What no explanations can mean.

Sketches of breakdowns in trust

A Scenario:

Case 1: “I don’t know what this company wants to do. I don’t know where it’s going.”

Case 2: “I don’t know why that announcement was made.”

Case 3: “I don’t know what the leadership is thinking.”

These words were dropped, in a flight of fancy. Dropped because something unexpected was dropped on them, from out of nowhere, with no explanation. These were shits ruffled feathers made when their perches were disturbed. Bird droppings in soil convert into rich fertilizer. Pigeon droppings more often end up as permanent fixtures, eyesores that are ignored until they become insufferable.

Such questions, casually dropped on the office floor take up invisible shapes and forms of their own, expanding like invisible balloons. The unspoken layers accumulate, and the sentences get longer until they become Case 4:

“I don’t know why we are filling out that survey every month. What do they do with it? It’s supposed to be anonymous, but I can’t be sure, so I’m not sure how honest I should be. I wonder how honest people are in their responses.”

What is okay to not know?

In this company, the leadership expected people to ask questions and would address each person who came up rather than offering explanations upfront. They expected that workers could take the shit to the leadership. The leadership believes its channels are open.

Also, not every decision needs to be explained. It is a truth commonly accepted that management is entitled to more information. Since that entitlement often comes with responsibilities, sometimes it’s better just not knowing as a regular team member. Most of the time, they don’t mind. But when they are surprised, they will probably want explanations.

They may want them, but they may not ask.

“I don’t know what the leadership is thinking” isn’t necessarily bad. The sentence that follows indicates where someone actually stands. It could be followed by, “But I’m sure they’ll explain at the next meeting.” It could also be followed by, “But I’ll just follow orders.” Or even by a resigned “But they’re always like this.”

Sometimes, these comments do trickle up. Sometimes they are addressed. Sometimes, the answers are wanting. Whether they are satisfactory or not may never be mentioned. But the feathers continue get ruffled by unexpected announcements.

How is it okay to not know?

Having something unexpected land on your plate or perch might be a surprise, but not always an alarm. But when you look around to see where it came from and can’t identify the source, it’s a bit unsettling. When they keep coming at random times from what seems like random directions, people get wary.

The unexpected thing can be the what, and the direction it came from is more the how or why. Knowing the why helps make the what more acceptable. Knowing why a company was collecting surveys and what it intended to do about them is more important than knowing the actual results. The company wanted to know how satisfied people were working there and it was officially collected anonymously. What would it do with this information? How would it find out what the issues were if there are really low scores? What actions would it commit to taking, if any? How would it decide on action priorities? These questions were being asked, but not directly to the leadership. If anyone did, the answers only benefited whomever asked. To the rest of the company, there was still no explanation.

Knowing why an announcement is made, the implications, and how it came about explains something about the management’s decision making process. At least you saw what would be coming on the horizon. By the time a decision landed, you had prepared yourself. You didn’t feel shot.

Perhaps, in the end what matters is the perception of a fair and due process — that someone can know what to expect. If you were getting shot, is it in your face, or behind your back? If you’re getting axed, did you see it coming?

Those workers didn’t understand what was going on and in some instances, what the consequences would be for what they did.

The irony is that their company believes in transparency. They believed explanations were needed only if they were asked for. The team members could have taken the shit and enriched the company by being dissatisfied and pushing for more. So then, why did they eventually stop accessing that open channel? When did they start feeling it was closed?

Here is a good demonstration of transparency for tough management decisions.