Authenticity vs. Transparency
Posted by Aaron Strout on Jul 1st, 2009. Related posts: Featured Articles • Leadership • Trust • Work.
During a recent interview with Bob Knorpp of “The Beancast,” the topic of transparency came up. In particular, should the concept of “transparency” be mandatory for companies and their executives? With the pervasiveness of tools like Twitter, blogs and Youtube, it certainly is a lot easier to be transparent. And given the current state of the financial and auto industries, one might think “corporate transparency” might be ripe for its own constitutional amendment.
While those of you that know me understand that I am a big proponent of transparency, I told Bob in our interview that he’s barking up the wrong tree. While we should all strive toward being as transparent as possible, the real holy grail is actually “authenticity.” Yes, the two are linked conceptually, but they mean fairly different things. One is about allowing for complete visibility into one’s public and private activities. The other is focused on the concept of being genuine and communicating real feelings – good or bad.
What does this mean for you? Well, for one it gives you a little bit of wiggle room when it comes to sensitive issues like employee compensation (most folks agree that we really aren’t ready for everyone to know how much we all make). It also means that how you conduct yourself is more important than what you are willing to tell people. To reinforce this point, just see what people are saying about Bear Grylls of tv show Man vs. Wild fame. While his show is much more engaging and exciting than Survivorman, his lack of “authenticity” has hurt his credibility.
No related posts.
Great points on how we should strive to act authentically, Aaron. To me, the difference between transparency and authenticity is the difference between the system and the behavior.
Transparency is a quality of the structure in which we conduct our lives. The degree of transparency measures how much or how little daylight we shine on our activities according to how we’ve designated it to be: from zero (“black box”) to total (“fish bowl”).
Authenticity, on the other hand, is just as you’ve stated: how we humans conduct ourselves, independent of the amount of transparency of the system. One can be completely authentic in a non-transparent system or in a completely transparent system: it’s up to the individual to decide how to operate.
All the aphorisms about “you can know the worth of a person by how they act when no one’s looking” speak to the fact that if you live your life authentically, it doesn’t matter how transparent the system is.
You can (nay, should) strive for authenticity no matter the level of transparency at your company, your network, your family.
Transparency should be driven by what the customer needs to know to conduct business with you. If you have a history of “suspect” dealings I would believe that would require more transparency. I don’t believe that transparency laws are a good path as you can’t legislate as effectively as the marketplace. I say, that even is more true now that social media is starting to find ways to keep organizations more honest as bloggers and tweeters are calling out organizations. Nothing really is a secret anymore.
Authenticity is a different subject. As a systems thinker I believe that each company has a unique system. Where organizations run into trouble is with foolishness like copying and “best practices” that usually lead to waste and/or sub-optimization. Each unique system must find its own way with its own customers, culture, structure, management thinking, work design, etc.
Thomas/Tripp,
Thank you for your insightful thoughts on my “authenticity vs. transparency” front. I like how you’ve taken the initial thought and expanded it. You’ve got me thinking.
Best,
Aaron | @aaronstrout
Well those two words can have different meanings as they come through different contexts…
A person I found to be the most authentic and transparent in action was Robert Rabbin. This man role models what he teaches about Authenticty and Transparency through how we speak, show up and move in the world.
Robert has assisted many people out of the dialogues about these two qualites, assisting people to feel, know and live it for themselves
Please visit http://www.realtimespeaking.com
You will be pleased you did