Many organizations talk about valuing transparency. At the same time, company leaders know that not everything can and should be shared.
Why it matters: Organizational transparency is integral to building trust, fostering connections, and boosting performance. It’s even more critical when you have remote employees.
Non-transparency can cause distrust in leadership, misalignment between departments, and difficulties for employees in understanding the bigger picture.
An example of the effects of non-transparency: A friend of mine works at a 150-person company where there’s little visibility into the responsibilities and goals of people on other teams.
- Cross-department collaboration is difficult because it’s hard to know who to include on a project.
- Employees often find their projects overlap with something another team is working on.
- She notes, “In theory, one person divvies out the context for cross-department collaboration, but they don’t have the bandwidth to do that at scale.”
But: There is a line. Too much transparency creates distractions and threatens important barriers of confidentiality.
An example of finding the line: A company should share DEI survey results with employees to inspire accountability and trust, even when results reveal significant cultural issues.
- But, specific incidents – like reports of individuals feeling harassed or instances of bias that were shared in confidence – shouldn’t be reported to the group.
- Not only would this disclosure foster a culture of distrust, but it could also have serious legal repercussions.
The bottom line: When done right, transparency gives people the context they need to do their jobs. So default to transparency, but in every instance, check to make sure you aren’t crossing the line into oversharing.