When I was a kid,
it was about windows and floor wax. Now,
it’s strictly about business.
Transparency.
In the last fifteen
years at least, the word has become the most indispensible ornament to any
workplace populated by humans, office furniture, fluorescent lights and Keurig
machines.
Transparency, by
one definition, means that you can see right through it.
In nearly any
corporate environment, the very imperative mandate for transparency
accomplishes just that. You can’t avoid
the tendency to see right through it.
What’s the
imperative mandate about, anyway…? Just
what went on before transparency became the mantra prayer among the
devout compound..?
It was probably the
inescapable revolution of litigations, claims and accusations within the
confines of so many of those white-collar, khaki-trousered, office-supplied
high-rise settings in the last few decades that have had C.E.O.s at their
Howard Beale wits’ end. They’re mad as
hell, both angry and sanity-wise, they’re not gonna take it anymore, and
they’ll fix it with the ultimate lock on the door. We Will All Pledge Allegiance to Transparency.
I do seem to
remember this word called “honesty” as a kid, and how that was the best
policy. But transparency defines
it further in practice. It’s the policy
requiring all relevant information and exchange thereof to be at all times
“cc”d and shared amongst all relative parties.
That doesn’t sound
like a bad idea, really. It almost
sounds like the sort of thing so many people in the stapler-and-water cooler
shrines march out of mandatory diagnostic meetings furious about, the lack of
that elusive thing called communication. But unquestionably, a mandate policy on
transparency will eradicate that age-old problem, post-haste.
To really
understand whether or not an edict on transparency is going to do any good, we
need to first figure out why, in a office building full of technology, with
teams of people smarter than the room, communication, the simple-sugar building
block of transparency, just doesn’t, despite every best concentrated intention,
work.
A team-based work
environment of any sort is the direct equivalent to a family. While one’s work family environment may
(hopefully) not be nearly as toxic as that within one’s domestic family, the
template still exists. So does the
disorder.
And much like a
functional family, the main ingredients that keep it running each and every day
will be firmly and indestructibly in place.
Rationale is one of those. The
visibly blue sky will forever be green, until the patriarchs change their
minds. Then, there’s double
standards. They’re like those blank
tiles in Scrabble. Any interoffice
ruling at large can be deemed null and void for any individual for any reason,
without definition. Or, for a transparently
flimsy one, the blatantly obvious nature of which is never to be
articulated in transparent form. If you
want to keep your job.
And why wouldn’t
you..?! Nothing has prepared us more for
our interoffice tenures in our lives than growing up in the dysfunctional
family household. No
financial-aid-available business school is going to teach this most critical
component of employment foundation. Game
winners of all sorts come directly from those threatening, defeating, and
emotionally exhausting family environments that many of us go home to daily
when the scale-model version at work is done.
Just what are some of the tenets learned to us in the school no one pays
to attend..?
There’s actually
many, but maybe the most valuable and significant for personal survival regards
the practice of silence. Keeping your
mouth shut often will avert the most unnecessary drama and upheaval within the
family walls. That which must be said,
family survivors have long decreed, must remain unspoken if we all need to get
to bed tonight and get up and go to work tomorrow.
Within that policy
falls a level of discretion. Sometimes,
something needs to be addressed. But to
whom, and to whom it ought not be presented, for purposes of damage
control, therein lies the acquired scientific knowledge.
This wonderful new
practice called transparency sure does sound innovative, but it will only meet
eyes and ears that are willing. When claims of “too technical”, “I can’t follow
all that stuff..”, and “I just need you to answer my question..” abound, you
know you’ve followed the transparency mandate a little too closely to the
letter.
Transparency as a
policy of course, implies the desire for full visibility upon a situation. But no one wants to see anything they don’t
want to. So, if you’ve got a mess on
your hands..? Play it up, turn the good
points into something invaluable, let ‘em know how you’ve got the bad points
cornered, count the blessings, curse none, and you’ve just authored a model
work of transparency…!
It’s almost a shame
when the chiefs corner you in the hallway months later wanting to know about
that problem three months earlier that they’re first recognizing, and you
proudly remind them about your highly transparent report which you e-mailed
them at the time.
The answer..? “If
anything like that happens again, just call us.
E-mails take too long to read, and we just want to get it fixed..”
Transparency
fortunately isn’t something you can hear through. Praise the Lord for voice mail.
I’m putting my old Phone-Mate
machine up for sale. The ad describes it as “State Of The Art, Fully
Transparent”.
Noah F.
