Creating Authenticity

The Day “The Patrick” Disappeared: A story of lost identity

October 20, 2010

Tweet This is a story about a quirky little cafe that disappeared. While I lived in town, and for a few years after we moved, this cafe was a touchstone, a demonstration, of one of the experiences that made our small town so interesting. When the cafe changed just one little thing, it lost what […]

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5 Tips About Realigning Organizations I Learned by Falling Off A Horse

September 20, 2010

Tweet (No, it was not “Get right back on.” Everybody knows that.) Sustaining organizational authenticity requires continually realigning organizational identity, purpose and action. But realigning can be harder to do than you’d think. I learned recently, after falling off a horse, that getting back into action was only the start of a longer, harder realignment […]

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Heaping Scorn & Criticism on Feminist Advocates at Newsweek

March 24, 2010

Tweet This week’s story about feminists at Newsweek who have publicly challenged that magazine for failing to make progress against gender discrimination encouraged me, as I’m sure it encouraged many others. To see someone, anyone, make a prominent critique of a prominent organization, and then to have that organization make this criticism public, should have […]

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Will Newsweek Respond to Claims of Sexism?

March 23, 2010

Tweet I would love to have been in the room when three journalists at Newsweek proposed that Newsweek publish their article criticizing Newsweek for gender discrimination. Why? You know you’re getting close(r) to authenticity when you can have a recursive sentence like that one written about changing things that are wrong at your organization. Here […]

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That Special Starbucks: Does the place help the people be authentic?

March 4, 2010

Tweet First it was the Siren. Then it was the Christmas cards. For a while, it’s been the original artwork by their very own baristas displayed on the walls.. And now, my favorite Starbucks is getting bouquets of flowers. On a recent visit, there were two big vases of flowers on the counter by the […]

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Authentic Student Entrepreneurs: Embedding Personal, Product and Organizational Brand

February 17, 2010

Tweet What do fledgling entrepreneurs need to know about creating authenticity? And what, if anything, does this have to do with cupcakes? I had a chance to try to boil it all down to a few key ideas when I taught two classes of an undergraduate Entrepreneurship course at NYU’s Stern School of Business. My […]

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Does the iPad Signal a Change in Apple’s Core Brand & Identity?

February 2, 2010

Tweet If products reflect an organization’s values and an organization’s identity, does Apple’s new iPad tell us something about where Apple as a company is headed? And, if that’s where Apple is going, do we all want to go there too? Here’s a proposition: Apple as an organization is changing, from an organization that’s “about” […]

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Work-Life Initiatives Are the Foundation of Authentic Organizations

January 29, 2010

Tweet Earlier this week I met with a group of organizational change advocates, each of whom is dedicated to reshaping the relationship between work and life. Work-Life issues per se aren’t really my gig, although I’ve had a fair amount of work-life conflict in my day as an employee and as a manager. However, I […]

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What’s going on at my favorite Starbucks?

January 13, 2010

Tweet There’s something going on at my favorite Starbucks. I’m not quite sure what it is. But there is new evidence today that this Starbucks is somehow special/better than the other 3 in my town. Before I tell you about that, I should probably explain that there are 4 Starbucks within a 2 mile radius […]

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The Happiness Project for Organizations

January 5, 2010

Tweet Like many fans of Gretchen Rubin’s blog, The Happiness Project, I spent a lot of time last week checking my front porch for a heavy box from Amazon (pay phrase: “biblio hyperemptor”).  Once my 9 my pre-purchased copies of her new book arrived, and after I gifted away 8 copies, I was able finally to […]

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