And I Approve This Message

The political ads are in full swing... fast and furious.  At the end of every campaign commercial, you hear the same droning candidate voice-over: "I'm so-and-so, and I approve this message."  Some of the commercials represent such poor logic that I wonder how a rational, ethical human being could possibly approve of this poor substitute for sound rhetoric... if they REALLY knew what was being said.

But let's pull it back to you.  You're trying to accomplish a "win" and you're communicating a lot of things to people, both implicitly and explicitly.  So, if you had to stop and think about what the real message is, do you really approve it?

Are you managing those who are trying to carry your message forward to others to ensure that what people are hearing is what you intended them to hear?  Are you paying as close attention to the medium or channel of the message, so that an email blast doesn't replace a one-on-one face-to-face meeting.

We're all bombarded with messages... so much so that we're filtering out those we don't want to handle.  Are your messages making it past the "crap filter"?  I was reading Ed Decker's blog post on political ads; he's one of many who are just tired/angry of the current establishment.  Is that how people feel about you in the office?  Do you feel that way about somebody else?  What can you do about those messages that are being inadvertently shared?

How can you get your personal branding back to the point of "I approve this message"?  Doing so may make the difference between success or failure on your accomplishments.