Transparency

I've resisted starting a blog because I don't want to be enslaved to it. I can't promise I'll have new material on here every other day, but I'll do my best to keep it interesting.

Vicki and I spent several days at the beach this week. I took with me a new book by Warren Bennis titled, Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor. At Cornerstone, we have had a “no secrets” value from the beginning -- but lots of churches and Christian organizations start that way and then slowly become opaque. What happens? By what process or mechanisms do churches that begin "open" become "closed." Why do so many church leaders become more and more secretive with time? Although the book was written with secular institutions in mind, many of the principles apply easily to church culture. I enjoyed the book, even if it was too short. Rather than me restating what the book said, I thought I’d just share with you everything I underlined. Here we go:

"Trust and transparency are always linked. Without transparency, people don't believe what their leaders say."

"Even as many heads of corporations and even of states boast about their commitment to transparency, the containment of truth continues to be a dearly held value of many organizations. Sadly, you can say you believe in transparency without practicing it or even aspiring to it."

"For information to flow freely in an institution, followers must feel free to speak openly, and leaders must welcome such openness."

"Because the term transparency, like courage and patriotism, has the exalted ring of eternal truth, it is easy to forget that transparency is a choice."

"Secrecy has the unintended consequence of making leaks more likely."

"In today's world, where information travels globally with the click of a mouse, transparency is no longer simply desirable, it is becoming unavoidable. Many leaders continue to act as if they can hold awkward or damaging truths so close that the outside world will not learn of them. Those days are over."

"A common malady among organizational insiders is hoarding information. This is one of the many ways information gets stuck in organizations and is kept from flowing to those who need it to make solid decisions.”

"In many organizations, knowledge is viewed as the ultimate executive perk, not unlike the company jet, kept solely for the use and delight of the organizational elite."

"Any time an organization makes a seriously wrong decision, its leaders should call for an intensive postmortem. Such learning opportunities are too often overlooked. The tendency is simply to call on the public relations department to spin the matter, to make another inadequately thought-out decision, and perhaps to scapegoat, even fire, a few staff members. Because most companies cover up their mistakes instead of learning from them, systemic flaws in information flow tend to remain to do their damage another day."

“Despite the discrediting of Enron executives, among others, leaders still tend to be perceived by many as demigods. And that perception still deters followers from telling those leaders essential but awkward truths.”

“The best antidote for the shimmer effect (BA– where leaders become celebrities) is the behavior of the leader. The wisest leaders seek broad counsel, not because they are so enlightened but because they need it. Power does not confer infallibility. There’s a compelling reason to become more open with information from people at every level: those close to the action usually know more about what’s actually going on with clients, with production or customer service, than do those on the top floors.”

“Leaders have to do more than ask for the counsel of others. They have to hear it...one motive for turning a deaf ear to what others have to say seems to be sheer hubris: leaders often believe they are wiser than all those around them.”

“One of the dirty little secrets of many organizations is a debilitating caste system that identifies a few as stars, who are then rewarded and afforded special privileges, and damns the rest as mediocrities who are expected to be good little soldiers who work hard and keep their mouths shut. Some call this the ‘Golden Boy’ syndrome.”

“The more everyone knows and the more equally everyone is treated, the more likely it is that everyone will share the truth as he or she sees it.”

“A universal problem is that when staff speak to their leader, the very nature of the message tends to change. The message is likely to be spun, softened, and colored in ways calculated to make it more acceptable to the person in power.”

“One of the most dangerous myths of modern organizations is that it is better to make a bad decision than no decision.”

“In most organizations, hidden ground rules govern what can be said and what cannot. One key question that every leader should ask to encourage candor: Is it safe to bring bad news to those at the top? ...Leaders must show that speaking up is not just safe but mandatory, and that no information of substance is out of bounds.”

“Every family tacitly teaches each member four attentional rules:
• These are things we notice.
• This what we say about them.
• These are the things we don’t notice.
• And we never say anything to outsiders about that third category.”

