
Warts And All?
I wrote previously during the recent furore around sexual harassment within the tech industry and the broader issue of ‘bro culture’, that I had always felt I had largely escaped unscathed of overt gender disadvantage despite working in a male dominated industry my entire career. I hadn’t, of course, and I’ve written about that too. Sexual harassment, unconscious bias, discrimination, you name it, I have experienced it, I had just kind of gotten so used to it I just shed it like water off a ducks back, and got on with my job. I’m not looking for a medal by the way, it just was what it was.
And it’s at this point, that I feel I must insert the usual disclaimer, lest someone accuse me of being a feminazi, or crying victim, that overwhelmingly, the non-minorities in my industry have been non-minority supporters of me (see what I did there?) and behaved unilaterally as equals. But not for the amazing men I work with, I wouldn’t have the opportunities, knowledge, fun or friendships I now have. And it’s at this point I feel I must insert the other usual disclaimer, lest someone accuse me of being an oppressor apologist or condoning rape culture or some such bullshit, that I have a IQ and a personality type that allows me to make sufficiently objective analyses of reality, and avoid emotionally charged extremist views. Ok, everyone calm? Great, let’s continue.
The reason I’m writing yet again about gender stuff in the workplace despite absolutely NOT wanting to be any sort of poster child for gender in the workplace, is that I’ve been struggling with an issue lately that I’m wondering has indeed a foundation in gender differences, albeit more subtle and definitely less serious as those highlighted above. I’m talking about fault transparency in the workplace. Whether this is what a company got wrong, the issues it’s still struggling with, missing targets or a list of eleventy billion other things that could be deemed a ‘fault’, people’s views about what should be disclosed and the associated risk it poses, varies significantly. I posit that this view is dependent on personality (tolerance for risk, idealist views, aptitude for empathy etc), but also, I think, possibly on gender. But I’ll get to that, if you will indulge me for a few paragraphs about why I think fault transparency is useful, first.
Many people feel that companies should not be giving the public any reason to lose confidence in them by openly, publicly discussing (in any medium), the things they don’t think they do well, or haven’t gotten right, particularly when there is no ‘need’ to disclose them. For listed companies this is especially salient because there are very clear rules about what is necessary to disclose (anything that is material to the business) and for many listed companies particularly the most valuable on an exchange, there is always a proportion of shareholders who are shorters — that is investors that have availed themselves of a special type of lending instrument which allows them to hold your stock on the thesis that the share price will go down — and so have a vested interest in leveraging anything that may be construed as negative. This is a very real threat to listed companies as is any change in public sentiment whether that is simply perceived or genuinely deserved.
As a general rule, my view is that for most companies, the risk is far outweighed by the reward of being open, honest and transparent about faults and weaknesses. And in my humble opinion, there is much to be gained from being pre-emptive about them. When you focus on both of these things I believe it shows you are pro-active about resolving them (instead of defensive, particularly if they are revealed by a third party), it shows that you are self-aware about what can be improved and as a result, and I believe this actually boosts investors confidence rather than degrades it. I certainly know that in the companies that I work with, when the management teams proactively identify what they are struggling with and propose roadmaps to solve them or ask for help, I am way more happy than the ones who pretend it’s all OK because then we have a chance to fix the issue. I also think being open about your weaknesses helps build an emotional connection between your customers and shareholders because it cultivates relatability and most importantly trust, which is ultimately a tremendously positive thing for companies and brands. Now, when I say this, I mean this to be done strategically, with emotional intelligence and with the right messaging, I’m not suggesting a continuous disclosure requirement of every decision a Company gets wrong. Obviously.
