Being open and transparent is generally regarded as a “good thing” and the trend is to encourage more of it in public and organisational life. For example, there is currently a call for details of directors’ remuneration packages to be published in full. And there are many other examples where people press for information to be in the public domain.
But perhaps, like me, you have some personal experiences where openness has not paid off? I can think of a couple of examples where transparency has backfired on me and led to unwelcome unintended consequences.
Some years ago my daughter had a sixteenth birthday party. The weather was fine – it was early summer – and we knew there would be an abnormal amount of noise in the garden up until midnight (my wife and I were killjoys and insisted the party must end on the stroke of midnight). On the day of the party, I delivered a handwritten note to all the houses nearby, apologising in advance for any disturbance and assuring them that the party would end promptly at midnight. That afternoon, before the party had even started, a policeman called to warn us that a couple of complaints had been received from neighbours who wished to remain anonymous. The policeman advised us to call off the party. We ignored the advice, but spent what would otherwise have been an enjoyable evening on tenterhooks. Everything passed without mishap but we resolved never again to let neighbours know anything in advance.
On another occasion, I was running a management workshop for an organisation for which I had carried out lots of assignments over many years. During the introduction, one of the participants demanded to know what I was being paid to run the workshop. Never having been asked this question before, I was taken by surprise. However, with some misgivings, I answered the question truthfully (I was being paid the market rate for designing and running a workshop of this kind – nothing extortionate, honest!). Armed with this information, the participant spent the whole workshop challenging my professionalism and reminding everyone what each hour and each workshop activity had cost the organisation. I resolved never again to give a straight answer to questions about fees.
Now, you may say (as my wife does), that in both these cases I was being naive, that there is a time and a place for transparency and that I invited trouble by choosing to be open when I should have been more circumspect. But I’m stubborn and my default position is still to err on the side of transparency.
Have you got examples that would help to throw light on when to be transparent and when to be secretive? It must often be a dilemma with HR work where integrity and respecting people’s confidences is a must.
I agree with Peter. As a Christian and HR professional, I have to be shrewd as I do not want to lie. I am usually able to answer a question or not depending on if I think the question was relevant to the issue at hand.
Transparency is good but some information are not necessary for some audience.
You need to be transparent about not being transparent.
The issue of respecting confidences can be a tough one. I’ve sometimes had people come to talk to me about personal circumstances which they were concerned would affect their job performance but didn’t want to discuss with their line manager and wanted kept confidential.
If the manager then does come along to say so-and-so is indeed performing poorly and they want to think about disciplinary proceedings (which has happened to me twice in these circumstances) it’s a judgement call what to do next.
In both cases I encouraged the manager to reflect on whether performance has been good in the past (yes) and therefore whether there might be circumstances they’re unaware of. And happily in both cases things worked out. But it feels manipulative.
By the way, what miserable neighbours you had!
I would say be as honest and as open in situations as possible and use the tools and techniques of avoidance and professionalism with skill and finesse. Tell people if you can’t discuss something or you don’t know the answers or what the situation really is. Reassure people when you can and it is ethical to do so. Confidentiality is paramount for HR practitioners and do not deliberately deceive (ie lie) – the first time you are caught out is the last time you will ever have peoples trust even if they pretend otherwise to your face (goes for all employees and people actually). Ask yourself how you would regard someone who you knew had lied to you, and how easily you would forget it. A way to consider when to keep things secret and confidential is to assess the damage that could be done to people and the business by what to reveal and at what time. When the potential damage is greater than the benefit of revealing – it remains secret.
My way of dealing with situations such as Tess describes above is to tell the member of staff that I am happy to talk to them but there are some things I will not be able to treat as off the record. I will do my best to handle any situation sensitively, but e.g. if someone were to tell me they were being bullied I could not agree to do nothing. It is then up to the member of staff whether they continue the conversation or not. On the broader issue as described by Peter and commented on by Tina, if someone asks a question and they don’t have a right to the information, I will tell them that I am not going to answer – I will be transparent about not being transparent.
As a rule of thumb if not divulging information puts me in conflict with the organisations ethos, values and professional standards, then I would feel obliged to raise the matter on principle. Often in HR you are party to information of a highly confidential and sensitive nature and I think that experience and understanding of what can and can’t be shared is something that increasingly develops over time.
I take a similar view to you Peter in that, despite some tricky predicaments caused by being open and honest, I still firmly believe it is the best position to approach things. At all times personal integrity is my watch-word and this seems to be a sound guide as to when or when not to be transparent.
In my experience it is not so much the act of being open and transparent that creates the problem, it is more about the motivations of the recipient of the information and how they plan to use it! My default position is to try to predict any malicious or troublesome motivations in others and use this to decide how open I can be or whether the communications need to be altered in anyway to prevent the unhelpful and unintended consequences.
Doesn’t always work of course but if it does backfire at least you can take some consolation in having tried hard to do the right thing.
Sarah
The subject of confidentiality for HR professionals is obviously extremely important and often conflicted. However, I take issue with the article’s premise, that being transparent in advance to warn neighbours about a party was a mistake. The neighbours and the Police over-reacted to try and prevent it, but without the letter the Police would have arrived during the party and probably stopped it! Transparency in this case was not a mistake but a good preventative measure.
Honesty and courage need to go hand in hand. Honesty does not mean breaches in confidence, nor avoidance or insensitive but it does need to be sufficiently direct else the message gets lost. A frame to prepare the audience for what they are about to receive should suffice in terms of breaking news gently.
Well I will be honest and tell them I cannot share certain information with them. One need to understand how it will be used and whether the audience is relevant or not.
Honesty and Respect goes together for me but sharing of information its sort of like playing chess you need to understand the move that other will make, once you will make yours.
Your neighbors may not be expecting an invitation that says you are having a party without them…