The BIGG Successs Show
How Honest Should You be with Your Employees?
An ethical dilemma many of us face during tough times. Read our show summary and find the links we reference at BIGGSUCCESS.COM.
Welcome to The Big Success Show. Today, we ask, "How honest should you be with your employees?" The Big Success Show with George and Mary Lynn. Wait, Mary Lynn, I didn't catch that. Did you say, "How, Henry, are your employees?" "Enri, no." Thank you, Scott. Not "Enri." We saw this great article over at Harvard Business Publishing by Clinton Corver, and he's talking about why it's especially important during tough times to share information with your employees. He said that he fought this with his money guys with his startup. The venture capitalists, they wanted to soften the blow a little bit. They were afraid that they'd lose employees or customers. Even other investors, when times got tough, if they shared that information. Clinton says that he found that it actually strengthened the relationship rather than harming it. I worked for a manager once who used this very same tactic. I was working in radio. Our company was facing tough times. We brought us all in and said, "Hey, here's the deal, guys. Here's what we've got to do. We're going to ask each of you to step it up more and we can make this happen." I actually liked that because I think it put us all on the same page. I think, Mary Lynn, when you study people and you ask them their core values, honesty, integrity, words like that are always at the top of the list. For all of us, it seems like. Here's a question for you. You value honesty, right? Yes. Your best friend had a baby, and it's the ugliest baby you've ever seen in your entire life. It's not the beautiful baby. There are no ugly babies, though, but okay. Okay. Let's pretend this one is. Your friend's going on and on and on about how beautiful her new baby is. Then she says, "Don't you just think that he's just the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen. What are you going to say?" I'm going to say, "Of course he's cute. Oh, doo, doo, doo, doo. Oh, what a baby." Yeah. Well, but the point is that we all value honesty, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we will be honest at the expense of other people's feelings, right? Right. Well, okay. But I think the two examples that were given here are completely different, but I will agree with you on this, though, because after everybody knew how bad the situation was, there was talk in the hallway. Even though we were all on the same page, there was talk in the hallway when the boss wasn't around of, "Oh my gosh, are we going to lose our job?" Or, "Boy, I'd better do this," or, "I might lose my job," or, "Oh gosh, we're going to all have to pitch in and do more work." Boy, I bet we're not going to be able to ask for more money when it's time for a race. I mean, there was some resentment and there was some anxiety. Well, and I will tell you, I'm a big believer in open book management. As a general rule, I think the more you can share with your employees, the better. Having said that, I think you also have to really know your employees because if employees aren't at a certain level of maturity in your particular company, you may just cause undue emotional distress if you're too open with them. Well, I think what we're highlighting here, George, is the true nature of an ethical dilemma. Yeah, this is a perfect example of one, right? Because what we have is we have two, in this case, two core values. Sometimes it could even be more than that, but two core values that are at odds end with each other. And coming up, how to solve a situation like this? Today we're talking about the perfect example of an ethical dilemma. It's based on an article about how much you should share with your employees, whether times are good or bad. Marilyn, you've kind of come down on the side of honesty. I've come down on the side of making sure you're not causing undue emotional distress. Right. You believe that it's important to be honest with employees, but you also feel that it's your ethical responsibility to bear as much of that burden on your own or with an inner circle of managers as much as you can. So it really boils down to a personal decision. Well, and that is exactly the case with an ethical decision. And the key thing to understand about this, or one of the key things, is that ethical dilemmas tend to flow up in an organization. So if you're the top dog, you're going to be the one dealing with them. And it's important to have a framework in place so that you make decisions that are consistent, that build goodwill, that you can do this in an efficient manner. And I think most importantly that when you look in the mirror at the end of the day, you're happy with the person you see. And we have a great resource to help you set up the framework. So when an ethical dilemma comes your way, you are prepared. Yeah. And it goes into quite a bit of detail, but it involves three steps. First, you have to know what your values are, what's most important to you. And then the second step is to select an ethical model. That provides the structure you need to help you decide how to score those values. And then finally, use a problem solving process to help you work through your specific ethical dilemma. Again, you'll find a link to our resource to help you with this process on our website today at Big Success. That's big with 2gsuccess.com. That's also where you'll find a written summary of today's show. And what do you think about today's ethical dilemma? Leave a comment for us while you're there. Yeah, way in. And next time, speaking of way in in, we're going to party in the parking lot. Mm, brats are burgers. Now that's a real dilemma, Marilyn. I'd say. Until then, here's to your big success. The Big Success Show at B-I-G-G Success.com. 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