How Brett Favre can ruin your personal brand

Can we ignore for a minute the advantages and disadvantages of Brett Favre signing with the Minnesota Vikings? Let’s just agree on this: Brett Favre has no credibility in anything he says. He may be a great talent, he may help a football team and he has certainly performed in the past. But performance isn’t everything; indeed, how you go about getting the performance counts as well.

Brett has pondered the retirement thing for so long — and the media has gone along with the charade all the while — that I can’t remember when Brett was really just an active player playing on a team. Seriously, can you believe anything he says?

“So what, Scot, it has nothing to do with me toiling away in my cubicle.”

Well, yes, it does. If you want to build your personal brand by association, you can also ruin your personal brand by associating with people who have no credibility because your behavior changes working with them.

Consider the statements coming out of the current coach of the Minnesota Vikings, Brad Childress:

“He’s gone his way, and we’re going our way.”

“That does not detract from the team that we have. As we have consistently communicated, we feel good about our team and they have put forth a tremendous effort this offseason preparing for the season ahead. With this behind us, we look forward to getting to Mankato and getting training camp underway.”

That was at the end of July before training camps started in the NFL. Or consider the Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf at the same time:

“We realize, like he did, that when training camp came around that it was in or out and we’re very happy with what we have here.”

Now, after throwing his quarterbacks under a bus, Brad Childress says this:

“We believe adding a player such as Brett Favre to our mix will be a strong positive for this football team,” said Head Coach Brad Childress. “As we have conveyed before, his unique knowledge of our system, the NFC North and his innate skills make this a rare opportunity. We felt there was a brief window to reconsider the possibility and we owed it to the organization to evaluate our options. After thorough discussion, the same variables that made this a unique and positive situation previously, still exist. Now, our attention turns to getting to work as a team, our next practice and preparing for the season.”

Sounds just like Corporate Speak in many companies after they do a complete about-face on a strategy, doesn’t it?

Here’s where this affects you in your work. Do you think Brad Childress or Zygi Wilf now have any credibility with their players on the team? Do you think the three remaining quarterbacks will approach the new season differently? Do you think that players will believe Childress and the team owner when they say “no” to anything? Or “yes” to anything? Or will the players believe that they can just as easily get thrown under a bus despite what they say? Do you think there would be any loyalty to the management after this?

Just like in your working environment, people’s personal brand make a difference in how you do your work.

• If you work with a manager who has a reputation for poor performance, you get that reputation painted on you as well.
• If you are on a team that is perceived by management as not working on important matters for the business, your work performance won’t be considered important either.
• If you work in a department that consistently loses money, doesn’t stay on budget and doesn’t achieve the business objectives, you will be viewed as a person who can’t get things done.
• And if you work for a company that can’t manage itself and goes out of business, hiring managers at other companies will wonder if you were one of the people that couldn’t help the business and question whether they should hire you.

Yes, if you work with someone who has a poor personal brand, you’ll get tainted by the brand. In an ideal world, we shouldn’t have “guilt by association,” but you know as well as I do that’s not the case.

And in this case, if you work with Brett Favre, you can ruin your personal brand.