Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Transparency?

Today we read about the massive discloser of heretofore secret documents outlining backroom diplomacy. All around us we here calls for more transparency. In corporate governance Congress and the SEC are requiring companies to reveal more about their strategy and pay practices. In government we are expecting everything to be open and transparent. Soon the Supreme Court will hear a case as to whether certain information can be exempt under privacy protection for corporations.

While I am generally in favor of transparency and believe in the notion that anything I do should be able to be printed on the front page of the New York Times, or as friend of mine likes to say, "what would your grandmother say if she knew about it," I also have learned that sometimes open transparency could hinder progress.

I had the great fortune of being the PTA president of my daughters elementary school one year and so got involved with the board of Trustees of the school district on a number of local issues. I once asked why the board couldn't reach consensus on a certain issue? Why they just didn't get together and discuss it among themselves in private to work out the differences among board members? That is when I discovered the Brown Act in California. The act, in the name of transparency, requires that any meeting of more than two officials must be down in the public forum - no more backroom politics.

No wonder nothing can get done. Where is the place for face saving negotiations. IF everything I say is said in public then can I we ever get beyond the public image and rhetoric? Did the exposure of the thousands of documents revealing the private negotiations of very sensitive and delicate positions among world leaders advance our world or set it back?

Is there such a thing as too much transparency? What do you think?

Follow @FastCoLeaders for all of our leadership news, expert bloggers, and book excerpts.

Norman Wolfe
President/CEO
Quantum Leaders, Inc.
Executing Strategy
http://www.QuantumLeaders.com
http://www.QuantumLeadersBlog.com
http://QuantumTwitter.com
http://QuantumYouTube.com
http://QuantumFacebook.com