Transparency is your greatest asset in a crisis

By far your most powerful weapon in turbulent times is transparency.

This may seem surprising. It runs counter to traditional ways of running a company, where business reality should be hidden from the wider work force.

It also feels counter-intuitive, like the leap from the lion’s head in Indiana Jones. Your own fear will try and hold you back from sharing information. But closing down at a moment of crisis is like responding to a cramp by tensing up. This is a situation in which you need to do the opposite of what your limbic system is telling you.

Honesty is a powerful way to increase trust, which is an especially precious commodity during a crisis — both in terms of preserving the goodwill in your business, but also in terms of helping people stabilise the emotional turbulence of change and uncertainty. The more you embrace the old normal and hide the facts (even if from the noble of motive of protecting people), the more other people will shut down, withdraw and check out.

I think some of the fear goes something like “if we’re honest with people that we’re in a difficult situation, they might decide to leave, so we better not tell them”. Here’s the thing though: people are not idiots, and secrets are rarely as hidden as we like to think. Many of your people will already know that something is up, may even have read the rumours in the business press, and will be looking for a new job now, on the basis of sniffs on the wind. Why not get those things out into the open, where you and your management team can engage with them directly and honestly? Keeping these things in the shadows does very little to stop them.