Empiricism is built on 3 pillars: Transparency, Inspection, and Adaptation. People used to talk about how to inspect and adapt, but did not stress transparency. It’s like you can’t stand on a three-legged table while it’s missing one leg.
Transparency is important! No transparency, no data. How do we inspect and adapt? How do we have continuous improvement? It’s like walking in the darkness.
But why do we lose Transparency so easily?
Building transparency is not simple. Transparency requires Trust (and Trust is hard to build… read more here) and Courage from everybody to share everything, whether good or bad news. People used to be scared of bad news and hide it when something went wrong. But whether the news is bad or good, it’s data, right? Good news is a sign you’re going right, and bad news is a sign that indicates you need to change…
We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion. – Max De Pree –
How do we build it?
Back to the point: how to build transparency. Transparency requires Trust & Courage and is supported by 3 points below:
1. Transparency is everything; it needs to be shown and easy to reach by all stakeholders.
2. Transparency means everybody has the same understanding in the same situation.
3. Transparency requires maintenance. It will never be a one-day job.
The leader of the team needs to take the lead in building transparency. He/She builds trust by sharing first and then encouraging the team to be transparent. Remember, when transparency is built, everything will be shown in the light, even bad/good news, so you should accept it as data to inspect and adapt, but not treat it as a blame game.
You can imagine that – Nobody wants to share or be open once you say: Tell everything to me, but you point back and blame them because they share the news that doesn’t make you happy… And yes! After that, they will share all the good news with you and hide the bad news… Or try to make everything “look” good… We don’t want fake transparency, right?
