reflect and say, all right, number one, is the still the right environment for me? And number two, how can I up that contribution?

One of the students is very early in his career. He asked, well, I have some skills, experience, and knowledge. It's rather limited compared to many people, I know. How do I begin right now to make a contribution, when I really feel that I don't have as much to give as others?

David McNally: Well, again, I think we need to go back to how we tend to put a value. So what the individual is suggesting is that I don't feel that I have a great deal of value to give. And in fact, we all have a tremendous amount of things that we can contribute on a daily basis, because if there's a certain level of experience, there is the ability, for example, to mentor somebody else. One opportunity to give back is to be a mentor.

Another opportunity in these early stages is, you know, what committees, what organizations, what's going on both in my workplace and maybe some not-for-profit that, even with my limited experience, is still valuable to those people?

I've been on the board of a not-for-profit for about 25 years. We've grown from about a $100,000 budget to two and a half to $3 million budget, and we have over 10,000 volunteer hours contributed every year to that not-for-profit. Those volunteer hours are made up of high school students who come in and work in our, what we call our Kids Connection program.

We are an agency that works with at-risk families, and we have this big program with children, and we have high school students come in and they're teaching and working with these kids—to our very sophisticated board, where you have executives of Fortune 500 companies helping to steer the organization in the right direction.

So you have all of these levels of contribution. And quite frankly, we could not do without all of those levels.

Anita Brick: It's a really good point. A few years ago, there was an article about reverse or bidirectional mentoring, where senior executives would mentor newly graduated undergrads and MBAs, and some others, especially the undergrads, would mentor the senior execs on technology—on the latest and greatest in technology—because they were less familiar with that. So I guess it doesn't really matter where you are, it's just starting and just making time to do that, even if it's a little bit of time. That's a great example.

David McNally: Even the smallest amount of time. But at the same time, if we live mindfully, consciously, every day, if we do that, if we take the time, again, to ask those questions of ourselves, whether we do it early in the morning, whether when we're commuting or whether we're at night, we're reflecting on our day and we just look at that and say, OK, tomorrow or today, I'm really going to live consciously, and I'm going to say to myself, what does matter today?

And I'm beginning to become much more aware of everything that is around me. And I'm going to make sure that when I have touchpoints with different individuals, I'm going to be conscious of how I treat that individual, how I interact with that individual. And if I could look at it and say to myself, OK, every time, whether I'm buying a newspaper at the corner newsstand, whether I'm paying for a Big Mac or whatever it may be that I'm doing that day—but every time I interact, what I'm going to do is going to endeavor to leave value.

And that value may be just the fact that I express my appreciation with a warm thank-you, or I just smiled or whatever it may be, or someone asked me for some assistance and that I gave them that assistance. Or even if I couldn't do that immediately, I said, I'd love to help you. You know, I’ve got to finish this project right now, but let's negotiate a time to connect.

But whatever it is, every day I am finding ways to give, and it's not about giving back. Although obviously I understand why people would say that, but it's just about, hey, you know, I'm going to do my part to transform this world into the kind of world that I want to live in.

Anita Brick: That's a great point, because our personal brand evolves not just our skills and our knowledge and our actions and accomplishments, but our values. And what you're saying is that in the course of one's day, we can make a contribution, and we never know the rippling effect of that contribution.

David McNally: We never know exactly the impact. I remember one of the questions that came in was from an individual who said they've been moving around in their career every one to three years. They're very concerned about, you know, the depth of the impact they have been able to make because they haven't hung around that long.

Anita Brick: Right.

David McNally: Well, well, I can tell you that I've moved around in my career. As you mentioned earlier, I lived in South Africa for less than a year. I lived in Europe for a couple of years. And as you know, my early career started in my homeland of Australia, but I've been in the United States 30 years now.

But from those times, we have the most in-depth, intimate friendships and connections from just those shorter periods of time, that have lasted years and years and years. You know, wherever you go, wherever you are, you can leave some very strong impressions with those people and with the organizations with whom you've been involved. Again, if you're really conscious about it.

Anita Brick: That's a good point. And there was another question from an evening student about how do you do that online? I mean, we hear a lot about a lot of negative things happening online with some of the social networking sites. How do you do the opposite? How do you create positive value using social networking sites?

