The Authentic Organization

I’m grateful for your queries, as much as I am for your answers and your stories. Please don’t hesitate to challenge me to be more specific, to give me counterexamples, or, as a reader of Nonprofit Online News did, just ask some really good questions:

Is there a difference between being an authentic agency and offering authentic services? If there is, which is better? Is there a Socratic form of authenticity one should strive for, some idealized notion of what it means to be an authentic agency? Should we care? Should agencies focus more on their state of being than on accomplishing their goals? Is it possible in a world of political correctness, funder’s desire for the latest fad, and competitive funding sources to really be an authentic agency yet still accomplish your mission? What is the difference between authenticity and ethical action?

I am delighted by these questions. In essence, the author sets up a classic philosophical distinction between being and doing and then asks which is more important. The implication is that my theme might lead us down a road that takes us away from effective or ethical action, to some possibly fuzzy state of “authentic” existence. I share the author’s concern. If we don’t take such questions seriously, then ultimately our endeavor here will be shallow at best. Or worse yet, trite.

But first, since the author references Socrates and poses an existential question, I can’t resist responding by quoting Kurt Vonnegut (and countless college bathroom walls):

“To be is to do”–Socrates.
“To do is to be”–Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”–Frank Sinatra.

I confess I come down on the side of Sinatra on this one. Being and Doing emerge together, but Doing is our frame of reference. We will come to know people and organizations by their actions.

I don’t imagine that there is some idealized state of authenticity for all organizations, and probably not for a single one either. Organizational enlightenment doesn’t even seem like a useful concept, at least as compared with the day to day, real world struggle with authentic work. This is likely to be my most straightforward response to the question of an idealized notion of authenticity: No, we shouldn’t care.

“Is it better to be effective or authentic?” It is the refusal to choose, I submit, that makes this all so interesting. To insist that this is a false dichotomy is what will put us, and our organizations, on a lifetime path of growth. Life is not about means versus ends; it’s about both. To say that ends should be at the service of means can lead to process oriented inaction. To say that means should be at the service of ends can lead to … Well, actually, it can lead to horrors, as any student of history knows.

“What is the difference between authenticity and ethical action?” Some critics called the existentialists morally adrift because of their focus on authenticity. Frankly, that strikes me as a terribly pessimistic view of human nature. Great evils are committed by people cut off from their own pain and by institutions cut off from the human consequences of their actions. The call for authenticity is fundamentally a call for integrity.

“Is it possible in a world of political correctness, funder’s desire for the latest fad, and competitive funding sources to really be an authentic agency yet still accomplish your mission?” I certainly think it’s possible to accomplish an organizational mission authentically. But the author raises a practical question to which there is no easy answer. Although I’m not sure what “political correctness” means in this context, I do think that funding dynamics play a large role in pulling organization’s off kilter. But do such pressures preclude authenticity? No more so than all the other serious challenges that constitute the landscape of organizational life.

How would you answer these questions?