Strategic Shelf Styling for Effective Personal Branding in Virtual Teams

I was watching BBC news while away from home and noticed my eye drawn to what the presenter was saying. It was a psychology Professor in Sheffield interview on BBC.

I noticed how it seemed like he had carefully arranged how his office set up would appear on screen.

Beautiful home office set-up. Everything is well placed, he must be very organised and thorough

Is what I thought to myself

Having these thoughts made me later realise the important work that some of us corporate facing instructors are doing in helping leaders and managers engage their virtual teams more.

This week I ran a three hour workshop called Leading Virtual Teams and warned leaders about limitations stated in the research surrounding the risk of becoming invisible and missing out on promotion due to Hybrid working and tendencies to switch the camera off. See HBR article on Proximal Bias and Sloane Management Review article on Seeing the Unseen.

As many of my subscribers know, I’m keen to help workers overcome challenges with hybrid working and being in a virtual environment by showing how tactical shelf styling and office decor can be valuable to personal branding, networking and overcoming the hybrid working issues of being seen.

Case in point: Allowing Art to Connect CoWorkers Moving Beyond Just Being Seen

This week, I got another compliment from a colleague about my own backdrop. When I was telling her about my plans for the weekend of making and painting she looked horrified when I reached back to my shelf behind me to show her examples of my crafts. She then explained that she was shocked that what was behind me was real. She said.

I thought it was one of those pictures available in Teams

_{Colleague to me last week}

This then led to us sharing stories and listening to each other about the things we love doing. She thanked me for the conversation, she had enjoyed it. I feel better connected to her and I feel that she understands me better, where before it was difficult..

What tactics do you use to be seen in a world o Hybrid working? How often does your backdrop get a comment and spark conversation or represent your personal brand?