In a dinner conversation with friends we were talking about relationships, work, finance, success etc.I proposed that AUTHENTICITY is the most scarce & precious resource & trait. Families & Friends need more authenticity in relationships. They don't want fake conversations and relationships. Employees want their employers to be more authentic and share the good, bad and ugly news directly without any spin. Bosses want their team members to share what they are good at and what they can do and cannot do and by when. Clients & Customers want the same from their suppliers and partners. They want the promises made by sales & marketing to be delivered with authenticity and client services to be authentic.
Since I am in Healthcare, will share an example from my Industry. When we visit a doctor, hospital or lab, we expect the doctor or lab to tell us the diagnosis and test results quickly and accurately. We don’t want to be given false alarms or hope and neither do we want to get false hopes. If you as a doctor think that I might be in Wheelchair in 10 years or die in 6 months or am fit enough to climb Mount Everest or run NY Marathon in under 2 hours then tell me exactly that. Of course with all the sub-clauses and caveats about probability, Ceteris Paribus etc. Tell me the BP or Heart Rate or Cholesterol numbers as is and what the likely consequences could be and what the preventive or curative actions are. Similarly as a Health Insurance company we need to tell the members before enrollment on likely financial impact given their personal health & financial situation. What the best options are and what the consequences could be. Also it should be in simple layperson language and not in complex legal language with lot of sub-prints. We all would appreciate if we are told pre-enrollment what the options are, what the costs and what the financial and health impact would be. Similarly if the diagnostics organization shares the results with patients, doctors and others in an easy to understand format and share-able manner so that multiple facilities could use the results than blood being withdrawn from a patient multiple times for the same tests.
Coming back to the high level thesis that there is an acute shortage of trust & transparency in the corporate world, political world and even in social networks. Your Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn posts might indicate that you are having a rocking time with fun vacation in exotic locations while the truth is you are going through a terrible tragedy in personal life. We all would love our friends, family members, and colleagues, to tell us exactly where we are and that we are feeling on top of the world or maybe we need help.
As I started this conversation realized that few key themes around being Authentic would be a) Integrity b) Transparency, c) Trust, d) Original e) Honesty. Many of them almost synonyms but each require more detailed examination in future.
To conclude I feel there is an acute shortage of authentic conversations, behavior and people in the world. We all would be willing to pay a premium for that. Authentic family members, friends, colleagues, partners are in scarcity. They deserve and will get a premium
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Footnote: Started reading up a bit on Authenticity after writing my thoughts to find what other wiser people have said about the topic. Below are few links I came across on a quick google. Haven't had a chance to review the articles yet so please excuse if any of the links is not so authentic
- Brand Authenticity in Healthcare
- http://www.amazon.com/Women-Leadership-Health-Care-Authenticity/dp/0787909335
- http://healthissocial.com/communication/authenticity-in-healthcare-communications/
- http://medibeauty.biz/the-5-cs-of-healthcare-marketing-enhance-your-authenticity-by-encouraging-conversations-part-ii-of-a-series/
