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Facts of life about self-promotion
Submitted by Jane Prusakova on Sat, 01/30/2010 - 2:36am.
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An interesting article about marketing yourself, gender differences, and what it takes to be successful and have a shot at changing the world: "A Rant About Women" by Clay Shirky
A fact of life - "... self-promotion will be a skill that produces disproportionate rewards".
Another fact of life - "There is no upper limit to the risks men are willing to take in order to succeed, and if there is an upper limit for women, they will succeed less. [Women] will also end up in jail less, but I don’t think we get the rewards without the risks."
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I agree that judicious self-promotion (how you present yourself primarily) can be important, but do you think that there is a line over which self promotion becomes so "syrupy" and "self-absorbed" that it is counterproductive?
I think one of the points of this article is that there are two lines. A line over which self promotion becomes self-absorbed, narcissistic, and arrogant-jerk kind of behavior. And a different line (much further in the same direction of bad behavior) over which self-promotion actually becomes counterproductive.
People(in particular, men) who are a more willing to step over that first line, tend to do better - because there is still some distance to go to the second line...
Jane Prusakova
Senior Consultant at Improving Enterprises
Door64 blog
Interesting point, but don't you think that sometimes "self-absorbed, narcissistic, and arrogant-jerk kind of behavior" is of itself counterproductive in a professional sense. Its just that citing examples is a bad idea.
Jay, I do not like "self-absorbed, narcissistic, and arrogant-jerk kind of behavior", and do not find it productive in professional (or any other) sense.
However, I have noticed that people at the top of the corporate ladder behave that way quite often. Either these people first become "big wigs", and then decide they can get away with this kind of behavior (and they like acting this way); or they've been doing this all along - and that got them to the top. Clay Shirky, the author of the article, believes it's the latter.
Jane Prusakova
Senior Consultant at Improving Enterprises
Door64 blog
Meh. I've been an arrogant jerk all along and it hasn't gotten me to the top yet!
Isn't self-promotion about claiming to be at the top?
Jane Prusakova
Senior Consultant at Improving Enterprises
LinkedIn Info
Maybe. It is at least about claiming you should be at the top. But such claims don't necessarily make themselves true by themselves. Perhaps I just need some more narcissism to push myself there. Guess I better start working on that.
Its too bad when people succeed and then decide to be arrogant jerks. But the behavior pattern, and especially narcissism on line is both pervasive and apparent. Depending on who you read on Twitter (and I assume Facebook), the examples are too frequent. Mine is a small company yet we would check an applicant's online presence without question.