Great Examples

Organizational Identity, Employee Branding and Political Contributions: Should you care if The Body Shop leans Republican?

October 27, 2008

The Body Shop is Republican? Anita Roddick must be rolling over in her grave. Released last week were the results of a study that shows how organizations have supported the Republican and Democratic parties. The data include direct corporate support (through Political Action Committees) and/or the support of these organizations’ employees (through individual donations). You [...]

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6 Reasons Why Taking Responsibility is Good for Your Organization

October 22, 2008

In my previous post, Can Taking Responsibility for the Financial Crisis Be Good For You ?,  I argue that taking responsibility is the one thing that you and your organization can do , right now, to improve your organization’s financial future. When an organization takes responsibility, it shifts how it sees itself. It moves from [...]

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Obama’s Website Made Me Cry

September 23, 2008

It moved me from intent to action. It snuck past my shield of cynicism. It struck me at the core of what I care about. And it made me remember that what really connects people and organizations is the chance for them both to be authentic. What hooked me wasn’t the way the Campaign organization [...]

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3 Things the New York Jets Can Teach You About Authenticity

September 10, 2008

Who knew that the New York Jets knew so much about being authentic? The New York Jets moved into their new training facility in Florham Park, NJ, just last week. Stories about the new building (designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP) describe it as huge, high-tech, state of the art, and light filled. Take [...]

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Black Organizations: Authenticity through "an obligation to our own"?

September 5, 2008

What makes an organization or business authentically “Black”? [Or for that matter, what makes an organization authentically "feminist", authentically "Mormon", authentically "Republican", and so on?] By my definition, an organization is authentically “Black” not when the majority of its members or employees are Black, but when the organization promotes the interests of the Black community. [...]

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Homophobia and (In)Authenticity at Omnicom: What can a leader do?

July 24, 2008

I am struggling to understand the pattern of reactions to a recent critique of an organization’s authenticity. Bob Garfield, writing in Monday’s (7/21) Advertising Age, has an Open Letter to Omnicom President-CEO John Wren, asking Wren to look at the contradiction between Omnicom’s public Statement on Corporate Responsibility and the homophobia represented in three recent [...]

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Authentic Organizations communicate in their own special way(s)

June 8, 2008

Yesterday a reader left us an intriguing comment on a post I wrote months ago, about a conflict at the New York Junior League. [The post was one of my first efforts, and is so poorly formatted that I'm embarrassed to have you go look at it, but...] Liz wrote about how, at the NYJL, [...]

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Authentic or Not?: A Men’s Organization with a woman member

June 5, 2008

Recently, I told you about an organizational situation that raises some interesting questions about whether the organization is being authentic. The organization, a Men’s Chorus, has up to 249 male members and 1 woman member, my neighbor Joan Garry. I proposed that this organization is either very special or very inauthentic” how else could the [...]

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Authentic Food Organizations: Why I love my CSA

May 29, 2008

Spring is here, and I’m in love again… with my CSA. CSA as in “cyber-spouse avatar”? No, CSA as in Community Supported Agriculture. It’s a group of us — 55 families, Farmer John (that’s John, below), the five or so employees of John’s Starbrite Farm, and 20 weeks of organic produce. [Quick introduction: Community Supported [...]

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Authentic Organizational Partnerships: Organizational Brands, Names, the Columbus Children’s Hospital, and the Abercrombie & Fitch Trauma Center

March 19, 2008

+ = ??? In an earlier post, I mentioned that authentic organizations might find it hard to find appropriate partner organizations, because the qualities of the company you keep are often inferred to be the qualities of your organization itself. And now, in the news , is a great example of this very problem: The [...]

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