TRANSPARENCY & INFORMATION FLOW

Transparency & Information Flow

Transparency & Information Flow

Note: Hypothesis used in this paper are listed in the Appendix.

The free flow of information within an organization is like the central nervous system: effectiveness depends on it. Organizational candor maximizes the probability for success.  The information an organization needs may be located anywhere, including the outside. Transparency ensures a level of efficiency within day-to-day interactions. Transparency also ensures consistent information flow at peer level (horizontal) as well as up and down (vertical) within organization. During this era of data and information, I prefer each and every employee of the organization to be connected to the vision of management teams and have ability to express concerns and feedback when and as applicable. Transparency makes that possible. This represents the first important step towards measurable productivity improvements for all of us. (Tapscott & Ticoll 2003)

Accountability is important to create efficient matrix as well as standard organizational models. Accountability however needs to be tied with visibility at all levels. Without visibility the responsible or accountable team member who is driving the initiative or debugging critical customer issues or trying to train a group of employees towards critical next assignments, cannot succeed. This visibility ensures appropriate empowerment to team members whom the management can hold accountable towards completion of key tasks or initiatives. With care, this too serves as important pillar to ensure measurable productivity improvements for all of us. One of the dangerous ironies of leadership is that those at the top often think they know more than they do.  (Berwick 2004)There seems to be an inexorable filtering out of bad news…the higher leaders rise, the less honest feedback they get from followers about their leadership. And so top leaders easily lose touch with the ways others see them and may remain poor listeners, ...