“The emotion that seals people’s lips about vital lies is the unconscious fear that if we look at and speak about these dangerous secrets, we will either destroy the family or be expelled from it.”

“Just as in families, organizational secrets distort relationships. Those sharing the secret tend to form a more tightly knit bond while distancing themselves from outsiders, thus cutting themselves off from those who might expose them as well as those who might influence them in positive ways.”

“One of the dangerous ironies of leadership is that those at the top often think they know more than they do.”

“Whenever a tight-knit decision-making group fails to collect all relevant data and candidly analyze it, bad decisions are liable to be made.”

“Groupthink-driven decisions are the downside of a dynamic every organization seeks to build: group cohesiveness and pride in belonging.”

“The best way for leaders to start information flowing freely in their organizations is to set a good example. They must accept, even welcome, unsettling information.”

“Trust cannot be created quickly. In fact, trust is the most elusive and fragile aspect of leadership. Trust, along with shared cultural assumptions, is the strongest glue binding people together in groups...but leaders can’t provide trust directly to followers. Instead, trust is an outcome of all a leader’s accumulated actions and behaviors.”

“When leaders treat followers with respect, followers respond with trust. Leaders show their respect by always treating followers as ends in themselves – and never as a means to achieve their own ego or power needs, or even to achieve the legitimate goals of the organization.”

“In the absence of trust, all ambiguous behavior is viewed with suspicion...and by definition, all behavior is ambiguous! That’s why the failure to include people is the second-most-common source of mistrust, close behind the failure of leaders to tell the truth consistently.”

“Trust is hard to earn, easy to lose, and, once lost, nearly impossible to regain.”

“Throughout recorded history, the two main defenses used against organizational dissidents have been first to challenge their loyalty, and second to dismiss them as angry, perhaps insane, malcontents.”

“The most gut-wrenching moments almost all of us experience on the job come when we have to choose between speaking up and remaining silent when we believe our bosses are making serious errors in judgment.”

“The charge of disloyalty is as easy for leaders to bring against followers as it is difficult for the accused to counter and disprove.”

“Many institutional leaders believe that their employees owe loyalty to them as individuals. In contrast, whistleblowers typically say they owe their first allegiance to their organization.”

“We all have a moral obligation to speak truth to power when the actions of leaders are harmful to our organization, to people inside and outside the organization, and to the leaders themselves. But as hard as it is for messengers to fulfill such obligations, it is far more difficult for leaders to listen to, and heed, the warnings of followers.”

“Leaders who tell the truth, admit mistakes, and respectfully listen to the perspectives of others set the tone for an entire culture. This is simple, obvious, and clear as day. Yet, as the current leaders of both political parties in Washington illustrate, these positive behaviors are unnatural among those in positions of power. Indeed, most leaders in both the public and private sectors have to work to overcome culturally conditioned reflexes to dissemble, to deny, and to blame others.”

“It is almost always ego of the male persuasion–that makes it futile, even dangerous, to speak truth to power.”

“The mantle of true greatness should be reserved for those leaders who possess the so-called feminine virtues of humility, inclusion, vulnerability, service to others, and respect for people.”

“Americans are getting the kind of leadership our society celebrates.”

“Executives will not begin to act virtuously as long as boards continue to reward misbehavior.”

“What is the company joke no one would dare to tell the boss?...When Managers honestly and objectively start to ask, ‘What do we really cherish and hold dear – quality? technical excellence? power? executive privilege?’– organizations take a useful first step in that process.”

***********

That's the book. I didn't underline anything in the last part of the book, which talked about how "transparent" has changed with blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. I think for the most part the pressure to be more transparent is good. It is scary, though, how quickly false reports can become "internet truth.'

If you read this far, congratulations! I promise most posts won't be this long. I'd love to hear your comments -- especially regarding how you see "transparency" at Cornerstone.