Personally 4 U

[Margorie Gomoran]

MaintainingCredibility: Leaders who react emotionally to every critique or slight can appear insecure or unstable. Maintaining a calm demeanor in the face of criticism helps to establish and retain credibility.

Building a Positive Culture: If a leader takes everything to heart, it can create a tense environment where team members are afraid to voice concerns or share feedback. Leaders who handle feedback without taking it personally encourage open dialogue and foster trust.

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Think about this in the context of decision-making. Recall a past decision that you regret (we all have them, I certainly do). Did it stem from personalizing someone's actions? When we take things personally, our decision-making becomes clouded. We shift from pursuing what's best for ourselves or our organization to defending our turf. Our focus shifts from productivity to self-preservation.

But here's the secret: most people have their own issues and perspectives. Their actions are rarely about us. (Think about it; how much time do you spend obsessing over the flaws of colleagues as opposed to your own?) Embracing this truth not only improves our performance but also deepens our relationships, both at work and at home.

It starts with working on our inner game. Journaling is a powerful tool to sort through the chaos of thoughts and emotions. Spend just 5-10 minutes a day, asking yourself insightful questions. "Tell the story from the other person's perspective." "What can I believe about this situation to make me feel better?" Uncover the truths that will elevate your inner game. Trust me, they're there, waiting to be discovered.

Real change requires systemic transformation on an organizational level. Of course, there is only so much we can do alone. Building a culture of non-personalization and constructive communication is essential. High-performing teams thrive on difficult conversations. Encourage and facilitate these discussions, as they unveil personalization tendencies and foster understanding. Leadership coaching and training can also be game-changers in this journey.

Second, remind yourself: "I don't need to be liked." You don't need your employees to like you. You do need them to like their jobs and feel fulfilled and excited and motivated to work. But you don't need them to like *you* as a person.

The minute you let go of the notion that you don't need to be liked, by your employees, your leadership team, etc., your focus begins to shift toward what's best for the company overall. Doing so allows you to open up and hear things that you might've previously taken personally.

The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates has four common variants based on personal or personally, and identifiable or identifying. Not all are equivalent, and for legal purposes the effective definitions vary depending on the jurisdiction and the purposes for which the term is being used.[a] Under European Union and United Kingdom data protection regimes, which centre primarily on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),[4] the term "personal data" is significantly broader, and determines the scope of the regulatory regime.[5]

National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-122[6] defines personally identifiable information as "any information about an individual maintained by an agency, including (1) any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual's identity, such as name, social security number, date and place of birth, mother's maiden name, or biometric records; and (2) any other information that is linked or linkable to an individual, such as medical, educational, financial, and employment information." For instance, a user's IP address is not classed as PII on its own, but is classified as a linked PII.[7]

Personal data is defined under the GDPR as "any information which [is] related to an identified or identifiable natural person".[8][6] The IP address of an Internet subscriber may be classed as personal data.[9]

The concept of PII has become prevalent as information technology and the Internet have made it easier to collect PII leading to a profitable market in collecting and reselling PII. PII can also be exploited by criminals to stalk or steal the identity of a person, or to aid in the planning of criminal acts. As a response to these threats, many website privacy policies specifically address the gathering of PII,[10] and lawmakers such as the European Parliament have enacted a series of legislation such as the GDPR to limit the distribution and accessibility of PII.[11]

Important confusion arises around whether PII means information which is identifiable (that is, can be associated with a person) or identifying (that is, associated uniquely with a person, such that the PII identifies them). In prescriptive data privacy regimes such as the US federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), PII items have been specifically defined. In broader data protection regimes such as the GDPR, personal data is defined in a non-prescriptive principles-based way. Information that might not count as PII under HIPAA can be personal data for the purposes of GDPR. For this reason, "PII" is typically deprecated internationally.

The U.S. government used the term "personally identifiable" in 2007 in a memorandum from the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget (OMB),[12] and that usage now appears in US standards such as the NIST Guide to Protecting the Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information (SP 800-122).[13] The OMB memorandum defines PII as follows:

Information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual's identity, such as their name, social security number, biometric records, etc. alone, or when combined with other personal or recognizing linked or linkable information, such as date and place of birth, as well as the mother's maiden name, in official standards like the NIST Guide, demonstrates a proactive approach to ensuring robust privacy safeguards amid the dynamic landscape of data security. This integration into established standards is a foundational framework for organizations to adopt and implement effective measures in safeguarding individuals' personal information.

Article 2a: 'personal data' shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity;

Any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person[15]

A simple example of this distinction: the color name "red" by itself is not personal data, but that same value stored as part of a person's record as their "favorite color" is personal data; it is the connection to the person that makes it personal data, not (as in PII) the value itself.

(e) For purposes of this section, "personal information" means an individual's first name or first initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements, when either the name or the data elements are not encrypted: (1) Social security number. (2) Driver's license number or California Identification Card number. (3) Account number, credit or debit card number, in combination with any required security code, access code, or password that would permit access to an individual's financial account. (f) For purposes of this section, "personal information" does not include publicly available information that is lawfully made available to the general public from federal, state, or local government records.

The concept of information combination given in the SB1386 definition is key to correctly distinguishing PII, as defined by OMB, from "personal information", as defined by SB1386. Information, such as a name, that lacks context cannot be said to be SB1386 "personal information", but it must be said to be PII as defined by OMB. For example, the name "John Smith" has no meaning in the current context and is therefore not SB1386 "personal information", but it is PII. A Social Security Number (SSN) without a name or some other associated identity or context information is not SB1386 "personal information", but it is PII. For example, the SSN 078-05-1120 by itself is PII, but it is not SB1386 "personal information". However the combination of a valid name with the correct SSN is SB1386 "personal information".[16]

The combination of a name with a context may also be considered PII; for example, if a person's name is on a list of patients for an HIV clinic. However, it is not necessary for the name to be combined with a context in order for it to be PII. The reason for this distinction is that bits of information such as names, although they may not be sufficient by themselves to make an identification, may later be combined with other information to identify persons and expose them to harm.

When a person wishes to remain anonymous, descriptions of them will often employ several of the above, such as "a 34-year-old white male who works at Target". Information can still be private, in the sense that a person may not wish for it to become publicly known, without being personally identifiable. Moreover, sometimes multiple pieces of information, none sufficient by itself to uniquely identify an individual, may uniquely identify a person when combined; this is one reason that multiple pieces of evidence are usually presented at criminal trials. It has been shown that, in 1990, 87% of the population of the United States could be uniquely identified by gender, ZIP code, and full date of birth.[17]

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