Prolific integral blogger C4Chaos asked a great question in connection with my previous post on The Paradox of Gaining Power Through Letting Go. He writes:

Great post Steve! So does egoless mean becoming see-through as well? Which is better, translucent or transparent? Just thinking out loud.

(C4Chaos’ link goes to the cover story of the latest issue of Wired Magazine.)

I too was intrigued by the latest issue of Wired with its provocative title, Get Naked and Rule the World and it’s racy peel back cover:

(Interesting to note that Wired put a nude woman on the cover of its magazine and then only quoted male CEOs in the article. And yes, I realize that my entire staff is male—we’re working on that. But I digress…)

Wired makes the case for “radical transparency”—exposing every last detail of your company’s internal processes to the world through blogging and other forms of direct communication with your customers. Their intention seems noble—transparency can drive a corporate culture of honesty and integrity. They give several examples of “transparency:”

• Redfin, an on-line real estate brokerage that blogs about their battles with traditional real estate agents;
• Southwest Airlines’ strategy of allowing 30 employees to blog about their jobs and personal lives; and
• Zappos’ use of corporate-wide wikis for reporting problems and suggesting solutions.

But it seems to me that these are not examples of 100% transparency—they are examples of good corporate communications and skillful customer relationship management.

I think conscious businesses should strive to be translucent—letting as much light through as possible without oversharing. Why? 3 reasons:

1. CEO’s need to be free to experiment with their edge. Call it research & development, call it trying out a new way of being in the world—CEO’s (and entire teams) need a safe space to experiment and risk failure before they are ready to unveil a brand or product to the world.
2. Good leaders manage expectations. Too much information too soon can ratchet up and concretize expectations in ways that limit your ability to innovate and deliver.
3. Beware of hive mind. It is certainly true that there can be wisdom in crowds. But the danger of asking self selecting crowds to give input into everything you do is that you may end up trying to be everything to everybody.

So, as with most things, it’s a balance. Conscious businesses want to have integrity, honesty, engaging corporate communication, and first rate customer service. They also want to be in relationship with customers, vendors, and the community—and often that will mean seeking their input and counsel. At the same time, few businesses are going to want to air every last detail of their internal processes (or lack thereof)—nor should they. Successful entrepreneurs understand that they need a safe space to innovate and to do the work required to develop and grow (personally and as an organization).

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 5:58 pm and is filed under management, transparency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.