If you think your company has a challenge with open and honest communication, you may only be seeing the surface issues, because it’s easy — very easy — for an organization’s communication culture to degrade from benign, passive mendacity into outright dishonesty and fraud.

Everything your organization has invested in communication technologies and training can go to waste if the communication “culture” isn’t straightforward and honest. It’s easy to say (and think) that managers and employees are truthful and direct in their communications, but ask yourself these questions:

• Are all employees (especially those at the lowest level) comfortable delivering bad news to their supervisors?
• Are executives and managers comfortable delivering bad news to employees?
• When an executive or manager comes up with an idea or project, are employees comfortable pointing out the potential flaws or expressing their doubts?
• If doubts are expressed about an executive’s idea, do other employees express their own honest opinions, or do they help the executive “save face?”

These may be subtle points, and the answers probably aren’t obvious, but it’s important to recognize that it’s difficult to develop a communication culture that is truly open and honest.

Are You Getting the Bad News You Need?

One of the worst experiences a manager, executive or supervisor can have is that dreadful, sinking feeling that occurs when it’s discovered that something you should have known about wasn’t conveyed to you in a timely and useful way.

You can’t be everywhere, and you can’t know everything, but not getting the bad news you need, when you need it, can be a critical flaw. You look foolish, ignorant and “out of it,” regardless of who might be at fault for the lack of communication, and of course you end up wondering, “What else don’t I know?”

Why Employees Don’t Tell

Before we talk about specific steps you can apply to encourage people to communicate openly and give you the bad news when you need it, it’s important to understand some of the reasons why some employees hesitate to do so.

People vary in the degree to which they are comfortable communicating bad news. Some people, for example, have difficulty tolerating conflict and associate bad news with conflict situations. Others will hesitate because of embarrassment, or because they feel responsible (even when they may not be). Others may feel that they can fix the problem before it has to go to you. The same dynamics that apply to personal bad news typically apply in the workplace.

Another source of hesitancy may be your own behavior as a leader. If you tend to display your emotions easily, you may be intimidating staff when there’s bad news to share. You may simply be making it easier for them to keep quiet and hope it blows over, rather than addressing and fixing the problem. Obviously, you wouldn’t deliberately set up such a scenario, but your personal style may be sufficiently emotional to scare off at least some people.

If your focus is on blame rather than on problem-solving, you will also be less “in the loop.” Managers who are perceived as rational (and less prone to frustration) problem-solvers are less likely to intimidate staff into silence.

Even your general communication approach affects what you will hear and not hear from others. If you are generally attentive, appear interested, open and curious, then you will be more likely to get what you need. If you convey the idea that you are busy, overwhelmed or uninterested, then staff are more likely to try not to “bother you,” with what, to them, might appear like little things. Sometimes those little things are things you really need to know about in advance.

Organizational culture issues can also intimidate staff into silence. If your larger organization has a history of avoidance of conflict, secrecy, blaming, intimidation and denial, then it is more likely that staff will keep silent as much as possible.

What Can You Do?

The best way to encourage more sharing of bad news, in a productive manner, is to address your own behaviors. Below are some suggestions.

• Learn the distinction between blame and problem-solving. When bad news comes to you, first address the problem rather than spend your time determining who has messed up. If it is absolutely necessary to determine where the fault occurred, don’t look just for a person to blame. Use the incident as an opportunity to prevent further occurrences rather than to blame. This kind of process tells staff they aren’t going to get dumped on if they bring you bad news.
• Consider your own emotionality of expression. Some people express their emotions very openly. Others come across as more reserved or calmer. There isn’t really a right or wrong here, but if you tend to be on the flamboyant open side emotionally, consider toning it down a bit, generally. Why? Because strong expressions of emotion can frighten people, particularly those over whom you hold some degree of power.
• Create a culture that values both finding and solving problems. The best way to do this is to role model this attitude with staff, consistently. When you make a mistake, share that mistake, accept responsibility, and model the problem-solving process.
• Some organizations like to open staff meetings with a discussion of some “triumph” that has occurred since the last meeting, a job well done or some other success. The idea, of course, is to celebrate accomplishments, which makes sense. Consider though, that while this may be somewhat morale heightening, its effect is limited if there are other unspoken problems and mess-ups occurring. Successes do not counter-balance mistakes. What really increases morale is fixing the mistakes so that they don’t happen anymore.
• Another approach is to open each meeting with a “hassle-hunting” process, where you spend a small amount of time identifying problems or complaints that have come up since the last meeting and work to overcome them. This technique is used in some hospitality sector organizations (like in hotels).
• Managing understanding is an important part of ensuring that you get the bad news you need. One reason why employees don’t come to their managers with bad news is that they do not understand the significance or importance of some things that occur. Your view of events may be different. What may seem important for you may seem trivial to staff. So, make sure to clarify what kind of information you need, when you need it, and why you need it. The “why” is important because it helps clarify your needs to your team members.
• Finally, if your organization has a history of avoiding problems or conflict, recognize that it’s going to take time for that culture to change. The key here is your consistency around how you handle bad news. Make it worthwhile and safe for staff to talk to you, and you will get the feedback you need — when you need it.

If you think your company has a challenge with open and honest communication, you may only be seeing the surface issues, because it’s easy for an organization’s communication culture to degrade from benign, passive mendacity into outright dishonesty and fraud.

When a work environment lacks basic trust, productivity suffers. In most cases, employee dishonesty begins with the little things (e.g., using company time for personal tasks, taking longer breaks, not telling supervisors the complete truth, etc.) and this can often be justified by some employees if they feel that the company itself isn’t completely honest in its communication with them or their customers. So, it’s extremely important that the culture of honest communication begins at the top and works its way down through the ranks.

In Frontline Learning’s Corporate CultureMap: Employee Perspective and Engagement survey, 4% of workers said they had taken credit for a colleague’s idea, 5% said that they had lied to or deceived their supervisors on a serious matter and 3% percent of supervisors said that they had done the same to an employee. This survey also found that nearly 60% of those surveyed felt that dishonesty could be reduced through better communication and a serious commitment by supervisors.

The High Cost of Low Trust

The cost of low trust is high for companies, especially when it comes to the cost of time theft — which includes sick days being used for something other than sickness as well as counterproductive workers. In fact, research shows that employee theft costs $50 million a year and causes 1 in 3 bankruptcies.

Time for a Communication Culture “Cleanup”

If you should decide that your organization needs a major cultural cleanup, you should be very open and honest in your intent and strategy. Make sure you address organizational issues and patterns, not individuals. Although individuals may surface as a key factor in some areas, the cleanup process must be fair and give people time and support to change to the new way of doing business.

Leaders, managers, and employees must communicate the connection between poor or inaccurate communication and the negative impact to the business. Without naming names or pointing fingers, identifying examples of stonewalling, stifled problem solving, etc., is critical for the learning process to take place. Describe the communication culture in concrete, behavioral terms. By putting a name to it, people are in a better position to challenge unproductive behavior.

Finally, remember: Communication cultures are created, set and condoned by leadership. Clean up strategies that focus on middle managers and employees are doomed to fail. Leaders must partner with the learning and HR experts in strategizing and implementing a cleanup plan. If there are issues at the leadership level, these should be addressed first; as with most large-scale efforts, changing your organization’s communication culture starts at the top.