[solatic]

Because openness and transparency requires emotional security as a prerequisite. Surveillance and transparency are not the same thing. If you subject people to an all-seeing eye, people will default to covering their asses, and you will not get the information you seek.

Attempting to force people to be vulnerable by unilaterally being open about your own vulnerabilities is manipulative. You will get "my biggest weakness is that I care too much"-type deflective responses at best and a cold shoulder at worst.

In companies, a culture with emotional security is built first in private one-on-one meetings and spread from there - it never originates in a public (public within the company at least) setting.

[craftinator]

> Because openness and transparency requires emotional security as a prerequisite. Surveillance and transparency are not the same thing. If you subject people to an all-seeing eye, people will default to covering their asses, and you will not get the information you seek.

> Attempting to force people to be vulnerable by unilaterally being open about your own vulnerabilities is manipulative. You will get "my biggest weakness is that I care too much"-type deflective responses at best and a cold shoulder at worst.

> In companies, a culture with emotional security is built first in private one-on-one meetings and spread from there - it never originates in a public (public within the company at least) setting.

I'm a little confused... Did you mean to respond to a different comment?

[AmericanChopper]

I’m not sure how this relates to what I asked at all. If something I said at work gets leaked to the public or a regulator, that makes my employer look bad, why should I worry about that? That sounds a lot more like their problem than mine.

> Attempting to force people to be vulnerable by unilaterally being open about your own vulnerabilities is manipulative.

This comment makes no sense to me. Aside from not relating to what I said, I cannot possibly see how being open and honest is forcing anybody else to do anything. Personally I speak my mind wherever I work, and if my employer doesn’t like that, I’m more than happy to find a new job. Ironically, the only people who have ever had a problem with it are middle managers trying to cover up after themselves, and incompetent people that were somehow promoted to technical leadership roles they had no business being in. People I have no problems upsetting.

[solatic]

> Personally I speak my mind wherever I work, and if my employer doesn’t like that, I’m more than happy to find a new job.

This is more or less my point. If your employer was happy with it, then your employer was the kind of employer attempting to build a transparent organization (and worked to build emotional security etc.). If your employer wasn't happy with it, then you and your employer have different opinions on the importance of transparency, which points to a cultural mismatch, which points in the direction of parting ways.

The key insight is understanding that it's the employer, not the employee, who have both the responsibility and the power to set culture and direction. So if the employer decides not to work on building transparency into the culture, the employer will get an opaque culture as a result. Maybe this results in the kind of problems that Boeing is suffering from now, maybe it results in bankruptcy, maybe not. The employer is responsible and accountable to decide. The employee's decision is much simpler - adapt or leave. Most people decide to adapt; the potential upside to leaving is a murky gamble taken on faith, particularly if people don't have a specific offer lined up at a specific place that seems to be a better fit for specific reasons. So it shouldn't be a surprise to you that employers get what they (intentionally or unintentionally) incentivize.