Tag: image
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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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The 3 Inviolable Rules of Authentic Organizations
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 these…
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Fake Names for Authentic Organizations? Thornberg & Forester
Is this organization being authentic by giving itself a fake name? photofrom digitalcontnentproducer.com There’s a funny little news tidbit in Sunday’s New York Times Business section, right below Tommy Hilfiger’s engagement announcement (as if that’s business news?). It’s a paragraph about a design & communications firm, Thornberg & Forester . Neither Thornberg nor Forester exist…
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Authentic or Not?: A Men’s Organization with a woman member
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
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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5 Reasons Why Being Authentic Can Be Bad For Your Organization
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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Defining Organizational Authenticity
What does it mean to be an ‘authentic organization’? I’ll be trying to answer this question in a number of different ways, but for this particular post, let me offer a somewhat academic perspective: Authenticity is a quality of experience that a member has of an organization, when the member feels a congruence between what organization believes…