Musings at Altitude

My 14 year old says that dictionary.com is my favorite web site.  That’s not really true.  ESPN.com and FoxNews.com get more attention from me, but I do like to see the definition of certain words and then think through what that definition means in the context of business today.  Today’s word is transparency.

A few months ago, I made a comment to my executive team that I wanted transparency in our organization, and one of them quickly popped back with “what’s your definition of transparency?”  What a great question, because I had never thought about that before.  In fact, I’ve used transparency a lot in my leadership roles, and this was the first time that someone asked for clarification so that the team could meet expectations if that was truly a goal.

So today I was looking for the definition of “transparency”.  I’ve always considered transparency to be full disclosure…letting people know exactly the situation you are in and providing open and honest answers to any questions that are asked…and then also letting the team be involved in seeking resolution to problems or developing roadmaps for future journeys.  But I can see how very good people would then ask, “so how do we achieve transparency in our organization?”  Do we really allow full disclosure?  Do we really tell people exactly what the situation is?  Do we really provide open and honest answers to questions that are asked?  And do we really encourage team involvement in resolutions or trip planning for the journey ahead for the business?

For most organizations, the answers to all of those questions seem to be “no” much more than “yes”.  Transparency gets lost in the spin that is made to make numbers look different than they are.  Transparency is lost when we give out just enough information to drive the behavior we want from the organization when the behavior may be very different if the full accounting of the numbers was known.  Transparency is lost when we drive actions and define journeys that fit our own egos or fulfill our own personal agendas within an organization.  And, transparency is lost when we use “values” to justify actions taken when those actions aren’t driven by values at all.

In times of great challenge, transparency is more critical than ever.  This past week, President Obama issued his new rules on ethics and transparency.  He said that “there’s been too much secrecy in this city”, and he promised to stand beside those who wanted to make information known to others.  He committed himself and his administration to an era of transparency.  I smiled when I read that, because I know the nirvana he’s chasing and I know how hard it is to achieve.

Even so, I wonder if its time for businesses and business leaders to do the same thing.  I wonder what would happen if team members across an organization had a level of understanding of critical business information that allowed each and every person to provide input, feedback, criticism, and support.  I wonder what would happen if those at the lowest levels or remotest outposts of a business felt fully integrated to the business and fully informed about the business.  What would happen if leaders were required to trust those team members 8 levels below them and those team members were not required to blindly trust those in leadership roles?  Transparency, it seems, would bring just that.

I’ve often said “I’m seeking nirvana” and I’ve often been accused of living in a dream world.  I’m guilty of both.

True transparency would be nirvana and I certainly hope its not just a dream.

PS. Dictionary.com defines transparency as this – “the full, accurate, and timely disclosure of information.”  I can live with that.