Benefits of Authenticity

“What if you could buy social justice?” or Does ‘values shopping’ really make a difference?

December 15, 2008

Can for-profit, for-purpose organizations make a difference, if we patronize them? Thinking about an organization’s authenticity invites us to examine simultaneously what the organization does and how it does it. When we think about organizations being authentic, we assume that organizations have their business purpose — the thing that they’re out there to "do", and [...]

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What’s Better Than Branding the Organization with the CEO?

December 9, 2008

Graeme Martin , Director of the Centre for Reputation Management through People at the University of Glasgow, has written an interesting post on his blog, about the Dangers of Branding Leaders . Writing about the practice of creating an organization’s brand / identity from the celebrity personality of the CEO as a strategy for improving [...]

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Designing for Authenticity: More on the NY Jets

December 8, 2008

The December/January 2009 Issue of Fast Company has a lovely online slide-show of the NY Jets facility that follows up on the ideas in my post from September, on the 3 Things The New York Jets Can Teach You About Authenticity. ” The Jets demonstrate in their new facility ways that your organization can use its physical environment — the space where you put yourselves– to help it be more authentic.”

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…You can really see why New York  Jets EVP Sheehy would say: “Our building is the graduate school of football.”

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B Corporations and Employer Branding

November 27, 2008

Branding your organization as being "for purpose and for profit" might help you attract just the right kind of talented job applicants. At least that’s what the HR Folks at Reece Computer Systems seem to believe. In their job posting for a Consulting Engineer , Reece Computer Systems not only describes the position and the [...]

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The Secret to Obama’s Social Media Success? The Campaign was one step behind.

November 5, 2008

Everybody’s talking about how Obama’s campaign has revolutionized politics , due in large part to the way that the Campaign employed social media. But as much as it’s true that the Obama Campaign was one step ahead of McCain (and anyone else) in using social media, it was also one step behind just about every [...]

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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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Can Taking Responsibility for the Financial Crisis Be Good For You?

October 17, 2008

In a word, yes. You’d never know it from the conversation we’ve been having about our current financial crisis, but it’s true: Taking responsibility for your organization’s part in the financial crisis can actually be good for you. We’ve seen a variety of explanations for what’s been happening, some finger-pointing over who’s to blame, and [...]

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5 (More) Reasons Why Being Authentic Can Be Bad for Your Organization

March 13, 2008

Being authentic limits who your organization can attract as partners. Not every organization wants to do business with an organization that’s authentic, because authentic organizations can be demanding partners. Authentic organizations need partners who will support the organization’s dedication to authenticity, who will appreciate why the organization dedicates its resources to sustaining authenticity, and who [...]

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5 Reasons Why Being Authentic Can Be Bad For Your Organization

March 5, 2008

Being authentic requires constant vigilance. Authentic organizations need constantly to monitor the relationship between their identity, their image, and their actions. Ideally, the organization wants to catch (and fix) any misalignments before others notice, because these misalignments can easily be interpreted as signs that the organization isn’t authentic or isn’t intending to remain authentic. This [...]

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