David McNally: I think what's important about that in social networking, one has to use, I think today, as we've learned, a significant amount of discretion, that would be my take on it in terms of what we do there. But if you use them as a powerful force for good—you know, one idea I thought about when I was reading that question was, what do you feel passionate about?

And what do you feel needs to be done in the world? OK, so you've got that, now you know it, but you know you can't do that alone. But how can you put this out in a very appropriate way into the social networking that you do and say, and see if you can then gather a group of like-minded people that would be willing to align themselves with you to make that contribution, to be involved in that specific project that you feel that you would like to accomplish.

I think that that would be a very, very positive use of social networking.

Anita Brick: It's a good point. And there you can, of course, create a group on LinkedIn or an area on Facebook, but then you can create your own sort of mini infrastructure on Ning. And I've seen people do that too, where they are like-minded and have a cause or something they strongly believe in.

I received an email today actually about a group that is supporting educational funding, and they were emailing all the people in the LinkedIn group saying, you know, please vote for this on Facebook because we want to see corporate funds going into—so there were some after-school programs that were really having an impact.

So, very good idea. You know, we talked about someone early in their career, and then there were a couple of alumni who asked about the other side. One person said, I've been working in different regions of the world. You had mentioned this person. How do I develop a deeper level of contribution as I move to executive leadership and create a long-term legacy?

David McNally: There's no question that today the need for strong leadership is more critical than ever. I think we understand that. And so we need to, I think, to look at, therefore, the whole notion of leadership and to be able to define it and what it's all about. If you—look, what I believe is the purpose of a leader, the purpose of a leader is to be able to maximize the gifts and talents and expertise and competencies of those whom the person is leading to achieve the goals of the organization.

So when you look, therefore, at leadership, leadership is not about power, even though by your position you may have power. It's really about empowering, and that means discovering other people's power. It's not about being in control, it's really about finding ways to remove the barriers that people have in their way to be able to maximize their gifts and talents.

And then the other, I think, aspect of leadership that is gaining great traction right now is understanding that people are not there to serve me. I am there to serve them.

Anita Brick: Right, right.

David McNally: … and so as I move through the organization, I think it's very important for any executive to understand that—this is at least my belief system—that if you can lead in an organization that has really strong and clear values, that provides people with a sense of purpose and meaning that they contribute and are valued, they experience a great sense of community within that organization, and then you can continue to deliver the results.

Whereas the organization, of course, continues to be profitable because profit is the blood of a business. If you don't have healthy profit, you're not going to live very long as an organization. So, you know, be comfortable with the profit motive. But if you can do that and you think of the ripple effect of that in itself, and that ripple effect is that people are coming to work, they're finding meaning in their lives, they're being rewarded, they've got some stability because the company is profitable.

But at the same time, they are then able to provide for their families. The children can go to college. I mean, the ripple goes on and on and on. And that in itself, I suggest to you, is a very significant contribution in and of itself, whether that executive did anything outside of the organization.

Anita Brick: It's a very good point, because that is a huge thing. I mean, when we think about it, it’s a ripple effect of actions, especially someone who is influencing a great number of people has the power to make small changes, even in terms of a culture, and have a very, you know, incredible ripple. And I know you work with a lot of C-level executives, and you see this firsthand.

And I would guess—not to make any assumptions, but I would guess not everyone is on board with that at the beginning, but that they prosper a lot more when they get there.

David McNally: The values of any organization is a reflection of the values of the leadership, right. So you're going to look at a culture, that culture, you can connect back and say, OK, whatever the culture is, whatever the attitudes and behaviors that are the norm within an organization, it goes straight up to the very top.

And so when you look, for example, at the opposite, when you look at the ripple effect of the attitudes and behaviors that have existed within a number of organizations in the last few years, the ripple effect of that has been devastating. And we are today suffering because of that type of leadership. And so the other is true as well.

So hopefully that we have all learned from what's happened over the last couple of years and realize that the sustained success, prosperity, and well-being of our economy comes back to, you know, how do we get leaders who have strong values, clear values, are committed to building successful businesses, but with a strong, what I would call, moral compass?

