Transparency and Respect

by Tom Miller

Every year, I get together with classmates from the Oxford/HEC Coaching and Consulting for Change program and we spend a few days focusing on the significant people issues we are encountering in our work. I just got back from this year’s meeting in Paris where I came away with a few high impact thoughts. One that was very significant for me was communicated by Denis Bourgeois, a professor at HEC.

In a simple XY graph, Denis created a visual description of the cultural choices that organizations and people make.
From an organizational standpoint, the most compelling way to think about this graph is to first evaluate the Y axis and determine the degree to which employees would say the organization is transparent in both its business and people strategies. Questions to ask to determine this could include:

  • Can employees articulate why the organization exists and how it makes money?
  • Do employees know what the growth plans for the organization are?
  • Can employees explain how their work matters and would they say the organization values that?

The last question segues to the X axis where the degree to which employees are either respected or manipulated is measured. While both the X and the Y are mainly subjective measurements, I think this axis is the tougher one to determine… All organizations would say they respect employees – and I think they’d mean it. But does the culture of the company really support individual respect? A few questions to tease this out…

  • Do all employees have an opportunity to do meaningful work? How do they know it’s meaningful?
  • Does any employee with an idea have a ready audience to be heard?
  • Are individual strengths and weaknesses accounted for within the context of acceptable performance?

Your Recognition and Reward System is a tool to support whatever your organization determines is the correct quadrant to live in (I hope for your sake it’s the upper left!). The behaviors and performance you recognize and the way you recognize those are indicators of where you want to be.

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