More openness means better quality work

IF you’ve been reading my recent posts, it will not surprise you to learn that I think transparency is not just good in a crisis — it should be the the cornerstone of your way of working all year round.

Transparency improves psychological safety. Greater openness in every aspect of your operations, from file storage to financial reporting, cues people into patterns of behaviour where honesty is the norm. Honesty and trust exist in a virtuous feedback loop — more of one leads to more of another — and when both are high, collaboration is at its most powerful.

Transparency also reduces friction. When information is open, people are able to get their job done without waiting for answers. There are fewer delays in completing tasks and reducing delays is essential part of the competitive advantages of lean/agile working.

More transparency also means fewer demotivating instances of completing a piece of work only to find you are duplicating something that already exits. Less demotivation = more engaged workforce = better outcomes for your customers.

Transparency is the secret sauce that enables many of the most rewarding and most powerful ways of working together as a team.

Having a more open organisation is not something to do for touchy-feely reasons. It’s something that improves business outcomes in multiple powerful ways.