Sital Ruparelia

Within the last 24 hours, we’ve seen the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown step down from office. After losing last week’s general election, he will be replaced by the first coalition government in the UK for over 30 years.

Just 18 months ago Brown was playing an impressive role in leading global efforts to manage the financial crisis. Yet when it came to the election, he failed to impress the public.

While there were many policy and political factors that led to his downfall, a key part of his defeat and his exit from politics was due to Gordon Brown himself – his style and approach.

Here are 6 career lessons you can learn from Brown’s election campaign and subsequent downfall:

1. You need both style AND substance

Throughout the election campaign, Brown kept reiterating: “if this campaign is about style over substance – then count me out. I’m a man of substance, not a PR or marketing man.” Tough luck Gordon – like it or not, you’re in the marketing business. We all are. Brown, like many people, failed to actively manage his personal brand.

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I’m not a huge fan of reality television or talent shows in general, but for some reason, I do enjoy Simon Cowell’s The X Factor TV show – the UK equivalent of American Idol.

It’s the usual talent show format – members of the general public audition, get selected to perform in front of a live TV audience and one by one, the public vote and eliminate one person each week until there’s a winner who receives fame and a multi-million pound recording contract.

Last weekend saw the surprise elimination of 21 year old Laura White – a talented singer tipped as one of the favourites to win the overall competition. It was quite a shock. Such a shock that it was even discussed in the UK Houses of Parliament by the Culture Secretary earlier this week!

And in fact, Daniel Evans who is by far the weakest singer left in the competition, amazingly survived. Based on singing ability, even a partially deaf person would realise that Daniel, should have been exited from the show.

But this is the X Factor. Members of the public vote to keep you in, not based on who is the best singer, but on who they feel most connected to. Laura was voted off, not because of a poor singing performance, but because of poor marketing and poor branding.

The same point applies to keeping your job during the current spate of restructuring and redundancies across the banking sector. It’s not just talent and ability that will keep you in your job – you also need to be able to market yourself to your internal audience.

I’m no expert on the music industry, but with my career management hat on, I can speculate as to why Laura was voted off and how the same points relate to you and your career during the current downsizing activity across the industry:

1. No clear personal brand

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This week, I broke one of the unwritten laws of travelling on London Underground trains – I spoke with a stranger! Indeed, I had a laugh and a joke with 2 strangers (gosh horror).

As London-based readers will know full-well, being friendly or chatty to strangers on the tube is a complete no-no. An activity that is strictly reserved for ‘nutters’, stalkers and Tenants Super drinkers (how can they drink that stuff at 8am?)

So what prompted this act of folly on my part?

Well, it was all prompted when I burst out laughing whilst reading the entertaining new book “City Boy – Beer And Loathing In The Square Mile” – an outburst which resulted in a discussion with 2 fellow passengers about the book and life in the City.

‘City Boy,’ is Geraint Anderson’s no-holds-barred account of what it’s really like to work in London’s financial centre. It’s an entertaining account of greed, corruption and the competitive spirit within the sector, along with the hedonistic lifestyle Anderson lived.

He has built up quite a following from writing an anonymous and widely-read column in
The London Paper over the last couple of years.

After 12 years in the City, Anderson realised that he could no longer tolerate his job or the lifestyle and left his role with Dresdner to write a book.

I’m only half way through the book, but so far it’s funny, shocking and true in so many ways.

It’s never going to win a Booker prize or change the culture within banking. But it will certainly make you laugh and get you thinking. And who knows, maybe you’ll even find yourself discussing it with complete strangers on the Tube.

So what are you tolerating?

Like Anderson, many of you are probably tolerating many things about your job, career and subsequent lifestyle.

This week’s newsletter article highlights some of the things many of the clients I meet are putting up with. Which ones apply to you?

See Also: 

The Lighter Side Of Subprime

The Career Change Experiment

Q&A – Are You Pigeon Holed In A Job?

Subsidising Your Dream Career

Satisfied With Your Bonus?

This weekend saw the final of the TV show Britain’s Got Talent – another one of Simon Cowell’s talent shows.

Yes, I know what many of you are thinking – ‘yet another example of low budget, tacky television.’
 
I agree, there are some really bad reality TV / talent shows around  (I mean that ‘Grease Is The Word’ thing was awful).

But I must admit, I do like Britain’s Got Talent compared to most of the other so called ‘talent shows.’

Why…?

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