Pro Tip: Creating authenticity
A few years ago, corporate America had an obsession with the word ‘authentic.’ It was a buzz-word requirement when describing your leadership style, your culture and, most importantly, you approach to business.
The challenge, however, is no one knew what that term actually meant. Authenticity was often conflated with likability, which is definitely not the same.
Pinning down what authenticity means, especially in the business world, is not easy. But all of us have the tools already to help us do this.
Whether you call it intuition or a ‘bluff meter,’ we’re all born with a sense of when someone is being honest, truthful and real. We know when we are being put on. This might be the voice in your head telling you something is too good to be true, or your stomach flipping when something just doesn’t feel right. You might hear someone speak and instantly get the ‘ick,’ that unique feeling that says, which way is the closest exit?
However it appears to you, that feeling is the uniquely human barometer giving you a read on authenticity. We use this native tool every day to evaluate interactions with other humans, so why aren’t we using this same barometer to evaluate business?
If you are wondering if your business presentation, speech, ad campaign, and anything in between, is being authentic or not, ask yourself these three questions.
Are you being truthful?
This is pretty straightforward. Does the data match? Do you have the receipts? How are you backing up your claim?
If you have credible evidence that says this is the case, then you are probably being truthful. I add ‘credible’ in front of evidence because I’ve seen some very selective reinterpretations of facts lately. Let me give you some free advice: if you have to manipulate the data, you don’t have the truth.
Do you believe what you are saying?
You may be thinking, didn’t I just answer that in the first question? Yes and no. There are times when you can be truthful but not actually believe what you are saying.
Let me give you an example: Your business has been combating a toxic work environment where employees feel like they can’t bring concerns to management without fear of retaliation. As part of your assessment, you conducted an employee listening session and the results show that your employee net promoter score (eNPS) has increased +3 points.
Using this data point only, you could say employee satisfaction has increased. But is that actually what’s happening? Toxic environments are notoriously hard to combat and your efforts to uncover the root causes may have caused people to clam up and without giving true feedback out of fear they’ll be targeted or identified as problems.
Let’s assume that is going on and you are asked if employee satisfaction has increased at your workplace. Responding with ‘yes’ may be truthful according to your eNPS score, but it is not honest and is certainly not what you know or believe to be true.
Is this actually answering the question?
In most communications, whether it’s a speech, an ad campaign, or an email to all employees, you have some version of the 5 W’s: who, what, where, when and why. These five questions aim to provide a succinct answer that covers all the bases. They give the necessary information.
In business, we love to answer specific questions with vague, corporate propaganda. Maybe you have a question about why there is no development for employees and your response is to provide the corporate wash of something like ‘everyone grows at different paces,’ ‘there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach because we care and aim for deeper connection,’… you are using a lot of words to say nothing when the real answer is something like, ‘Our executive team cut the budget for development programs this year because we did not hit our sales goals in the prior fiscal year.’
The second part is the honest answer! Yes, it’s not a great story. But it’s true. And people deserve the truth, even if it’s hard to swallow.
If you meet these criteria, you are 90 percent of the way to authenticity.
Remember, authenticity does not mean likability. It means being genuine, honest, and truthful.
Authenticity is admitting and owning who and what you are today. Authenticity answers questions fully - even the hard ones - and provides accurate information that we know and believe is true.