THERE are many references in business to companies needing to have an open culture but my view is that this needs to stretch beyond a talking shop, to true transparency.
My personal experience is that being open, good or bad, can have a significantly positive impact on your business while keeping people in the dark is highly limiting, if not dangerous.
Telling people how it is, can enable you to encourage your team to act upon situations quickly, and ultimately help fix things.
If a business is going through a challenging time financially, by explaining why it has come about means you are able to ask them to change their behaviour and actions to help solve the problem.
Last year, I did exactly that with my team when we needed to bolster our new business drive – the result was that we exceeded our own expectations in a very short space of time.
Many would argue that by sharing negative news could engender fear, but if you invest time and thought in your communication you can manage this.
I also believe that people deserve the truth and an appreciation that every business goes through ups and downs is a key learning for every employee, at every level.
Equally, only by sharing the truth with your team are you able to truly see the benefit of their creativity.
Asking them for help encourages them to generate new ideas, empowers them to think differently and helps you tap into their knowledge at the coal face.
Recently, we spent some time as a team looking at our internal process and highlighted what seemed at the time to be numerous areas of improvement and inefficiencies.
Some might say that it’s safer to protect employees by not talking openly about problems, but I think digging into and discussing the detail behind the things that need improving is the best way to turn things into positive opportunities.
However the process and resulting impact could not have been achieved without the whole team being involved.
My argument for committing to an open culture is further supported by the significant teamwork I see from sharing and talking about our challenges.
Testament to this is that we now discuss topical “issues” – our own or those of our clients, at every team meeting.
Recently this has led to some incredible and insightful proactive client ideas that have enabled the team to realise the true power of their collective intellect and creativity.
Without a doubt, the preparation involved in sharing business “truths” requires time and energy and it would be far easier to simply ignore them.
But for me, watching a team absorb candid, sometimes difficult-to-hear information and then spending time turning problems into amazing, often exciting opportunities is the most satisfying part of my job.
Leadership is often cited as requiring vulnerability but this word wrongly has a negative connotation.
The truth - good or bad - shouldn’t be avoided, but shared, constantly.
It shouldn’t be shamefully hidden from the masses, but used constructively to our advantage to move things forward, remain competitive and help us all reach our potential.