“The guy was too authentic to do his job!”
The employee in question worked for an organization that created “lifestyle” products for the action sports market. He worked as an editor and was responsible for updating the organization’s website every morning.
The organization positioned itself as having authentic insight into the action sports community, because its employees actively participated in the sports’ community and had personal relationships with many high-profile athletes. The organization liked to compare itself to big conglomerates (like Nike) who would swoop in to sell their products but who were not authentically part of the world of action sports.
One Monday, the employee’s manager tried to contact him to solve an immediate problem. The manager finally heard from the employee several hours later. The employee told him that he had decided to go on a week-long trip with some high-profile skaters.
A week-long skating trip? He hadn’t noted this as vacation time, and he hadn’t told anyone in advance that he would be gone. Moreover, while the employee claimed he could continue to get his work done while he was away skating, this wasn’t realistic. His job really did require full-time attention.
What was going on here?
From the manager’s perspective, the employee was just not doing his job. He was off having fun on company time, at a cost to the organization’s daily operation. But, the employee believed he was acting in a way that reflected skateboard culture — keeping it loose, keeping it real, and keeping on skating. He’d just gone off when the opportunity presented itself. He knew he’d have a great time, that he’d learn a new trick or two, and most importantly that he would develop his relationships with these celebrity skaters.
Was the employee doing his job, or not?
Certainly, the organization benefited from the employee’s personal relationships with celebrity skaters and from the fact that he (as well as several other employees) were active participants in the community. The relationships gave employees (and thus the organization) access to the celebrities. And, the employees’ visible participation in the skating community lent the organization “street cred”.
The employees activities were a key source of the organization’s authenticity.
What’s more, employees’ participation allowed them to see new trends, to get product ideas, and to interact with influential members of the community. Instead of hiring fancy anthropologists or market researchers, the organization was relying on the first hand knowledge of the employee-participants themselves. It was drawing its authenticity from employees’ personal relationships, personal credibility and personal expertise.
Connecting to the user community through employees can be an effective strategy for staying authentic, but… When the authenticity of the organization relies on its employees’ voluntary participation in a non-work community, the organization’s links to the community will be intermittent, serendipitous, accidental, and unpredictable. The organization’s link to the source of its authenticity is vulnerable.
Organizations have to structure this interaction intentionally. They have to make participating in the user community part of their employees’ jobs, they have to compensate employees for participating, and they have to sustain a balance between community activities and the day to day business of the organization. This needs to be accomplished not by accident but by design.
The organization should structure these authenticating activities into employees’ jobs and into the design of the organization itself. For example, the organization could:
- Sponsor employees to participate in community activities
- Sponsor events where the community shares information with the organization
- Create roles through which community members could occasionally contribute ideas to the organization (e.g., advisory boards, product testers, creative contests)
- Join with the community on a joint project that benefits a shared interest.
When these activities are part of employees’ official jobs, the organization not only protects but also enables its authentic connection to the community.
Designing in these activities solves an additional problem of potentially exploiting their employees. Now, instead of taking advantage of the expertise and relationships that employees developed in their free, non-work time, the organization recognizes, supports and compensates employees for the authenticity-related work that they do.
For organizations who draw their authenticity from a connection with and participation in any kind of outside community, there will always be tensions between being part of the community and part of a (business) organization that serves that community. The more aware an organization is of these tensions, the more they can structure in whatever activities they and their employees need to remain authentic. This way, their connection to the source of their authenticity is more reliable, more consistent, and yes, more authentic.
