Creating Authenticity

Organizational Change Using Authentic Attributes

December 14, 2009

Tweet My friend Charles just took a new job ‘making rain’ for a creative services agency. The agency is well-known in its industry for producing top-quality product, but its business isn’t growing. Why has their business stopped growing? Charles thinks that the problem with the agency is that it is “Too German”. What does it […]

Read the full article →

How Job Crafting Can Get You Closer to Authentic Work

December 8, 2009

Tweet One of my favorite “authenticity tools”,  Job Crafting, has been featured in a Time Magazine article. I’m excited to see some popular discussion of Job Crafting, because it is one of the easiest and most direct ways of making your work fit who you are. Job crafting is the practice of (re-)shaping the job that you are expected to […]

Read the full article →

Bias Bingo: Blending Branding and Learning

November 4, 2009

Tweet I love it when basic business science can be applied to important causes. So, I was excited when my favorite FemaleScienceProfessor pointed me towards a clever website designed to teach about gender bias: The Gender Bias Learning Project. The Gender Bias Learning Project is a great demonstration of how basic web skills, clever marketing […]

Read the full article →

Is Twitter is Really Changing Comcast’s Culture?: 7 Signs to Look For

October 26, 2009

Tweet If you read TechCruch or pay attention to social media gurus, you might think that Comcast was really making progress towards becoming more customer-oriented. We hear a lot about Frank Eliason and his leadership in getting Comcast onto social media to respond to customer complaints that, increasingly, are being voiced online. With @ComcastCares on […]

Read the full article →

Can Starbucks Touch Your Soul?

October 8, 2009

Tweet When an organization is being authentic, you can feel it. Even when its character is being expressed in a very small way, or through a very small action, an organization’s expression of its authentic self can touch your soul. I was reminded of the power of small, authentic acts to touch your soul while […]

Read the full article →

Focusing on the Authentic in the Individual

October 2, 2009

Tweet Jamie and Maren Showkeir, authors of the book Authentic Conversations, also write a blog about the same concept. Their work is inspiring, and I often find myself referring to their book when I talk with organization members about how they can bring more authenticity into their organizations through their relationships with each other. Just […]

Read the full article →

The People Make the Place Authentic

October 1, 2009

Tweet When you think about “the organization” or “your organization”, do you simultaneously overlook the actual people in it? This tension between thinking of an organization as an entity and simultaneously recognizing that it is also a collection of individuals runs through all our conversations about organizations. When managers and leaders are considering their organization’s […]

Read the full article →

Can Walmart Earn the Girl Scouts’ Good Citizenship Award?

August 14, 2009

Tweet You don’t earn a merit badge for Good Citizenship by picking on the Girl Scouts. But what if Wal-mart wanted to? Commenters here and on other blogs that picked up my story that Wal-mart has chosen to compete with the Girl Scouts by knocking off the Girls Scouts’ two most popular cookies have criticized […]

Read the full article →

Thin Mint-y Gate: Wal-mart’s Socia Media Opportunity

August 8, 2009

Tweet Where is Wal-mart’s social media outreach? This ongoing experience with “Thin Mint-y Gate” is raising a bunch of questions, for the audiences reading and commenting on blogs, for the Girl Scouts and their community, and for me as a blogger & management scholar. I hope I’ll get a chance to address some of these […]

Read the full article →

Wal-Mart Knocks Off the Girl Scouts

August 3, 2009

Tweet (Welcome MacLeans Readers… Please join the conversation! ) Just when you think your opinion about Wal-mart might be changing… Just when you think that maybe, just maybe, Wal-mart was learning to be a better citizen… Wal-mart turns around and does something really … despicable. It’s not discriminating against women, strong-arming suppliers, polluting neighborhoods or […]

Read the full article →