Folding To Fit in the Box

Photo credit: 19Production House | Matt Osborne

There is a lure to following a structure. It’s clear, understood, and seems to result in success. I work in the finance space and I’ll be damned if every single marketing and educational piece out there does not sound the same. Compounded by the way we talk, there is also the degree of the compulsory desire to look the part to play the part. This is not a feminist conversation about wearing pinstriped suits or pencil skirts, nor wearing your hair in a low bun or wearing a weave.

Sure, I’ve talked to many women who felt they needed to dress a certain way to not lose the respect of their colleagues. There are men who, in like manner to assimilate, speak up often to evade being noticed as someone who knows nothing. What is this shapeshifting and who started it? Where did it come from? Why do we perpetuate it?

Remember that much has shifted in our world. When we took the giant leap to a more common work-from-home life, we all became a little more empathetic to other's lives outside of work and also yearned for mutual empathy as we navigated the juggle like being on a zoom call in a hoodie or taking a break to help a child with virtual learning. Are we not more human than we have ever been in our professional persona? Yet marketing and corporate social media is stuck in the salesly, edu-heavy format.

Compliance departments keep people locked in, but also we keep ourselves locked in. We stay in our designated lane. This is how a respected, trustworthy expert would talk, producing content that showcases my expertise and vast knowledge (please note the dripping sarcasm). This feels like a box. A box called “professional” or “expert” that we clobber to fit into so well thinking everyone watching will say, “Ah, what an outstanding box! I want to do business with this box. I trust a box.”

If everything looks the same then nothing would stand out, to point the obvious. If you work with an expert that sounds like they know what they are talking about you are setting aside your fear, hoping they know what they are talking about, and now at least the decision of choosing the expert is over with. That trust in the expert then is not really confidence, it’s more like an, “I know who I can point my finger at if this goes sideways.” That unstable version of trust is not what the world really wants from its experts. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a great relationship with a box. When it comes down to it, you want to like the person you do business with and you want to feel comfortable and safe like you’re in good hands and don’t have to worry about it anymore. That true trust births first from connection. Connection happens when your message resonates on a personal level.

The world is ready for things to break away from the cold, institutional persona. The old way of doing things is advertising and representing the company you work for. Look at how people get lost on their social handles because it's all advertising for the company they work for, but then when they switch jobs their whole feed is new and about the new company. But who is this person? We can’t tell. We can only see their employer. When you shape your professional persona clearly, then people identify with you, your thoughts, and your content. Then they find out what you do and it totally makes sense because that is totally something that you would do. For example, if you talk about traveling on a budget and raising a family on a dime and then people discover that you work for a financial advocacy group it all comes together because that makes sense for who you are and what you are about. Let’s shed the institutional layers and the robotic “Did you know….blah blah blah random industry fact” and show people what you believe in. Show your core so true that the right audience cannot help but discover you.

In all reality, if you had to fold yourself to fit into a box, were you supposed to be there in the first place or for very long?

Be bold, not perfect, and show us what you believe in. 

Originally posted on The Naked Professional newsletter