Category: Hypocrisy
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If Stephen Colbert were the CEO of Zappos: Explaining a layoff to your employees
On The Colbert Report , it’s called "The Word". In Web 2.0, it’s called "transparency ". Historically, it’s called "telling the truth". As I was working on a more serious post about Zappos , I could not push aside my annoyance at the contradiction between the way the Zappos layoff has been discussed in the…
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Faking an Identity: How Inauthentic Organizations Dress Up
Special Halloween Edition In the spirit of Halloween, a time of costumes, treats and tricks, I’m inspired to start a list of ways that organizations dress themselves up so that they appear to be what they are not. Some of these terms and concepts are familiar. Some terms I’ve invented (4, 5, 6) and two…
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McCain Campaign Exploits the Race of Their Hired Help
The McCain Campaign has hired Obama supporters to work as as "paid volunteers ."Â As reported by Tom Baldwin in the UK Times, and picked up by The Huffington Post and the Daily Kos, the McCain Campaign is paying temp workers $10 an hour to go door to door handing out absentee ballot requests. Although…
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Organizational Identity, Employee Branding and Political Contributions: Should you care if The Body Shop leans Republican?
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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The Lyin’, the Which? , and The Wardrobe: Palin’s new clothes cost her more than $150,000
Sarah , Sarah , Sarah . Just when I’m ready to move on to other topics, you serve up yet another opportunity to understand organizations and authenticity. This time, the lessons are all about image, and the relationship between how we present ourselves and who we really are. If Palin’s wardrobe upgrade had been well-executed,…
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Mix Fake and Real, the Palin Way
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" in…
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Broken promises hurt twice as much
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 certain…
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The New York Junior League: To be more authentic, practice what you preach
If an organization wants to be seen as inauthentic, all it needs to do is to say one thing and do another. When an organization creates a gap between ‘who we say we are’ and ‘how we act’, it creates a common and avoidable authenticity challenge. This authenticity challenge is made even worse when an…