Transparency: Your Secret Weapon

Tim Kress is a globally-recognized expert in project and program management. His unique approach to transforming individuals and organizations combines the best of technology with field-tested techniques based on years of success in the real world.

  Communications Management   Talent Management   Teams   ProjectsAtWork  

By providing access to documents and responding to queries with straight answers, you create an atmosphere of goodwill and trust on your teams. By doing so, when things don’t go exactly to plan, and they never do, people are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt and work harder to correct course.

There’s a big difference between a subject matter expert and an information hoarder. The former is a valuable resource. The latter is a misguided nuisance with whom few wish to work. Have you ever worked with someone who acts like keeping information secret is a path to “job security”? Do you suffer the same delusion?

The tendency to want to hide things is part of human nature, and it exists at all levels of the organization. But we must be able to identify this behavior in others and watch out for it in ourselves. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence are needed. How do we do this?

Be Honest — First off, we must practice and develop a reputation for personal honesty. In today’s political and business climates, its getting more and more difficult to make this argument given that one only has read any news site and see politicians and others not only getting away with corruption and lies, but often seeming to prosper by them. Despite this unfortunate state of affairs, I believe that for the vast majority of professionals, honesty…

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