Anita Brick: It is true globally. You know, there was a weekend student who asked a question, and his mission is really to create those kinds of organizations. And he was saying, “I have aspirations to create a career in social entrepreneurship. What are some things that I can do now, while I'm in consulting, to build a bridge that will help me make the transition?”

So it sounds like this person wants to be in an environment where the core values are really about contribution—in effect, being profitable, but making a very significant positive impact on the world. What would you encourage someone in that kind of setting to do if they're in consulting now, say, and want to move into more social entrepreneurship?

David McNally: Well, I would suggest, very much, first of all, get very clear about the message that you want to communicate. Get it down, get it clear, understand what you're endeavoring to do in terms of when you talk about social entrepreneurship and you're talking about changing the world in that way. But when you communicate it, you've got to communicate it in a way that makes business sense.

Let's go out and tackle that just for a moment. What makes business sense at the executive level is to deal with that which is true to their heart, and should be at the end of any executive’s top of mind. And that is, the ultimate objective of any business is sustained growth and profitability. What hasn't changed is what is critical to that sustained growth and profitability.

And if you look at that, the only thing that is not indispensable, that is not indispensable, is the customer. You know, you, the CEOs, dispensable. CIOs, COOs—everyone’s dispensable. The one thing that isn't dispensable is the customer. Because you don't have a customer, you don't have a business. So when you look at that and you say, OK, then you know, what is it that keeps a customer coming back, right?

It is the customer experience. What is it, therefore, that if we're going to create a successful business, what do we need to do? We, well, we need to make sure that the customer experience is a strong experience and why I'm telling you all of this is that, quite ironically, is that once you focus on creating an extraordinary customer experience, then what you have to do to sustain that over a period of time is to have an organization that is built on a strong value system, because this is the way it works, Anita.

First of all, you say, OK, if the customer is to have a great experience, who's going to deliver on their experience? Well, people are going to deliver on that experience because you can have the right product at the right price promoted. And you can have all of those things together. But if you don't have people interacting with customers in a very powerful and positive way, then the effects of all of those—what we call the four Ps of marketing—are going to be diminished, right?

Anita Brick: That's true.

David McNally: OK. So now you understand that, well, why would people want to deliver? Why would they want to deliver a powerful experience? Because of two things. Number one, they believe in their product or service. They're passionate about it. But the second and really critical piece also is that they believe in their company and they, well, why do they believe in their company?

It's pretty fundamental: because their company believes in them, and the company believes in them by the way they treat them, the way they reward them. Again, the sense of community they create and the values that they live by on a daily basis. Those values, however, come from the leaders. So you go back, you start at the customer experience, you move it all the way through and you end up once again at leadership, and you will not have a sustained success of any organization, therefore, that doesn't follow that process.

Anita Brick: And sounds like the exact same thing is true for an individual with their own personal brand because the same things apply.

David McNally: Well, again, are you thinking short term? Are you thinking long term? You know, this is where ambition—ambition can trip us up. When we are so ambitious that we make short-term decisions that may have, you know, just that slight lack of integrity to them, that we feel are going to help us take that another rung up the corporate ladder, and we find all of a sudden that by doing that, as we have moved up that corporate ladder, all of the rungs below us have been chipped away, and there's nothing to sustain us.

And therefore, once we get into some sort of conflict and trouble, there is no way down. The only way is to fall off the ladder.

Anita Brick: Well, because. there's no one there to support you, because you didn't support them.

David McNally: Exactly.

Anita Brick: So it all goes back to contribution, I mean, which is, I guess, where we started, and it is interesting because with all the changes going on in the world economy and so many other things, we have control over the contribution that we make.

David McNally: If you look at—and you look anywhere in the world, I mean, global business is a function of relationships, right? You know, who are the relationships that you have all over the world? And as much as we are technology driven, you will never take away the need to establish personal relationships wherever you are. And so when you look, therefore, at with whom you have strong relationships, whether that be professionally or personally, the people you have the strongest relationships with, other people who contribute to you through—they contribute to you.

You know, and they are the people that you value the most. Now, you may have relationships, obviously, that, temporarily expedient. We understand that. I mean, anyone who's in business understands the transactional nature of some sort of business relationships, but if you're looking long term and you're looking at a sustained business career, you're looking at a rewarding life, it always comes back to the relationships that you've been able to deliver.

