Effective Communication » ethics

Transparency in Communication: Is It All About Truth, Or About Sincerity?

Azriel Winnett — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:19:25 +0000

Let’s say a close friend asks your opinion about an expensive dress she has just bought. You think the new outfit is stunning…on someone else. But the color doesn’t suit your friend so well. It’s not bad, mind you, but just that she could have done a little better.

Or maybe she wants to know whether she thinks she got a good deal on some new electronic appliance. And you just happened to pass by a store yesterday where the same item was advertised for 15% cheaper. In both cases – the garment and the gadget – you know there’s no way now she can return the item for refund for exchange.

So now…what do you say to your friend? The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Or in this case, will you be prepared to bend the “truth” (not my deliberate use of quotation marks) a little so that your friend can feel good?

Let’s now turn to the world of business. Let’s say a department store somewhere puts out a big sign that reads: “Buy now! Sale ends tomorrow.”

Brad Shorr of Word Sell, Inc takes a close look at this statement on his blog. The “latest buzzword in corporate communication,” he writes, is transparency. Fine, but what exactly is meant by the term? If by “transparent” we mean “clear”, then “By now! Sale ends tomorrow” is a transparent statement. It is clear and unambiguous – and yes, it may even be true!

But what would you say if what the store really means is: “Buy now! We’re deep in debt and plan to file for bankruptcy before the end of the month”? Schorr points out that most people would no longer agree that the original statement is “transparent”, because in the minds of most, the real meaning of “transparency” is sincerity.

Now we have a different ball game, because sincerity doesn’t admit degrees. Lying to the market is insincere. But telling partial truths is also insincere! Schorr quotes the philosopher Thomas Merton, from his book “No Man is an Island”:

“In the end the problem of sincerity is a problem of love. A sincere man is not so much one who sees the truth and manifests it as he sees it, but one who loves the truth with pure love. But thruth is more than an abstraction. It lives and is embodied in men and things that are real. And the secret of sincerity is, therefore, not to be sought in a philosophical ove for abstract truth, but in a love fore real people and real things…”

Heady words. But here we have the key to everything that is good, or that can be good, in human relationships.

Games in the Workplace: Losing Big Time

Azriel Winnett — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 13:51:00 +0000

Regular contributor Joan Lloyd explains in her latest article on our site explains why a “nice” workplace – one where the overall atmosphere is relaxed and congenial, where workers don’t appear to be complaining about each other or their superiors, where the bosses appear to be tolerant and easily satisfied – could be, in reality, not nice at all but rather downright nasty.

When a manager, for example, keeps telling subordinates, regardless of actual performance, “your work is just fine, keep it up!”, it demotivates high achievers who want to be challenged and be told the truth about where they did well.

Or, if supervisors (or fellow workers) don’t want to hurt feelings by giving direct feedback, they talk with colleagues about the failings of the worker concerned. Everybody gets the message that in order to stay on the good side of the boss, or peer group, you must talk about others behind their backs.

In other words, while on the surface, everything seems to be hokey-dorey at such places of work, people are really just playing games. In these scenarios, the games are a convenient mechanism for avoiding the unpleasantness of facing problems head on or the discomfort of embarrassing encounters. Other types of games can be more dangerous.

And sometimes, you can play a game and win hands-down. At least, you win in the short term. But although you’ve won the game, you have lost in life – big time.

Management consultant and columnist Nan Russell writes about a particularly insidious game in the latest issue of her provocative newsletter, Winning at Working.

Jon, a fellow manager who, like Nan, was involved in policy implementation in their organization, asked to meet with her over lunch a day or two prior to an important company meeting. A far-reaching proposal would be coming up for discussion at that meeting, which, if adopted, would lead to major changes within the company. Since both Jon’s and Nan’s departments would apparently be impacted in similar ways by this decision, Jon thought it might be prudent to sit down with Nan and see if they could adopt a united front at the upcoming debate.

Over lunch, Jon and Nan analyzed the proposal and discovered that they indeed felt the same way – that the proposed changes would be harmful to the interests of the organization as a whole. They decided to work together to eliminate the motion from consideration.

So it happened that Nan arrived at the big meeting armed with all kinds of data, statistics and arguments in support of their viewpoint. Jon whispered in her ear as they entered the boardroom that he now felt more strongly about the matter than ever, and he hoped Nan would keep to their agreement to speak with one voice.

But as the meeting progressed, Nan was taken by surprise as Jon began to debate her and argue furiously in favor of the proposal – adopting the very position he had professed to deplore. Three weeks later he was promoted to be the Project Leader.

Looking back at what happened, Nan realized that Jon had quickly adjusted his course once he had read the tea leaves. Nan’s only concern had been to offer sound input, considering only the best interests of the organization. But Jon had been thinking about something else. Jon was out for Jon. He saw an opportunity and took it; whether or not he agreed with the position he was aligning himself with was now quite irrelevant.

But that’s not the end of the story. Two promotions and our years later, Jon was fired.

