Why Authenticity is Important for Professional Success

Does anyone know the relationship of these, the cassette and a pencil?

Many people of the older generation would still remembered the good old days of cassette, the problem that came with it and the simple solution. Yes, times have changed. Since the onset of the pandemic, we have been battling with the dreadful COVID-19 but now we are learning to live with it. Meetings are moving from face-to-face to online, and this opens door to more collaborations with others globally. Companies and organizations are moving into new culture of working-from-home. Retails, food and beverages, and delivery services are moving online and into mobile applications platform.

With the increase of moving everything online and virtually, it literally opens out doors of more options and choices for anyone looking for anything. For groceries, now we have GrabSupermarket, Gogopasar Online, Win Grocer, HappyFresh, VillageGrocer and many more; for food we have FoodPanda, GrabFood, HomeTaste.my, Tapaola.my etc., Hence, consumers today need to feel a real connection with the content that they are consuming. Otherwise, they will look for something else that is more authentic. Any businesses needs to be transparent and honest in order for consumers to believe in them. They need to understand what the company stands for and how it is providing a benefit to their customers or clients. For example, today my family had ordered food from GrabFood and the driver’s phone had went dead halfway and that delay his trip to send the food over to my place. When the food arrived almost 2 hours later, we contacted Grab that the food was cold. Just asking us to take a photo of our food (still in package) and without any hesitant, GrabFood refunded us the payment! Unfortunately it was not the same service and attitude we got from another vendor, when we did not get our food after 2 hours of waiting. The customer service just went through some standard answers with us and that was it! All we got were a few apologies. With the former, we felt the company’s authentic mission of really serving us, while the latter were simply going through motion. Unlike before where consumers would compare two brands and pick the one that seemed better, now they can just choose the brand that resonates with them on a personal level. They will decide if the brand is worth their time or not based on how it makes them feel rather than by how well it performs in comparison to other brands.  

As an individual, to be professionally successful, we also need to be authentic. This is even more so if we are leaders. During this disruptive times, we are all going through lots of uncertainties, changes and tough situations. Many of us are going through emotionally in a personal level. We might be feeling stressful yet being resilient; dealing with anxiety from unforeseen changes and challenges, yet embracing the unknown. There is no point of trying to be perfect, that is, faking it that you are not affected at all by all these. Put your real self out there. Others want to hear your vulnerabilities, know your personal values and beliefs and, appreciate it if you can do likewise with them!