How often do you use school and work affiliations to introduce yourself?

For example: Hi, I’m Mary. I went to Northwestern, then went on to Morgan Stanley and am now at Bayer.

It’s rare to meet someone who volunteers non-work interests unless asked specifically to do so.

You’re using the brand affiliation to let someone know what you’re about.

If that brand is reputable and good, I suppose it’s fine.

It doesn’t tell me about who you really are, but rather allows me to clump you with what I think of the brand.

So if I think that Northwestern is an excellent school then there’s that.

What if the brand’s reputation had taken a recent plunge, would you be so ready to associate yourself with it?

Have you thought about who you are without the brand labels that you associate with?

Stripped bare of them, who would you be?

Would you like every message spoken and written by you to be effective but still reflect your personality? If you would like to learn to be a more effective communicator at work, let’s chat more. You can read about what I do here.

You can read more posts on relating to people here.