10

Be Transparent

Transparency builds trust, loyalty, and ambassadorship. Transparency builds a level of employee engagement that money, even lots of it, cannot buy. Telling people, of all ages and levels, what you can share about the business is vital if you want to keep people focused, efficient, and productive. The telephone game has sped up, and today misinformation can travel and snowball faster than at any time in history.

“Management providing transparency is really important,” says Andrew, twenty-six, associate on Wall Street. “Information is readily available—we know how to get the information we want.” Business today needs to be prepared to be as “open a book as possible so that rumors don’t get out of hand,” explains Joe, thirty-nine. “My parents were stoic, both at home and at work. I think that style doesn’t fly for these Millennial staffers.”

Communicate All The News You Can

Communicate when things are going well and when they aren’t going as well as you’d like them to. Resist the urge to gloss over difficult situations by saying things like, “Everything is fine, the business is doing great” when they aren’t and it isn’t. Millennials, and the rest of us, want to be in on the truth; all employees want to know that leadership respects them enough and trusts them enough to tell them the truth. Your team can help more when they know what is going on.

By now you know I hate untested assumptions. However, here are some safe assumptions you can make, even if it turns out you’re wrong:

• Assume everyone in the company has Google News Alerts turned on to “as it happens” for anything that pops on your company or executives.
• Assume employees are watching and/or participating in online forums for employees or the industry.
• Assume everyone is following your Facebook page, Twitter account, and LinkedIn page.

Communicate good news, neutral news, and bad news early and often—it’s like voting in Chicago. Well-informed organizations tend to have less gossip, less time wasted on employees wondering “what if,” and more trust of leadership and management, all of which help morale and productivity. Failing to communicate openly leads to employee frustration, conjecture, and inefficiency. Keep the lines of communication open by sharing the information you can, and by allowing questions in public and in private.

Don’t Hide From What Can’t Be Shared

Of course, not every piece of information can be shared willy-nilly. Personnel issues, contracts in negotiation, lawsuit details—this types of information is off limits for employee consumption. But don’t hide from them. Explain that you can’t discuss details yet, but will—if you can (personnel issues, for example, may never be appropriate to share)—at the earliest possible moment.

• If you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t make something up. Say you don’t know, then explain how you’ll find the answer and when you will share it.
• Every rational person knows that certain information can’t be shared before its time. That time better be when or before people outside the company are told. Focus on keeping rational employees informed; exit irrational employees as soon as possible. For example, make sure you don’t announce big strategic moves, big hires, promotions, or exits on social media platforms before you inform your staff. Address rumors as transparently as you can when they arise.
• Your first defense is a strong, informed employee base. Don’t take it for granted that they live in the bubble of noninformation that would make your job so much easier. Pandora’s box has been opened, and it will never close.

Transparency isn’t just about gossip and news of the organization; transparency and clarity influence everything we do in the workplace. As I laid out in chapter 3, everyone’s job should be clearly articulated and each person should know how his part of the work fits into the bigger picture.

At the far end of the transparency spectrum is open-book management, which has been advocated and described by John Case, author of Open-Book Management and The Open-Book Experience.¹ Case describes how some companies, such as Atlas Container Corp., operate their businesses with open books—employees have access to all the financials, and they have votes in certain critical decisions that impact them. Many companies run this way. It’s a bold move that requires constant communication and education.

Whole Foods even lets employees look up any other employees’ salaries, daily store sales data, and weekly regional sales data. CEO John Mackey believes that a “culture of shared information helps create a sense of ‘shared fate’ among employees.” He eschews secrets because secrets don’t create a “high-trust organization, an organization where people are all for one and one-for-all.”²

I’m not quite ready for that level of open-book management at my company—it takes systems and capacity we need to build. However, we do share with the team lots of information other people might find excessive; we want everyone to understand how the business works and how each employee plays a part in our success.

Transparency takes constant communication, but it’s worth it because it yields a team that gets what we do and why we’re doing it. A variation on the Golden Rule works well: Tell your people—young and old—what you’d like to be told, as soon as you can.

Management Dos and Don’ts

• Do communicate the good news and the bad news to employees before they can hear it from people outside the organization.
• Do assume that everyone in your organization is reading Google Alerts about your company, its executives, and its competitors.
• Don’t assume you can sweep bad news under the rug.
• Do answer questions honestly and openly. If you can’t answer a question because it is legally sensitive, say so. When you can discuss it, do.

Millennial Dos and Don’ts

• Don’t assume you’re entitled to every scrap of information in the company.
• Don’t assume everything you hear is true.
• Do ask open, positively framed questions.