Transparency by Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, James O'Toole |Book Brief

The book Transparency suggests that a culture of openness and candor is crucial to the health of any organization. Author Jim O Toole explains why transparency is needed now more than ever, and what companies can do to achieve it.

James O Toole: The definition of transparent is simple enough it means capable of being seen through. Now as a free society, we long for our public institutions, our corporations, and other organizations to be honest and open about their dealings. Despite the promise of transparency from the leaders of those institutions, we often have the sinking feeling that we re not being told what we need to know, or have the right to know.

Transparency is needed now more than ever. But what does it mean to be a transparent leader, or to create a transparent organization? My co-authors, Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman and I examined transparency from three different vantage points organizations, leadership, and in the context of the new digital age.

No matter what the official line might be, true transparency is rare. Many organizations pay lip service to the values of openness and candor but they don t deliver. When we speak of transparency we are talking about the free flow of information within an organization and between the organization and its many stakeholders. This means that crucial information gets to the right person, at the right time, and for the right reason. Think of the flow of information as the organization s central nervous system. Its capacity to compete, solve problems, meet challenges, and achieve goals varies to the degree that the information flow remains healthy. For information to flow freely within an organization, all participants in the institution must feel free to speak openly, and leaders must welcome such openness. But our research shows that the higher leaders rise, the less honest feedback that they get from their followers. As a result, leaders lose touch with reality of their organization. Transparency begins with leadership. Leaders must be open to, and even welcome,and reward unsettling information.

In 2002 Enron s Sherron Watkins, Worldcom s Cynthia Cooper, and FBI s Coleen Rowley all chose to speak truth to power by bringing news to the men at the top of their respective organizations that those leaders preferred not to hear. Sadly, not only did their warnings about serious ethical violations go unheeded by their bosses, the women were then marginalized, isolated, scorned, and reviled by their organization for their very efforts to save them. In a recent scientific survey of a cross-section of American workers, over two-thirds report having personally witnessed unethical behavior on the job, but only about a third of those say they reported it to their supervisor. The reason for their silence ranged from fear of retaliation to the belief that management would not act on the information appropriately. The missing element, in essence, is trust. Employees do not speak truth to power because they do not trust how those above will respond. But a leader can t provide trust directly to followers. Instead, trust is an outcome of all a leader s accumulated actions and behaviors. When leaders are candid, open, consistent, and predictable in their dealings with all of their followers, the result will almost always be a condition of trust.

Within the last decade a new force has made transparency less and less dependent on the will of those who run our institutions. That force is technology! The digital revolution has made transparency inevitable, not just in this country but worldwide. The internet, camera-equipped cell phones, and the emergence of the blogosphere, have democratized power, shifting it inexorably away from the high-profile few to the technology-equipped many. In mid-2007, there were an estimated 70 million blogs. Blogs are able to spread information virally at stunning speed. In 2004, a cycling enthusiast on a blog revealed that a Krypotonite lock could be opened with a Bic pen. Within hours, videos showing how to pick the locks appeared on several blogs. The blog was seen by 1.8 million viewers, forcing Kryptonite to announce a week later that they will replace the lock. The estimated cost? Ten million dollars almost half of the company s projected earnings for the year. No leader can afford to ignore such a force.

Transparency, trust, and speaking truth to power are interrelated ethical and organizational concepts. To create cultures that manifest those characteristics, leaders must do several practical things: provide equal access to information everyone in the organization, refrain from punishing those who reveal that their emperor wears no clothes, refrain from rewarding yes men and women who practice spurious loyalty, and empower and reward principled contrarians. Easier said that done, but it is possible.

Thank you for reading Transparency. I hope you find it useful.