2008

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

October 17, 2008

Tweet 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, […]

Read the full article →

Mix Fake and Real, the Palin Way

October 8, 2008

Tweet People are hungry for authentic leaders and authentic organizations .  Assessing an organization’s authenticity or a candidate’s authenticity is one way that we gauge where to place our trust. To entice people to trust us, we need to make them think the organization is authentic. Sometimes, we may even want to create "Fake Authenticity" […]

Read the full article →

4 Ways Palin Creates a Fake “Reality”

October 3, 2008

Tweet In my earlier post, Use Real Authenticity to Establish Fake Authenticity: Sarah Palin shows organizations how , I argue that Palin is a useful role model for organizations in the way that she has gone about creating "Fake Authenticity." Establishing Fake Authenticity has two steps, and in this post I’ll discuss Step 1: Creating […]

Read the full article →

Use Real Authenticity to Establish Fake Authenticity: Sarah Palin shows organizations how

October 2, 2008

Tweet Almost anywhere we look at this election season there’s something to learn about authenticity.  This is especially true when we’re able to draw analogies between individuals and organizations. Watching the ways that individuals work to present themselves as authentic , we can learn tactics that organizations can use. Sarah Palin has been very effective […]

Read the full article →

Obama’s Website Made Me Cry

September 23, 2008

Tweet 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 […]

Read the full article →

The 3 Inviolable Rules of Authentic Organizations

September 17, 2008

Tweet While working on some ideas in the pipeline, I realized that I have a few absolutes about what defines when organizations are being authentic. I’ve tried to whittle these down to their basic descriptions and to take away a bit of the specificity that makes the ideas seem academic and/or too complex.  Here are […]

Read the full article →

3 Things the New York Jets Can Teach You About Authenticity

September 10, 2008

Tweet 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. […]

Read the full article →

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

September 5, 2008

Tweet 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 […]

Read the full article →

8 Ways to be Authentic: Tyson Foods suggests how

September 2, 2008

Tweet Tyson Food claims that, as part of its core values, it is “striving to be faith friendly”. But, if Tyson’s handling of the brouhaha over recognizing an Islamic holy day in the labor contract of its plant in Shelbyville, TN, is any indication, Tyson is having a hard time finding ways to demonstrate its […]

Read the full article →

Broken promises hurt twice as much

August 27, 2008

Tweet What hurts more: (a) An offensive organizational action or (b) an offensive action that displays inauthenticity? I vote for (b). An offensive action that displays inauthenticity hurts more than an action that is simply offensive.  Why? Because an offensive inauthentic action represents a broken promise. When an organization makes a claim to be a […]

Read the full article →