My friend, lets call him John, has had a long and illustrious career.
He went to some of the best schools in our town and at university studied business administration. He did his time at the till at a big bank, put his career on hold to get a masters in corporate finance.
John returned to Uganda. Thankfully his old employer had a place for him and he has been with him ever since. He is respected in his industry he is fast approaching retirement.
John has been prudent with his money. With what he has stoked away in shares, government paper his provident fund and his savings with NSSF, it is not likely that he will retreat to a life of destitution.
His worry is that he will have time weighing heavily on his hands, with nothing to do. The thought has crossed his mind of setting up a consultancy, but the rough and tumble of setting up a new business does not appeal to him.
He knows he has what it takes. On free evenings he has helped friends and relatives set up their own businesses, acquaintances restructure their businesses and even advised on "mergers and acquisitions" of the odd SME here and there. For most of the work he allowed his "Clients" to pay him whats fair with several assignments being done pro bono so he had no doubt in his mind about the value he could still provide.
The challenge is not that he is not competent, that he does not have value to offer as a consultant or there is no market for his services once he has left the bank.
John's dilemma is a common one.
The personal brand matrix above locates all of us in one of those four quadrants which differentiates us by a combination of the level of our competence and our visibility as competent or not in the field of our choosing.
In the lower right hand quadrant are the fakes, those with high visibility but low competence. They walk among us and are the reason the saying "Empty tins make most noise" was created.
In the lower left hand corner are those who have low visibility and low competence. Not bad place to be. These are often young, starting out in their career with no experience and some education. Untested and unbattered by life's ups and downs.
We call them raw material, they can be molded into very useful members of our society. This they will do by putting in the time to educate themselves, gain experience and be in a state of continuous learning about themselves and their environment in order to become experts.
Experts abound. Anyone coming to the close of their careers -- like John, who has been consistent and dedicated in his chosen field of work qualifies as an expert. By the close of one's career ideally one should be at the highest point on the competence scale.
The fourth and final quadrant are the Thought leaders. These are the ones who are not only competent but by design or accident, their value is recognised within their own industry and beyond.
These are those among us who make the most money -- they do not seat interviews, they are head hunted; their skills as consultants are in demand; they work with whom they want, where they want and when they want.
That's where we should all aspire to be, whether we are in corporate Uganda or not.
He went to some of the best schools in our town and at university studied business administration. He did his time at the till at a big bank, put his career on hold to get a masters in corporate finance.
John returned to Uganda. Thankfully his old employer had a place for him and he has been with him ever since. He is respected in his industry he is fast approaching retirement.
John has been prudent with his money. With what he has stoked away in shares, government paper his provident fund and his savings with NSSF, it is not likely that he will retreat to a life of destitution.
His worry is that he will have time weighing heavily on his hands, with nothing to do. The thought has crossed his mind of setting up a consultancy, but the rough and tumble of setting up a new business does not appeal to him.
He knows he has what it takes. On free evenings he has helped friends and relatives set up their own businesses, acquaintances restructure their businesses and even advised on "mergers and acquisitions" of the odd SME here and there. For most of the work he allowed his "Clients" to pay him whats fair with several assignments being done pro bono so he had no doubt in his mind about the value he could still provide.
The challenge is not that he is not competent, that he does not have value to offer as a consultant or there is no market for his services once he has left the bank.
John's dilemma is a common one.
The personal brand matrix above locates all of us in one of those four quadrants which differentiates us by a combination of the level of our competence and our visibility as competent or not in the field of our choosing.
In the lower right hand quadrant are the fakes, those with high visibility but low competence. They walk among us and are the reason the saying "Empty tins make most noise" was created.
In the lower left hand corner are those who have low visibility and low competence. Not bad place to be. These are often young, starting out in their career with no experience and some education. Untested and unbattered by life's ups and downs.
We call them raw material, they can be molded into very useful members of our society. This they will do by putting in the time to educate themselves, gain experience and be in a state of continuous learning about themselves and their environment in order to become experts.
Experts abound. Anyone coming to the close of their careers -- like John, who has been consistent and dedicated in his chosen field of work qualifies as an expert. By the close of one's career ideally one should be at the highest point on the competence scale.
The fourth and final quadrant are the Thought leaders. These are the ones who are not only competent but by design or accident, their value is recognised within their own industry and beyond.
These are those among us who make the most money -- they do not seat interviews, they are head hunted; their skills as consultants are in demand; they work with whom they want, where they want and when they want.
That's where we should all aspire to be, whether we are in corporate Uganda or not.
"To make the transition from the Expert to the Thought leader quadrant is dependent on what communications you put out or go about you. We can consciously manage this if we are systematic, deliberate and consistent in employing the media -- traditional and new....
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