The benefits of trust and transparency

Transparent work is the one of biggest opportunities we have in creating more effective organizations. Making management transparent also exposes any weaknesses in leadership. But more and more, workers know where the problems are because they have access to the data. They can see alternatives and find solutions blindingly fast on the web. The hard reality for business leaders is that in an inter-connected world, we need less management, not more.

Business value increases with transparency. Businesses that are open, transparent, and cooperative are more resilient because they rely on people, not processes [my emphasis]. In a transparent environment, there are fewer ways to game the system. Knowledge networks function best when they are:

1) based on openness, which

2) enables transparency, and

3) in turn fosters diversity

– all of which reinforce the basic principle of openness. In such a transparent workplace, the role of management is to give workers a job worth doing, the tools to do it, recognition of a job well done and then let them manage themselves.

A socially networked business that enables open conversations around work can make better and faster decisions. But it is all based on trust, for without trust, there is no sharing. Transparency sets the stage for trust to develop [my emphasis].

Source: A new business ideology | Jarche.com | Harold Jarche, Oct. 2016