Personal Capital

Your personal capital might be broken down and analyzed against two primary criteria. The first is the Currency or the capability used to transact with the world and the Stock or how this currency is stored.:

Knowledge Currency - we acquire and offer knowledge to the market through one of three routes, cognitive (head), affective (heart) or behavioural (hand).

	Heart - is the emotional or affective capability we use within ourselves to manage our relationship with others. Daniel Goldman describes it as the inner rudder that guides our life, directing who we are and where we are going. It is the inner force that gives us the necessary strength to make choices and set clear goals that will not be swayed by the views of others.
	Head - is our cognitive ability and is often viewed as our intelligence or general mental ability. It refers to the capability of people to process information and to use such information to manage their behaviours.
	Hands - is a generic term covering behaviours, physical activities, responses, reactions, movements, operations etc. In short, it is someone’s observable behavior or action.

Knowledge Stock - how knowledge is stored, in both tacit and explicit form.

	Explicit - knowledge is that which can be expressed in words and numbers and can be easily communicated and shared in the form of hard data, scientific formulae, codified procedures or universal principles. This is the hard and tangible knowledge that can be codified, replicated and readily transferred across an organisation.
	Tacit - is the informal, hard-to-pin down ability. It is in the fingertips or muscle capability – where people can perform a task, but find it difficult to explain. It can be the knowledge that you don't recognize that you have, e.g., how to open a door may not seem like "knowledge" until you meet somebody who's never seen a door.

If we combine these two elements we arrive at six factors that make up our personal capital and are presented to the market as our talent as seen in Figure 23

Figure 23- Talent Wheel

This Talent Wheel indicates the bandwidth of your personal capital. There are six levels ranging from Explicit Head through to Tacit Heart. This bandwidth is taken to market in the form of your Personal Talent and this creates market value.

Everything we do when building or maintaining our network can be seen to flow through these six aspects of our personal capital. For example:

	Explicit Hand - These are the behavioral strategies that you knowingly employ to build and manage your network. It might be the fact that you always seek to spend close time with people rather that just calling them on the phone.
	Tacit Hand – These are the physical or behavioral patterns that we follow without thinking. It might be the fact that your palms sweat when you walk into a strange group of people, you have a great way to build rapport and trust with strangers or you have a naturally charismatic style that makes people want to invite you into their network. The essence with this element is that you might know that you can create value using this capital but are not sure how you do it or can stop doing it.
	Explicit Head – These are the maps, strategies and process that I consciously and knowingly use to manage my world. It might be who the key people are in my field, business strategies or books and ideas.
	Tacit Head – This is the unspoken and often unknown assumption or maps that we use to manage ourselves and others. This might be who is ‘in’ and ‘out’ at any moment in time. Without consciously realizing I often notice that I am spending more time with certain people or associating with certain groups whilst other groups have faded into the background. This hasn’t been a conscious thing it is just a gradual re-mapping over time. Only by becoming more conscious of this tacit re-mapping process that can occur can I ensure that I don’t lose contact with people with whom a large stock of social capital can be generated.
	Explicit Heart – These are the known emotional strategies that we use to motivate ourselves and build relationships with others. It might be the little mantras that are repeated inside or a well practiced phrase or joke that will help break the ice.
	Tacit Heart – The tacit heart factor is the inner-security that gives us the confidence to be who we are and not worry about what other people may say or think about us.

This is essentially the bandwidth or spectrum that you present to the network (and your market). It is really important that you understand what you offering for each of the six layers and tune the presentation accordingly[1]. For example do others value your explicit ideas and thoughts; do they value you for you deep tacit appreciation of a particular market; do they call upon you because you have certain physical skills and behaviour that you can employ with the team; do they feel that your strength is in your tacit negotiation skills; is part of your appeal the emotional techniques that you use when presenting in front of a large audience; or is your strength the fact that you have strong inner security that allows you to really challenge clients in pressure situations.

As you attempt to differentiate yourself with the network then one way is to use the talent wheel and ask yourself what do I do in each of the six layers, where are my unique skills, in what area am I seen as a commodity and what can I do to enhance any of the important layers. For example the chart below shows the first cut that a consultant might make in mapping their talent wheel as they define what they offer against each of the 6 segments:

Explicit Hand

	- General consulting skills.
	- Specific functional or technical skills.
	- Ability to produce reports/presentations etc
	- Listening strategies
	- Relational or rapport building strategies.

Tacit Hand

	- Facilitation skills – putting people at ease.
	- Open/closed body language as necessary
	- Doing the right thing at the right time.
	- Intuitive bridge building.
	- Kinaesthetic skills.

Explicit Head

	- Intervention/change frameworks
	- Business organisation
	- Measurement techniques
	- Industry/sector knowledge
	- Diagnostic and clarification strategies
	- Negotiation strategies
	- Financial Models
	- Influencing/Political strategies
	- Decision making tools
	- Modelling frameworks
	- Ethical criteria
	- Information Technology
	- Case history/stories

Tacit Head

	- Knowing when not to intervene
	- Intuitive problem solving approach
	- Knowing when not to give the answer
	- Give a sense of assurances that have seen it before.
	- Able to make Intuitive links and synthesise.
	- Using the right language (social, political, organisational)
	- Rules of thumb associated with previous experiences
	- To know when to bluff and when to concede in negotiation.
	- Financial prudence
	- Deep influencing patterns.
	- Intuitively identify the optimum choice.
	- Ethical choices and consequences
	- Knowing what pricing strategy to employ

Explicit Heart

	- Espoused or stated values
	- Customer relationships strategies.
	- Sales techniques and strategies.
	- Able to map the emotionally needs of the moment
	- Inner-security strategies – personal mantra’s

Tacit Heart

	- Charisma that gets you through closed doors
	- Self confidence or inner-security
	- To just ‘know’ when someone is faking it or lying
	- Broad shoulders to take flack meant for the client
	- Emphasise with the clients and consumers pain during the change
	- Independence and willing to walk.
	- Values and integrity.
	- Socially responsible and feeling for the right thing to do

Once the consultant has built their talent wheel then they can make decision on the areas that will offer the most differentiation. Much of this will be driven by two factors. What can they do better than other people in the network and what is it that that the network wants/needs/values. By understanding this then you can start to really define who you are and what you does that make you different.

Think about your talents in each of the six dimensions. What capital do you have in these areas that helps you build and manage a network? Do you have talents that separate you from the pack? Do you have liabilities, i.e. things that you don’t do well in any of the areas? If you don’t have capital in any of the areas can you trade with someone else to borrow it?

Unless you take the time to look inside and understand your personal capital and how you present this to the market then your whole networking process may be flawed. If you don’t have anything of interest for other people to want to network with you that the chances of getting a network up and running will be flawed to say the least!

If you are not too sure what your talent is then get a few people that you trust and ask them what they would praise you for, what would they tell others about you, or found out what customers repeatedly want your help on. You will then start to get an indication of the ‘deep you’. And the is where the uniqueness be found – so deep that no one else will be able to copy or replicate it because it is an essential part of who you are and what you can offer the network.

[1] For more on Personal Capital see Know your value? – Value what you know published by Mick Cope and published by Pearson.

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(c) Mick Cope