How To Make Transparency Part Of Daily Operations

I just interviewed the head of leadership development at a midsize biotech company. She delivers a highly creative monthly program. And she's doing so with little to no budget. I asked her: “How are you driving so much impact on such a tight budget?” Her answer: “Teaching at scale.” Specifically, she broke down her approach as follows. 1/ She based her approach on her company's existing culture. Her company is extremely transparent. Not like they write “transparency” on a poster. —> People give each other feedback. —> Leaders are vulnerable. —> There’s a broad feeling of trust. So, she based her approach on transparency ⬇️ 2/ She leverages transparency to “collect mistakes.” Leaders reach out to her to share recent mistakes they made. Some are operational. All touch on leadership capabilities. She documents them. 3/ She chooses a mistake and builds a session around it. She selects based on the frequency & relevance of the mistake. She prepares to facilitate. Often, the leader who made the mistake will co-facilitate. When it makes sense, she weaves in relevant leadership skills. For example, she may want to touch on “accountability.” If so, she will: - find a good model - list out key insights she wants to cover - put together a short presentation - get in touch with someone skilled to share an example 4/ She then conducts a live post-mortem with all leaders. Leaders come together to talk through mistakes. - They ask questions. - They share similar experiences. - More experienced leaders may offer advice and share examples. She facilitates the discussion and keeps it on track. 5/ She records the session for future use. She does this in two ways. First, if it’s a virtual meeting, she records the session on Zoom. She clips relevant video sections to repurpose as course material content. Second, she collects a written record of key ideas and insights in a Google Doc. As the company grows and adds locations, this document can have multiple contributors. It serves as a living record. ***** Things I especially love about her approach: 1. She doesn’t need business context. It's baked in. 2. The sessions are authentic. Real mistakes, real experiences. 3. She channels her existing culture. Her company works with radical transparency, so she uses it. She's pulling, not pushing. 4. She makes the most of each session. She prepares. She records. She builds up an archive of valuable video clips (her presentations + real examples). 5. She doesn’t stretch herself thin. She hones in on one problem. ***** Curious to hear from all of you: —> On a scale from 1-10, how likely are you to steal this? ***** P.S. Follow me, Kevin Kruse, for more leadership development posts like this one. ***** #leadershipdevelopment

Many companies never share their core values publicly and for those that do, it can be hard to understand how these values came about and how they are used in daily work. Over the next five weeks, I’m sharing the five core values we used at Proletariat Inc., not just what they were, but why we chose them, how we wrote them, and how they actually impacted our work. Here is the first: Understand Why Understand Why Know why your work is important to your team, your project, and the company. Be passionately curious, act with intention, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s your responsibility to understand the reasons behind a decision, and it is the decision maker’s job to be transparent. Why It Mattered Understanding why a decision was made is fundamental to doing great work. Most teams and individuals can explain what to do. Good teams get alignment on how and when to do something. But great teams push to understand why, because that’s where autonomy, creativity, and real ownership live. When someone knows the why behind a task, they can make smarter decisions, raise flags earlier, and often suggest better ways to reach the goal. If you know why someone else on your team is doing something it makes you a better teammate because you can more easily align with their goals and all row in the same direction. Making the leap to understanding why decisions are made a certain way or work is done a certain way is the fastest track to growing in your role and career. If you want more responsibility you need to have a broader understanding of the business and the team. That higher level perspective is required for strong leadership. What It Encouraged This value was built around two core ideas: 1. Transparency is required 2. Curiosity is everyone’s responsibility We didn’t want to just say “be transparent” because that puts the burden solely on leadership. Instead, we wanted to instill a mindset of responsibility in every team member: if you don’t understand something, ask. If a decision doesn’t make sense to you, dig in. The inverse was also true: if you were making decisions, it was your job to explain them. That created a culture of decision transparency, which is incredibly important especially when the decisions are difficult or controversial. That transparency allows trust to flourish up and down the organization. How We Applied It “Understand Why” showed up in all kinds of ways: - In meetings, people would frequently ask: “why are we doing this instead of that?” - In our weekly full team meeting leadership would answer any question and invest time to ensure the team was fully informed - In design and development reviews, we prioritized intent: “What was the outcome you wanted to achieve here, and why?” - When a difficult decision needed to be made leadership would outline not just what the choice was made but the reasons why that was the right choice given the context

Underrated leadership lesson: Be radically transparent. Feedback shouldn't happen just once a year. It should be a daily, continuous loop. During my 10 years at Bridgewater, I received 12,385 pieces of feedback. And, it wasn't just reserved for formal reviews. Feedback was given LIVE throughout the day. In the middle of a presentation? Feedback. Right after answering a question? Feedback. Truthfully, as an employee, I didn't always love it. But I valued it. After all, they're called blind spots for a reason. This was all the result of one key principle: Radical transparency. A system that integrates candid feedback into daily work life, Allowing employees to constantly assess and be assessed. Here's why it works: ✅ Good thinking and behavior increase ↳ Processes improve when logic is analyzed in real time. ✅ High standards are maintained  ↳ Problems get fixed faster when everything is visible. ✅ No more workplace hierarchies ↳ Continuous improvement happens when everyone is accountable. It's a principle that didn't just change my resilience to feedback. It completely transformed my leadership as a whole. So managers, Consider implementing radical transparency for these 7 reasons: 1. Faster problem-solving ↳ Small issues are easier to fix than big ones. 2. Openness saves time ↳ Less time wasted on gossip and tracking information. 3. Accelerated learning  ↳ Teams grow faster when they understand each other’s thinking. 4. Long-term success ↳ Ongoing feedback improves leadership and the organization. 5. Building an idea of meritocracy ↳ Transparency builds trust and rewards good ideas. 6. Reduced workplace inefficiencies ↳ Open communication cuts wasted time and confusion. 7. Proactive issue resolution ↳ Fixing small problems early prevents bigger ones. While getting scores live in the mid-presentation may not be for everyone: Becoming more transparent has real, tangible benefits, And can put you on a streamlined path to success. Leaders - are you brave enough to try it? ♻️ Repost to help other leaders become radically transparent. 🔔 And follow Dave Kline for more.