Why America’s Corporations Will Lose Control Of Their Employees

In the standard employer-employee contract America's corporations have established, you give up your individuality in exchange for job security, perhaps a pension and bragging rights.  It's a good deal for the corporation.  But is this a good deal for you, the individual?

Yes, if you are looking for your organization to manage your personal brand.

No, if you desire to do significant work for your organization, creating growth opportunities and living with an authentic identity in the workplace.

In today's 'new normal' workplace, reinvention of an organization has less to do with the organization's brand, and more do to with its people.  If an organization allows its employees to have a greater freedom of expression, they will be able to be more entrepreneurial and to contribute more.   In order words, organizations must unleash control and allow their employee's personal brands to flourish in meaningful and purposeful ways.     If not, innovation will be short-lived and organizations will become more vulnerable to competitive threats in today's short-term, rapid-paced, talent-dependent, fast changing, virtual, trust-demanding world of work.

For the individual, there must be alignment between who you are (your true personal brand) and the opportunities you pursue. If there is not, you will overlook opportunities you must not miss, and instead seize opportunities of less significance.

This is why most people in today's workforce are not inspired, and why they are seeking employers that will give them more purpose to showcase their individuality.

Unfortunately, most people spend too much time being accountable for what others want them to be, rather than what they seek to be themselves.  We have allowed corporations to manage our personal brand for too long, at a time when we need to turn ourselves around.  We must understand our individual relevancy and the role we play in today's post 2008 economy.   People are forfeiting the opportunity to create a fortune continuously and don't even know it.

Is Personal Branding Enough? 

As the immigrant knows too well, personal branding itself can quickly become a commodity and begin to lose its impact and influence overtime.  If you're successful, you're cursed with copycats, and many other "me-too brands" begin to appear in the marketplace. 

Perhaps surprisingly this is why the immigrant does not rely upon her personal brand alone.  The immigrant understands that the opportunities she has seized will establish an evolving personal brand for her.  This is why the immigrant trusts her brand and will not forfeit her fortune.   Rather, she shares it unconditionally with others.   Personal branding is part of her central ethos.

In today's business world, the immigrant perspective is to passionately pursue new types of innovations by discovering, exploring and sharing possibilities with others.   This is why the immigrant is more suited than traditional mainstream workers in today's business world to be a thought leader.  Thought leaders help others to reap the rewards of their strategies along the way.   They desire to build a community environment that encourages diverse thought and other individuals that continuously seek to reinvent and invest in themselves along the way.    The thought leader takes personal branding to new heights.  He focuses on sharing his subject matter expertise by being transparent about his leadership journey and lessons learned along the way to create opportunities for others across the entire supply chain.

As employees become personal brands, and personal brands evolve into thought leaders, America's corporations will lose more and more control of the workplace.    For decades we have said that employees represent an organization's most value asset.   In today's new normal, employees will represent their organizations' most powerful brands.

Thanks to Glenn Llopis / Blogs Forbes
http://blogs.forbes.com/glennllopis/2011/03/21/why-americas-corporations-will-lose-control-of-their-employees/