The Authentic Organization

Over the years, I often get asked questions about how to communicate something with a donor. For example: We have all these email addresses, but we haven’t sent anything to them for many months or more. We finally want to start a newsletter, which we had only previously hinted at. What do we say to [...]

A few days ago, I wrote a short piece on the idea of an organizational obituary as a tool for deepening authenticity. With the feedback I’ve received, it’s become clear that there are some ambiguities in the practice that prevent it from being as useful as we might like. These ambiguities are identical to those [...]

In the book Original Blessing, Meister Eckhard (via Matthew Fox) offers us an intriguing four part framework from which to examine the spiritual paths of individuals. I believe this framework has something to offer this conversation about the authentic organization.
In brief, the framework suggests that it can be useful to think of our walk through [...]

Over at Nonprofit Online News, we recently launched a Civil Society LifeWork Survey. I mention it here because of the way in which it touches on the matter of authenticity.
The survey opens with a series of more conventional questions, based on a broader Pew survey conducted in 2006. My main objective with these was [...]

I recently reviewed a book called Storytelling: Branding in Practice at Nonprofit Online News. In the chapter entitled “The Company Core Story” the authors present an exercise called The Obituary Test. It’s very similar to exercises I’ve done with both organizational and individual clients. I paraphrase it as follows:
Write down your company’s obituary. How would [...]

In many cultures, both organizational and social, it is in the avoidance of conflict that we often manage to lose our authenticity.
I am following some conventional or interpersonal dynamics (rather than global politics) in my use of the phrase ‘conflict avoidance’. I’m considering it as quite distinct from conflict management, conflict prevention, and conflict [...]

Every year, starting in late November and running through early February, I reflect on the manner in which the presence of death can ground us in the moment, and in our best selves. Does this work the same way for organizations? Or at least, can it be put to use in the context of organizational [...]