This will just be a short post to express something that
continues to befuddle me: information fiefdoms. What do I mean by “information fiefdoms”? This is the kind of organizational and
individual behavior wherein a group or person withholds information from others
for reasons that amount to self-protection or an ill-conceived notion of
propriety.
Now in offering this, I want to be clear I completely get
the need for secrecy in communication. I
understand the need for justifiable discretion in relaying personal
matters. I’ve held a fairly high level
security clearance, so I understand the need to keep tight lipped about
security related issues. I even get the
need to be careful about industrial espionage especially as I relates to
intellectual property. These are not
creations of information fiefdoms, they are necessary protections within
society.
What I am referring to here is the kind of organization or
persons that simply hold information as a means to stifle others, to accumulate
miss-gotten power, and to trade it as if it were currency. Look, I am an open communicator; meaning that
I have long learned that if I am the only one that knows a thing, it’s likely
that is a bad situation. Thus I pass
along information as a norm unless I’m told otherwise and there is a good
reason to withhold it. I also believe that
sharing more information aids in team building, empowers rather than stifles,
and results in better outcomes over and against potential failures. Yet I continue to encounter people and
organizations that are much more interested in “protecting their [information]
turf” than they are in helping to make themselves and others successful.
You’ve encountered them I am sure. The folks that don’t want to share slides
from a presentation, or those that don’t include you in a CC on an email, or
places that have cultures where being seen chatting with someone in another department
might lead to a probing interrogation when you get back to the office about what
was being discussed as if you were off the reservation to have even talked with
them. Its places where you routinely are
told about things way too late to contribute meaningfully and the rumor mill is
so maligned that it causes your head to spin.
Its places where “blow-ups” happen in frequent enough cycle that you can
feel another one about to strike well ahead of its inevitable eruption and
where morale is low and seeming on a path to go lower. It’s places and people that rather solve
one-on-one rather than engage teams or flee from public meetings and scrutiny
in favor of the backroom deal. Further,
it is a place where leaders as quashed not made and its people that are self-engrossed
or focused on self-enrichment (in power, prestige, or treasure) rather than selflessly
serving. It’s about creating a fiefdom
out of what you know and what you hold as information, not a community where we
being open and honest and sharing enables everyone to grow and learn and accomplish
much more than the sum of their parts.
So I just have to say it, stop it with the information fiefdom
creating. Tear down the information
hogging pens and let things get out of the barn. Sure, occasionally things can get a bit
haywire and run a bit wild, but you can rein that in by demonstrating the value
of the group and the need to share appropriately so as to fulfill a vision
everyone can buy into. Leaders share
information, they aren’t afraid of it.
Leaders are the ones that aren’t afraid of bad news, and are instead the
first to relay it. Leaders communicate
first, and listen always. Being the
holder of an information fief is the opposite of that, it hurts you and it hurts
those organizations that trade in such methods.
Don’t be afraid of information, be the one that enables it to flourish around
you.
So stop, stop building information fiefdoms. Instead, build networks of sharing. You’ll be glad you did.
