When Someone Else Controls Your Reputation
Professionals often depend on intermediaries to represent their work. The manager who summarizes the analysis upward, the colleague who speaks for the team in the executive session, the account lead who describes the project to the client. In each case, reputation is mediated.
Mediation introduces distortion. The intermediary compresses, highlights selectively, and frames according to their own understanding. The professional whose work is described secondhand has no control over which elements survive the retelling.
Managing mediated reputation requires supplying intermediaries with what should not be lost. For those working through others, preparing the summary that carries is a skill within career growth in uncertain economies. Our representation framework provides briefing approaches.
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