As Nan puts it, people like Jon may win in the short term, but they’re playing the wrong game. For people like them, the goal is a personal win. But if that’s your goal, you lose in the end.

Twenty years in management, says Nan, have taught her that “people who are winning at working know that work is not a single player game…You see, people who are winning at working view work as a life canvas, not a game.”

Surely, similar sentiments could be expressed about any area of life. What serious individual who was been through the mill in this world could disagree?

Destroying Trust Via the Express Lane

Azriel Winnett — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 10:19:00 +0000

If there’s one aspect of interpersonal relations that’s absolutely essential in the workplace, it’s trust. Without it, the wheels of business would turn very slowly, if they turn at all.

This is true whether it’s a customer trusting that a company will fill and order and deliver it on time, an employee trusting that her boss will reward her for working long hours to meet a deadline, or one colleague trusting that another will do his share of an assigned project. And of course, the same applies in all other areas of life. No one operates in isolation.

“Trust is the social glue that holds things together. It allows us to engage in social and commercial ventures, ” points out Professor Maurice Schweitzer, one of three professors at Wharton University who recently ran a unique laboratory experiment, as described in a soon to be published paper called Promises and Lies: Restoring Violated Trust. This experiment was devised to examine what happens when trust breaks down.

“Willingness to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations about another’s behavior,”
was the working definition of trust accepted by the Wharton researchers. They started out on the assumption that “trust is like glass” – that is, “fragile, easily broken and hard to repair.” But they soon found out that this isn’t always the case. Sometimes it is true, sometimes it isn’t. It depends.

So what makes the difference?

Prof. Schweitzer explains this with a simple example. Let’s say a friend persuades you to lend him a DVD to watch that you, in turn, had borrowed from a rental company. You agree on condition that he mail it back to the company within a week. Then you find out that this friend of yours forgot to return it to the company.

Would you trust him with another movie at some point in the future? You might, especially if your friend showed a modicum of contrition over his unfortunate oversight. All the more so, if he gave you a firm promise that he would never be so negligent again.

Now imagine the same scenario, but with one crucial difference. This time your friend tells you he sent back the DVD. A little while later, you pay him a visit and you happen to notice that very DVD on top on his TV. Would you lend your friend a movie again?

And let’s say he apologizes profusely and promises to follow through next time, would your attitude be any different? Probably not.

The results of the Wharton experiment, which involved a carefully and very cleverly designed money game, bore out in striking manner the difference between these two cases – the second case, where the offending party lies about his or her failure to carry out an obligation (or what is perceived by the other side as an obligation) and the first scenario, where he or she does not.

“Trust harmed by untrustworthy behavior can be effectively restored when individuals observe a consistent series of trustworthy actions,” wrote the Wharton academics in summarizing the findings of their experiment. Just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, one mistake doesn’t necessarily ruin a reputation, certainly when the transgressor can consistently show that he or she has now turned over a new leaf.

On the other hand – so the experiment revealed – when a person’s trust is not only violated, but that betrayal includes deception, that trust will be difficult to restore. If you didn’t only forget to return your friend’s DVD, but on top of everything, lied about it – it’s going to be a different ball game.

And quite likely , it’s not just that your friend finds it difficult in his heart to forgive you. The point is that there has been a more powerful, more intense, shattering of the trust he had invested in you. Once shattered to smithereens , it’s all the more difficult to restore.

Let his be a powerful warning to us. When planning every step in our interpersonal relationships, we dare not lose sight of the close to inevitable consequences of our actions.

No, Cheaters Must Never Win!

Azriel Winnett — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:34:00 +0000

“Who says cheaters never win”? asks Professor Kirk Hanson, writing in the journal of the Stanford Business School.

Hanson, the executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, says it’s time our society faced up to a dirty little secret: “Players who use steriods in professional baseball, college coaches who have others take exams for their star athletes, high school students who cheat on the SATS, scientists who fake the results of their research, and CEO’s who cook the books in American corporations, may all be acting rationally.”

Acting rationally. What does that mean? Presumably, that these people are well aware of the risks they are taking; they understand full well that if the worst comes to the worst, their careers will be ruined or their reputations destroyed. Yet, they still go on doing what they’re doing. Why?

No big mystery, explains Hanson. It’s worth it!

“The answer is today there’s so much to be gained by being just a little better than others – by hitting a few more home runs than any other professional baseball player, by getting to and staying at the very top of the modern American corporation, or by the absolute best in any other field. ”

Pointing to the winner-take-all culture that pervades almost every area of American life, and becomes more pronounced every year, Hanson reminds us that salaries and other perks for those reaching the top of the ladder have gone crazy.” For example, CEOs got 40 times what the average employee in their company earned in 1980 – and 400 times more in 2000! Similarly, the highest-paid baseball player earned $2.3 million in the 1988 season, and more than $20 million last year!

