Five tips to encourage honesty at work

Working as a team coach, I often hear the call for more openness or honesty and less politics at work. However openness cannot be created by talking about it. This might feel good, but it does not help you to create an open (feedback) culture. Openness is only created by being open yourself. And that's where things get risky. We expect our colleagues to be totally honest but hesitate to speak up ourselves. We keep our mouths shut when we do not agree with a delicate decision or say yes in the meeting, but do not behave accordingly outside the meeting room. If a colleague is not delivering the input we need, we do not address this. Instead, we prefer to find a bypass and get the input from another staf member. This - often unconscious - indirect or dishonest communication in organizations leads to confusion, disappointment and inefficiency. A few of my clients therefore decided 'being able to have difficult conversations' to be the number one leadership competence. But how realistic is this ambition?

We expect our colleagues to be totally honest but hesitate to speak up ourselves.

An actual case

Two local companies have merged. The organizational hierarchy is in place and all the managers have been appointed. Now the board wants to work on performance management and improve efficiency. They notice more focus and less politics are needed. The board organized a meeting for the top 15 to discuss how to organise and implement this process. The board members all feel their direct reports should do the job and they therefore try to keep silent during the brainstorm. The top managers decide to start three programs; Systems & Processes, Leadership, and Performance Management & Appraisal. All of the top managers take a role in one of the programs and together they decide about a program leader for each program and the procedure to communicate about the progress.

During the weeks that follow, all program leaders schedule a kick off meeting, but only half of the participants show up. A few weeks later, they organise a second meeting, hoping to be complete now. Also, at this meeting at least 50% of the top managers do not attend, most of them without explanation. After the third poorly attended meeting, the program leaders raise a red flag and report back to the board. Clear commitments were agreed, but as it turns out, hardly anybody really wants to invest their time and energy. They wonder how they should proceed.

We all want the other person to be totally honest

Are colleagues really committed or did we reach a weak compromise that nobody really wants to follow through outside the meeting room? Or maybe we agree because we want to please our manager? What do you think would have happened if the board members had not attended the meeting? Why is it so difficult to say we do not believe in the process or do not have the time to proceed?

The answer; because we are human beings. Our nature is getting in the way. In another article I explained six reasons why we prefer not to speak up. We like to be seen as empathic, we avoid pain and risk (for example to damage the good relationship or atmosphere). And we all work so hard to save face that our colleagues sometimes have trouble figuring out what we really stand for and support. And maybe even more importantly; we want to help the other person save face. That explains, for example, why we do not intervene when one of our colleagues is talking too much in a meeting (although we notice that everybody is staring out of the window). We sometimes agree to do something we do not really want to do, because it gives a positive impulse to the relationship, boosts our image or because we simply do not want to be kicked out of the tribe.

The research of Morrison and Milliken in organizations clearly demonstrates not everything that needs to be said is actually said. This is what they call 'Employee Silence' (1). Other researchers write about 'Employee Voice'; the deliberate choice not to keep your mouth shut, for example when you believe there has been an injustice. Keeping silent often happens without even being aware of it. Opening your mouth however requires a conscious decision. Neglecting all research about our human nature, employee voice and silence, we still seem to believe that talking about openness is enough to create openness. That is totally naïve. We need to dig deeper and we need to create the right conditions.

Neglecting all research, we still seem to believe that talking about openness is enough to create openness.

Enlarge the playing field

My research on addressing inappropriate behavior at work in the Netherlands (2) shows, when we speak up more often, not only does the atmosphere improve, but we can also earn a lot of money. The 500 managers I asked about this together on average estimate we could improve productivity by 28% and revenues by 12.5%, we could reduce costs by 16% and we could lower absence by 15%.

To create more openness and transparency, we need two movements. The first movement is to speak up and encourage others to do as well. But this is not enough. We also need to let ourselves be known by managing the impulse to save face and we must encourage others to do the same. Real openness demands that we show a bit more of ourselves; stop keeping our cards close to our chest and show our vulnerability and hidden convictions.

If you succeed in doing so, conflicting opinions in your team are no longer swept under the rug, but rather put on the table. The result is that you fundamentally enlarge the playing field. You will experience more honest discussions about what really counts. You will improve decision making and gain greater clarity about who is (or is not) committed to implement what has been agreed upon.