And if people are not contributing to you in some way, well, then obviously, you know you don't value those relationships as much.

Anita Brick: A good point, do you have time for one more question?

David McNally: I do.

Anita Brick: OK. Great. So if you were thinking kind of how you are now and maybe thinking back several years of where you were then, what are three things that you would recommend that someone could begin doing today to strengthen his or her brand by making a contribution?

David McNally: The first thing is, again, to become very much aware of what it is that builds a strong brand, and therefore you start with just the process itself. And that is number one: that people who even consider the questions that you and I are discussing today, you know, these, we're all well-intentioned people, but it's critical to understand that, you know, people cannot see our intent.

So the critical thing is to understand that, OK, they see what we do, our actions, the things that are observable to others. Our actions, on a consistent basis with others, build impressions. And the result of all those impressions is that's the way people judge us. So by our actions, we are branded. So if you look therefore at the three characteristics of strong brands, the first one is to be distinctive in that you know what you stand for, you know what your values are, and you have the courage to stand by those values.

That's it—to get clear about your values. And then say, and I'm going to stick to those values. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't compromise where compromising is necessary, but not if it's against something that you feel is offensive. So be negotiable. Be adaptable. Right? But on matters of principle, stand firm. That's what I'm suggesting.

The second thing is to examine: am I relevant and to whom do I want to be relevant to? Right? If I'm not a strong brand with another individual with whom I want to be a strong brand, but maybe I'm not as relevant to them as I need to be. Now what does that mean? Well, it means I need to be consciously putting myself in their world. We call it “thinking in reverse.” You know, we're saying, what do these people want? What do they value? What do they need? What do they expect?

That's particularly pertinent. For example, if someone is in a leadership position or is in a management position, but really wants to be perceived as a strong leader, then I need to be really thinking about those questions in terms of the people who are reporting to me, because relevancy is something we earn.

We earn it by the importance others place on what we do for them. But then their judgment of how well we do it, so that's relevant. And then the third thing that we need to do is to reexamine how consistent am I? Right? So if I look at a brand like a corporate brand or a product brand that is strong, in my mind it means two things: from that brand, from that product, I have consistently received a value, and it is a reflection of my values.

So when I'm looking at my interactions with other people, do I see myself consistently delivering value to that other person? And if I'm doing that, then I'm going to find myself having a strong brand in his or her mind.

Anita Brick: And then the contributions are things that are consistent with all three of those things.

David McNally: Because if I am endeavoring to be relevant and I am consistently delivering value, then the contribution, you know, is what's underpinning that. I cannot be doing those things and not be contributing.

Anita Brick: And so if things aren't necessarily where you may want them to be, step back and examine those three things.

David McNally: Yeah. So step back, assess yourself, be honest as to what is your current reality in regards to those things, and then be looking at saying, OK, you know, what do I now need to be doing to start making the impressions that are going to lead me to the brand that I want to be perceived as?

Anita Brick: And the value you bring to others is part of that, too.

David McNally: It's everything. You know, it's very hard to be a strong brand if you haven't delivered value. We are brands, you know, whether we like it or not. We have been branded. We've been branded by our family, our friends. If we are not the strong brand that we want to be, then we need to look at the value that we are delivering.

Anita Brick: David. Thank you. You are a wealth of wisdom, and I so appreciate your taking the time.

David McNally: My pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity, Anita.

Anita Brick: And David, we talked about David's book, Be Your Own Brand, and in the career resource centers around the globe, we have at least one copy of that very interesting way of perceiving personal brand. And there's lots of good information, including, probably David, access to the newsletter on giving—the issue that came out recently on your website.

David McNally: Yes. You know if you've really connected or resonated with what we're talking about, I have a David McNally report that comes out once a month. Happy to subscribe any of the students to that. Just go to my website, DavidMcNally.com.

Anita Brick: And alumni too.

David McNally: Yes, of course.

Anita Brick: There's lots of good stuff, as David said, on DavidMcNally.com. Thanks again, David. And I know you're always contributing and you do such an interesting blend of continuing to create profitability while adding very positively to people's lives. So thank you for doing that.

David McNally: My pleasure. Thank you, Anita.

Anita Brick: And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.