Have you ever witnessed an employee whose personal identity is closely connected to the identity of his or her organization? I’ve written about Nick the doorman at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City and how fired up he is greeting cancer patients and their families. Nick actually begins making eye contact with patients when they are within eyesight walking toward MSKCC’s entrance (in Midtown Manhattan where no one makes eye contact). One reason why Nick is so fired up is that he is a cancer survivor who attributes his survival to the care he received at MSKCC.
One of the leading thinkers on identity is Larry Ackerman, founder of The Identity Circle. He wrote an excllent book entitled Identity is Destiny that effected the way I think about corporate identity and its impact on performance. Larry has come out with a new report entitled The Identity Effect. The report is based on a survey of 2,000 individuals across five industries. I wrote in the Connection Culture Manifesto and Fired Up or Burned Out, an organization’s identity has an impact on employee engagement and organizational performance if it inspires employees. Larry’s research supports that view and sheds some additional insights on the power of identity. I encourage you to read it.