It’s a mindset that has even seeped down into the schools. Parents of high school athletes are reported to be sometimes the most eager to try any drug that will give their child an edge. Tempted by the rewards waiting for them in the wings, some people climbing the ladder may do anything to get to the top, and some who have already made it will do anything to stay there.

So, in a society totally obsessed with the need to win at all costs, cheating has become mainstream. Even when a cheater transgresses the proverbial Eleventh Commandment by being caught in the act, we find less outrage and a more forgiving attitude on the part of the peer group.

What lies at the root of this superstar-or-bust mentality? It could have something to do, as Prof. Hanson suggests, with a kind of spiritual crisis in society, or lack of self-esteem on a mass scale. “Worshipping heroes and celebrities could be a substitute for finding fulfillment in our own relationships and service.” Again, the media’s penchant for placing celebrities on a pedestal may be an added factor. And on the face of it, the media love few people more than a celebrity who’s caught cheating!

So what can we do about it?

Of course, the emergence of the “superstar society”, and the “cheating society” that has resulted from it, has serious ramifications for the more “old-fashioned” among us who still insist on playing everything straight.

Where there’s cheating, there’s no such thing as a level playing field. In fact, if people believe everyone else is cheating and they can’t get a fair share, they’ll refuse to play at all. When employees suspect that fellow workers may be trying to cheat to get ahead of them, it makes extremely difficult for a company with the best of intentions to build a climate of trust. And so on.

As we well know, an individual’s success in resisting any temptation to act dishonestly as an adult, will largely depend on the moral foundations laid during his earliest years. That, in turn, mostly hinges on parental example. (We’ll be coming back to the theme of parental example, in a different context, in an upcoming post – stay tuned!)

Fine. But how do we counteract the factor we have identified as helping to trigger the itch to cheat in the first place: namely, the superstar syndrome?

I think Prof. Hanson expresses it well:

” We have to value ‘doing your best’, not just winning. Only a few high school basketball players will make it to the NBA. We can’t have the vast majority believing they are losers. Only a few business people will be CEO’s. The rest are not failures.

“Encouraging ‘doing your best’, will require all of us to compliment and celebrate the efforts by those we know and love. The spouse who works hard but doesn’t get the promotion deserves a dinner out. The child who studies diligently but gets a C grade should be praised.”

Some comments on how this is relevant to some disturbing trends in contemporary education follow in my next post.

When Bad Business Rules Backfire

Azriel Winnett — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 09:21:00 +0000

When you’re getting terrible customer service, opines veteran entrepreneur and columnist Norm Brodsky, don’t be so quick to blame the company official you happen to be dealing with at the time.

In many cases, he says, the poor guy’s employer is the one at fault, and he tells an interesting story – against himself – to prove his point.

And like many stories of this nature, it just could be that the lesson to be learned from it is relevant not only to the world of business, but can be applied to other areas of life as well.

Brodsky runs an archive-retrieval business. When customers ask to have boxes delivered to their offices, they charge a regular delivery fee plus a surcharge for priority service. As to be expected in any business, disputes over the charges arose from time to time. When Brodsky saw that a couple of his customer-services reps were giving in too easily, he made a rule: no credits could be issued without the approval of someone in management.

What happened then? Occasionally a customer placed a rush order and, for whatever reason, the box didn’t arrive on time. In other words, there was nothing to talk about: the company was unmistakeably at fault.

An angry customer would call up and say: “Because it was late, we couldn’t make any use of this stuff. You guys can stand on your head, but I’m not paying.”

“I’m sorry,” the customer-service person would reply, “we made the delivery and you have to pay for it.” When the customer would continue to insist “Nothing doing!”, the rep would say, “Well, you’ll have to speak to a manager.”

No question, the manager would waive the charge after hearing the story, but the damage would have already been done. Bad enough that the delivery was late, but the customer sees that they would have been charged for it anyway had no one complained. Then to top it all, he had to waste time arguing with a rpresentative of the company before he was transferred to a manager who cancelled the bill.

So the customer would go away thinking. “That damn service stinks!”, and the company would consider themselves lucky if they ever heard from him again.

Thus, the rule that Brodsky laid down came back to haunt him. He now quickly grasped that establishing a rule to eliminate costly errors was not the right response. Among other drawbacks, good, faithful customers were being penalized for the sake of the one or two who tried to take advantage. A few employees with questionable judgement were tying the hands of perhaps the majority whose judgement was perfectly sound.

Now, he has adopted a completely different approach to the sticky problem of well-meaning but inexperienced employees who were a little too looose in passing credit. The real solution, he realized, lay in better training. His people had to be equipped with more knowledge and better tools to make the right decisions.

Rather than clipping their wings, with all that this entailed, time, effort and even money would have to be invested in order to get the potential offenders up to speed.

The point should be clear.

We’re living in the age of instant solutions. In business, as in other areas of our lives, we’re inclined to fall into the trap of shortcuts, easy answers, the least painful way out. Why do we make bad rules? Often, it’s because we’re not really attacking our problems head on.

Rather, we’re avoiding them. And therein lies the danger – and the challenge!