Transparency is the business watchword of the decade; there are no secrets, the saying goes, only information you don’t yet have. When undesirable information leaks, businesses fail and CEOs stand trial.

The need for transparency is as great internally—if not greater—as it is externally, although little attention is paid to employees’ desire and need to understand decisions and the processes employed to make them in their companies. Some organizations adopted “open-book” management styles years ago, modeled on the Springfield Remanufacturing model, but this approach focuses more on business literacy than it does transparency.

A colleague of mine works for an organization undergoing significant change covering everything from the company’s structure to how it perceives and works with its various markets. Reductions in staff will definitely be a part of this restructuring (although I don’t believe any decisions have been made about layoffs vs. offering a package to motivate some employees to leave voluntarily). My friend puts his challenge this way:

We???ve identified that one of our key issues with internal communications is is the tension between our desire to be open and direct/transparent, and our company’s institutional desire to hang onto ???secrets.??? The bottom line is that we don???t trust our employees with information.

This is the hub of our problem with communications. When we next speak with our CEO, this will be the top item we raise.

You???ve spoken eloquently on the rising industry trend towards transparency. We have some data points on how employees and customers are getting directly connected via blogs and other mechanisms (e.g., Microsoft, Sun, Yahoo, General Motors) but we???re looking for some more meat on how other companies are being more transparent in the way they communicate internally with employees.

One example we have is that Cisco allows all employees to watch an online video of their ???E-staff??? (the senior leadership meeting, held roughly once a quarter). And American Express shares minutes of its equivalent meeting with all employees. But we need more to help us make the case that this is widespread practice in the industry.

Do you have another 4-5 solid examples we could cite? Any quotes from senior leaders on this topic?

And, the fact is, I don’t. I don’t believe this kind of transparency is widespread in my friend’s, or any, industry. But surely there are 4-5 solid examples out there somewhere of some company opening the windows on their C-suite activities. 

So, on my colleague’s behalf, I’m turning to this community of ours for some help. If you’re aware of any such practices, I’d be grateful if you’d share them so I can pass them along to a fellow communicator. Thanks!