TRANSPARENCY IS A TWO-WAY STREET

TRANSPARENCY IS A TWO-WAY STREET

Treasures locked in deep vaults, discussions behind closed doors by those with power and authority, frightened whispers in dark corridors. Stories are filled with hidden wisdoms, buried answers, quests leading to pools of knowledge, cloaked figures guarding secrets. Knowledge is considered power, especially by those who possess it. The discriminating element of information is its accessibility. Are you capable of understanding it? Can you read? Do you know the language? Can you manage the technology to access the data? Illiteracy exists on many levels. A whole different problem is the availability of information, or the openness of the process leading to the use of it.

Transparency implies openness, communication, and accountability. What are these if not the cornerstones of good decision-making?

Does transparency mean that everything needs to be public? Is there a difference between transparency and clarity? Should I have access to all the financial facts, or should I have access to understanding the essential facts that affect us all? After all, is it the nudity that’s intriguing in the long run, or is it the stripping?

WikiLeaks taught us that eventually, every single decision will leak. Thus, the only way to build true trust among stakeholders is transparency. Trust, together with decisions, expressed in decisions, and as the base of human interaction is how we build meaningful organizations, communities, and societies.

Transparency means operating in a way that makes it easy for others to see what’s being done. It means a commitment to revealing who makes the decisions and providing understanding about the basic facts that affect everyone in the organization. Social decision-making relies on good use of information. For information to be available, a work culture supporting sharing is needed. True collaboration can’t be accomplished without transparency, it’s a two-way street.

From a decision-making point of view, the advantages of are obvious, it means trusting the decisions that are being made, even the ones you’re not involved in. Knowing how decisions are made, by whom, when, with what information, and with what arguments and risks, what the related feelings are, how decisions are executed and by whom, and what the decision is related to in the bigger picture – these all lead to trust. When the decision-making process can be trusted to be of good quality, it’s easier to commit to not only the easy and positive decisions, but also the hard ones. A work community with decision trust will commit to executing tough decisions as well, and become more agile and capable of developing through change.