Why Transparency With Your Team Is Critical To Your Startup’s Success
“You’re a mushroom manager,” Peter, one of my peers, said to me years ago.
“What’s a mushroom manager?”
“You feed people shit and you expect something to grow,” Peter said. Then he stormed out of my office.
I had to hold in my laughter. But Peter was right. Back in my younger days I was exactly as Peter described me. I was a mushroom manager.
Fast forward to when I started my company. I was meeting with Doug, an early member of the team who had worked with me years ago.
Doug said to me, “You used to be so different.”
“How so?” I asked.
“You used to be so paranoid. What happened to you?” It was clear from Doug’s tone, he didn’t like how I’d changed.
“I’ve gotten older,” I said to Doug.
You should be transparent with your team despite whatever paranoia you have.
What I didn’t say to Doug was that I am still paranoid. But your need to be transparent trumps your desire to keep things secret.
I told Doug that I made a conscious decision to be as open as possible with our team about everything going on in the company.
Doug said to me, “Aren’t you worried about our secrets getting to our competitors?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “But I’m willing to take that risk because the reward is much greater.”
Your team trusts you more when you’re transparent.
“What’s the reward?”
“Loyalty,” I said. “I know we are going to have unknown problems as we grow. I also know that the team will inevitably find out. So, if we share the good and bad of what’s going on, the team will hang in with us when things get tough.”
Starting the first month of the company, when there were only eight of us, I started sharing with the team the slides from our board meetings. The only slides I kept private were the slides from the closed session.
Every department head gave a status, good and bad, the highlights and the lowlights of what was…
