A mentor and his disciple are walking side by side.
“Do you love me?” the disciple asks. “Of course I do,” the mentor replies.
“Then tell me,” the disciple says, “which tooth of mine is hurting me?”
“How could I know?” the mentor answers. “You never told me you had a toothache.”
True love means feeling another’s pain: If you loved me as you say, you would know I was hurting.
I recently heard this parable at a memorial service for a young man recently killed in an accident. He was a member of the Israeli Defense Force and a grenade inadvertently went off, killing him and a colleague. His parents are friends of my family.
Authenticity: Is It Real?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “authentic.” It’s the new buzzword in our industry much the way servant leadership occupied the minds of executives a decade ago and, for some, still does.
I fear the word has become cliché and has lost meaning. At virtually every trade event, some speaker talks about the virtues of authenticity. Across the retail landscape, I hear numerous operators speak about how they create an authentic experience even when many of their stores lack variety and face severe out-of-stock problems.
Struggling for its understanding, I reached out to my friend Howard Stoeckel, whom I’ve long admired for his outstanding contributions to one of our industry’s shining lights, Wawa. Howard is always thoughtful and aspirational, eager to learn from the best of the best across numerous sectors, from convenience to restaurants and airlines.
Howard’s column on the topic can be found on p. 28. After writing a few drafts, he conceded that it’s much easier to demonstrate authenticity than to define it.
Drawn from the Greek authentikos, the word is value-free. One can be authentic and yet immoral. A business can be authentic yet mediocre.
Authentic is most often defined as genuine and real. I asked several friends how they would interpret authentic. Some of the responses:
“The real thing, not an imitation. In personal terms, an authentic person is one whose outward self matches inward self.”
“Being true to yourself.”
A friend referred to Jim Collins’ “Good to Great” and said for a business, authenticity means “to place the company/organizational focus on a finite number of areas that converge most closely with the organization’s ‘passion.’ ”
Love and Respect
Let’s refer back to the parable from the memorial service. The clergy who shared those words spoke about another important human ingredient: respect. Aretha Franklin belted out each letter with passion and conviction, and the Bible speaks of honoring one’s parents, while loving thy neighbor.
If love is defined perhaps by empathy and concern, respect is the sum of sympathy and acceptance of one’s humanity.
Our politics today want for respect. Our dialogue on disputes around race, religion and gender equality more often devolves into monologues among the like-minded.
Terrorism metastasizes through utter disrespect of another’s faith or right to live differently. Love flounders when respect for the other falters.
In the parlance of today’s business world, where it is used to praise the best of us, perhaps authenticity means respect. When I go into a Wawa, a Kwik Trip or a Cumberland Farms, I feel respected. I am welcomed not only by an ambient architecture, but, more important, by the store associates.
I am more than a transaction. I’m even more than a guest. I am a member. I matter to you not only for what I spend, but for wanting to spend my time in your store.
In my religious tradition, there is a story about a scholar named Akiva who amassed a tremendous study hall that housed 24,000 students. As was the practice, the students studied in pairs. Each was a scholar. Each was brilliant and had mastered the ancient religious texts. Yet tradition says God cast a plague against them. All 24,000 were killed.
Why? The ancient rabbis of the Talmud say it was because one did not accord to the other respect. Lost in their fervor was a sense of respect for the other’s humanity, for the other’s essence. For the other’s authenticity.
Mitch Morrison is vice president and director of Winsight’s Retail Executive Platform. Reach him at mmorrison@winsightmedia.com.
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