ReviewMyAMS.com tosses around the word “transparent” a lot. And I mean a lot. It’s because transparency leads to trust (maybe another topic for another day, Jamie?) and healthy competition. When dealing with our technologies, it’s important to have both of those. Special thanks to Jamie Notter for this insightful post and cheers to us all “giving more feedback and speaking more truth.” Босерон
In Humanize, Maddie and I devote a portion of Chapter 7 to the idea of transparency, and I’ve spent a lot of time since the book came out talking to audiences about this topic.
Because, frankly, it makes people nervous.
When it comes to leadership and management, we have not been taught to value transparency. We keep things behind closed doors, because knowledge is power. We value a consistent brand, so we limit what we can say about it. We worry (a lot) about all the (theoretical) negative things people will do if we share more information or tell more of the truth, so we keep our statements brief.
This approach, however, has outlasted its usefulness. We live in a different age today. I don’t just mean “different” like touch-tone versus rotary phone. I mean we are in a different age. A different era. And in today’s era, there is more power and potential in transparency than we seem to realize.
Look at Whole Foods, who has the audacity to share all of their salary and bonus data internally (gasp!). But they are strategic about this transparency. By sharing the bonus data, they enable their distributed network of teams to see who’s achieving the best metrics, so they can connect and learn from them. In the end, this makes the system more agile and effective.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell anyone how much you make (though feel free to run with that idea). There are no “best practices” when it comes to strengthening your culture, so you don’t have to copy Whole Foods.
But you do need to figure out how to make things more visible. Look at your organization and your industry and find ways to share more (strategically) than you do now. Give more feedback. Speak more truth. Get more of what has been behind the curtain out on stage, because even if it isn’t perfect, the world today (consumers, employees, stakeholders) expects full information, blemishes and all. Lack of data is actually more damaging than ugly data.
At Menlo Innovations, a software company, their project management data are posted on the wall of the office for everyone to see (using interestingly non-techie tools, like paper, colored dots, and yarn). Everyone sees how every other team is doing against their promised performance. Does this get you in trouble if you fall behind and your dots are the wrong color? No. It gets you help, so you can get caught up and make the client happy. See how making things visible can work?
It may feel counterintuitive to make the move to more transparency, but when you are strategic about it, the power and effectiveness of your system can grow exponentially.
Jamie has been speaking and consulting on issues of leadership, conflict, and diversity for twenty years.