Take the recent 500 Startups example. In 500 Startups, the Company was made aware of Dave McClure’s behaviour, they took some remedial action in demoting him to ‘face of 500-startups-at-large’, but they made the decision not to make this public (either his demotion or the reasons why). When this was eventually revealed, they ended up looking like a company that did not care about their partners in the slightest — that this could affect their partner’s reputations if revealed, or put any of the individuals who might interact with 500 Startup’s at risk of harassment given McClure was effectively travelling the world, networking and hustling as the face of their brand, did not seem to be a consideration. Their only consideration appeared to be protecting their own reputation. One such partner group was LaunchVic, who despite not doing anything wrong, were very unfairly put in an incredibly difficult position of defending the use of public funds to support 500 Startups in Australia, an organisation that now appeared to actively condone harassment by protecting the perpetrator and their reputation in favour of their partners and collaborators. Had 500 Startups simply made a firm statement at the time of McClure’s demotion explaining the ‘why’ to the public, they would still have had a crisis on their hands, but they would have gotten credit for taking a strong stance on the issue of harassment and seen to be a company of integrity and empathy for their partners, instead they now just look like weasels. And selfish. This is much worse than had they fessed up earlier. And even today, more has come out about other members of the 500 team. It is a PR, and a shareholder value disaster.
This is an extreme example of course, of fault. But they needn’t be extreme. Admitting the things we as companies might all still be struggling with, like how we sometimes don’t get recruiting decisions right, or the daily challenges of managing professional relationships, missing targets, or increasing diversity, can provide a platform to provide context and help the public understand about why they are challenging things to get right, and in my experience this inspires empathy and understanding rather than criticism. It also initiates a conversation that might help resolve some of the challenges/struggles/weaknesses. I’ve written about plenty of things we have struggled with at my business and personally — like, the challenges we have dealt within our management team, the challenges in building teams that all have a founder mentality, my personal challenges in providing leadership to my team, my personal health issues. In doing so I’ve had to be honest about what we or I got wrong or things that could be viewed as a negative, a fault, and therefore a risk. However, this has almost exclusively inspired empathy rather than criticism. Yielded benefits, rather than losses. Delivered solutions more than struggle. Proactively admitting these challenges also tends to take the wind out of the sails of any condemnation that a third party could make out of them and the unintended consequences that can have, and allows one to control the message more appropriately and sensitively.
But most importantly, I think it’s worthwhile to do because in my opinion it’s how you get better and stronger. Back in my days when I was still flirting with an athletic career, the best coach I ever had used to tell me that it wasn’t good enough to simply play my strengths, eventually the size of the advantage that gave me would be would be reduced as I competed against better players. The best athletes work on eliminating or minimising their weaknesses because its something most people don’t bother doing. However it’s very hard to do that without a coach to provide external advice and perspective and of course, to help trouble shoot and problem solve. As a company, you can’t just be aware of your faults (which in and of itself is not something many companies do well at all), you very often have to be vulnerable enough to ask for help to find an effective solution. I have no interest in building a company that looks perfect from the outside but has cracks on the inside and will, eventually, fall down. I want to build something that has longevity, and will weather storms and this means acknowledging, accepting and revealing the uglier parts in order to fix them.
I think my view on fault transparency is partly my personality type — I’m a VC, I have a decent tolerance for risk. However a vox pop in my industry revealed that this is not a view commonly shared by my brethren, but is by the sistren. So, why this is?…Well I don’t know. I could hazard a guess based on broad generalisations…maybe it’s for the same reason men tend to seek medical attention far less than women — a cultural (and possibly evolutionary) construction not to admit weakness…a near mortal fear of it. And so, unpractised in the art of admitting weakness and unfamiliar with the potential associated benefits, they just simply don’t believe it will be anything but fatal. But the thing is, because men seek medical help less often, they get less medical care, and they die earlier than women by some years. I’m sure you are smart enough to see the metaphor I’m trying to draw (subtle as a sledgehammer….) And while we are on the topic of broad generalisations, perhaps women are more empathetic, and thus more easily forgiving when people admit their weaknesses, so see it as a lower risk activity than men do.
The reality is that most company shareholders, investors, business journalists are probably (nah, who am I kidding…definitely) still mostly men, so if they interpret admission of fault as a signal weakness, then that’s a data point that needs to be faithfully considered by companies and my view on this could indeed be very wrong. So, what say you internet about fault transparency in companies? Do genders think about this differently? Publish or perish, or as the old saying goes, is it better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool than to talk and remove all doubt of it?
