Secrets, Like Water, Flow Downhill

photo by The Rocketeer

It never ceases to amaze that ‘leadership’ teams continue to hoard information and attempt to keep secrets from their organizations.

The rationale is (pick one or get creative and combine a couple):

It’s sensitive information
If it gets out someone may get hurt
It has the opportunity to be misconstrued
Nothing is final, things could change
‘They’ don’t really need to know
It will be disruptive, people will lose focus

Information is power and it’s human nature to try to stockpile power. But it’s also human nature to want to let others know that you are on the inside. That is often a more powerful motive. Thus, information leaks. ALWAYS. Admins talk. Executives tell their non-executive friends. They tell their friends. Before long everyone knows.

So why aren’t we more transparent?

Presumably you hired people to join your team because they were competent, responsible and had a lot of value to bring to the company. Shouldn’t you trust them?

Let’s look at the pros and cons.

Pros

There may be some things where knowing will cause more damage (nuclear passcodes are all that is coming to mind)

Um, help me out here…

Cons

You become a boss who is to be obeyed rather than a leader who inspires people to follow willingly
You look like a fool and, like the boy who cried wolf, don’t get the benefit of the doubt again
People share the valuable information even more widely because it’s taboo
You fail to get potentially valuable inputs from people lower in the organization
You treat people like children, they’re going to act like children
The ‘us vs. them’ gap widens dramatically and work becomes just a job to ‘them’
People are more hurt when you don’t show trust in them than in whatever the news holds

Your company’s goal should be to best your competition. To do that you need everyone pulling in the same direction.

Hoarding information only succeeds in creating rifts and demotivating. Often what you were trying to prevent (hurt feelings, misinformation, information finding its way out of the company, etc.) happens anyway and in a far more severe manner.

People have active imaginations and will create a situation far more dire than the one from which you were hoping to protect them. Or they’ll put their own spin on it and pass it along. Remember the game of telephone you played as a kid? Or when you don’t give people the trust and respect initially they won’t be likely to respect your desire to keep the information private once they know.

So let it out.

You’ll ensure everyone knows the same thing
That all the information is as accurate as it can be
You can share the caveats that should come with the information
You reinforce the fact that you all play for the same team
And, shockingly, by sharing you’ll ensure that the information is more tightly controlled outside of your organization

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2 Comments

Marie Adams

Posted May 11, 2009 at 10:10 pm | Permalink

Great post! Keeping communication lines open, even when it comes to "sensitive" information, will most likely build trust within your organization rather than hurting people. Make it less about "us" vs. "them" and more about teamwork, love the advice.
brentdaily

Posted May 11, 2009 at 10:25 pm | Permalink

Thanks for dropping by and commenting Marie. I really appreciate it.

I like your Training Time blog - lots of great surveys and metrics in there upon which you base your thoughts/advice. Incredibly useful. (And while I want to be a part of the 35% who work to live, I'm afraid I'm not there.)

One Trackback

By What Employees Want From Jobs | RoundPegg on June 11, 2009 at 10:41 am

[...] Trust. Be an ‘insider.’ Trust in your people to hold sensitive information close to the vest. Bring them into the fold. Being on the ‘inside’ and breaking down the ‘us vs. them’ barriers is a great way to establish allegiance. In particular, give them the information that impacts how they do their job or could fundamentally change their world. Poor communication begets poor action. It fosters resentment and ultimately makes you look bad anyway. [...]