Create the right conditions

What can you do to encourage maximum openness and honest conversations in your team? Five tips:

1.   Be vulnerable and know your alarm-button. Consider how often this week you may have asked 'How do you think I did....?' Ã¡nd then consider whether you succeed in not defending yourself once you heard the answer. Being open to all kinds of answers to this question demands that you know the story you are upholding about yourself (and therefore where you are vulnerable). Imagine that you think it is important that your employees see you as decisive, and one of your staff members answers 'I feel frustrated because you need to do something about this! Make a decision already! You aren’t taking any action!'. It will be really challenging for you to not start explaining extensively why your inaction is the best thing for now. This defence mechanism gives the staff member the feeling that he is not being heard. He will think that you only asked because you just had a feedback training (but do not really want to know the answer). Don't be surprised if he only answers 'good' the next time you ask.

2. Invest in the relationship and enlarge the psychological safety. Psychological safety has to do with the ability to assess the direct consequences of your honest intervention. The research of Harvard professor Amy Edmondson shows that we are all afraid to be seen as ignorant, incompetent, intrusive or negative. We therefore avoid asking questions, admitting weaknesses or mistakes, offering ideas or critiquing the status quo. As a manager, it is therefore important to immediately make clear that you don't think it is dumb when somebody asks a question and that being critical to you means being constructive. That can be difficult, because you want to stay on track and go on. Managers often put more energy in realizing the target, than building a relationship. Research however shows that employees are much more open to your feedback (and willing to act upon it) when they feel happy about the relationship with you. And it will be easier to address your ineffective behavior when they trust it will not damage the relationship.

3. Make your norms explicit and decide together on the team norms. We usually agree on values like respect or integrity, but we all have different norms attached to that. For you, respect might mean not being too harsh on somebody, always trying to save face. While another colleague may interpret respect as always being honest and will therefore never avoid giving critical feedback. Our norms are usually so obvious to us that we forget to share them and create a mutual perspective. We then get really upset when a colleague is not behaving in the way that we think is normal. How arrogant is that? So please make your norms explicit and together with your team set a few standards for your shared 'normal' in that specific context. For example, 'during our meetings we do not look at our mobile phones, unless we want to make notes on it and explain we are doing so'.

If your employees know where you set the boundaries, also in behavior, they will feel safer. They know what is right and wrong in your opinion and therefore feel supported when addressing behavior. 

4. Stimulate making mistakes and share yours. As Amy Edmondson demonstrated, people hate to admit their mistakes because we fear looking incompetent. If one of your employees makes a mistake, this is a chance to boost psychological safety in your team. First manage your own frustration when things go wrong. The next day publicly praise the colleague who made the mistake for his courage to try, and together with your team analyse which wise lessons can be learned from it. This might sound like a cliché that we should learn from our mistakes, but how often do you really do it?

5. Create a rhythm for reflection. In meetings, we usually spend 95% of the time talking about content. We hardly talk about how we are working together and our relationships. Amy Edmondson suggests a steady rhythm to stimulate that. For example, agree on dedicating the first half hour of the last meeting in each quarter to reflect on the cooperation, annoyances and ineffective behavior. In the beginning, this might feel odd, but when you persist it becomes normal. Knowing that every few weeks a moment will come to share annoyances and frustrations creates an opportunity to blow off some steam so things don’t boil over.

Telling people to be more honest will lead to resistance and suspicion.

Maybe you are leading leaders or managing managers and you want them to change and be more transparent. Then I have an unpleasant message for you; you cannot simply tell them to do so. Telling people to be more honest will lead to resistance and suspicion. They will not open up if they think you aren’t. So you must be the change you want to see. Be vulnerable first. The effort you put into it will be noticed and copied. You will make the journey together. In the end, there is only one way to create more openness in your team; be honest with them and yourself.

I wish you a lot of good and honest conversations.

Gytha Heins – team coach and author of the Dutch bestseller 'Aanspreken? Gewoon doen!' (about addressing inappropriate behavior at work). More information can be found on www.succesvolaanspreken.nl. If you would like to receive more information in English, please send an email to info@be7.nl.

(1) ‘Organizational silence: a barrier to change and development in a pluralistic world’, E.W. Morrison & F.J. Milliken (2000) Academy of Management Review 25, 706-725.

(2) Research 'Addressing inappropriate behavior at work'. Gytha Heins and Kien Research 2014-2017.

(3) Amy Edmondson, Associate professor at Harvard, did a lot of research on this topic. She discusses her findings during a TED X.