Top Management Tip: Be Honest With People

Too many people lack the courage to be honest in the workplace

Being honest and frank with people is so important to move your work forward, and to move peoples’ skill levels higher. Yet, all too often we are afraid to offend, or to cause controversy in the workplace. Why is this a problem? At the simplest level, imagine the co-worker looking for an opinion about something they have designed. You hate it for all sorts of reasons, but instead you try, “Looks really great. Maybe tweak the layout there, but otherwise, fantastic.” On its own your undeserved compliment is harmless, but as with many things, if repeated by everyone - that is, nobody likes it, but everybody compliments it - then a bad piece of work goes out the door and your co-worker learns nothing from the experience. Actually, they probably will learn the opposite of what they should and walk away with a false sense their work.

That sort of thing happens all day, every day. Even if you implore people to give you an honest opinion it is tough to get. It isn’t just between friends either. This is the reason so may companies don’t like focus groups. It’s also why terrible movies get past groups that screen them to tell studios if they should press ahead with a project. Plain and simple, we hate to disappoint strangers almost as much as friends.

I had the exact experience many years ago when I was called to be part of a focus group for a mutual fund company I invested with. They showed a series of commercials to us and asked for our opinions. Around the room it went and all sorts of compliments were made. The turn to speak came to me. Perhaps because I like to take the opposite opinion, maybe because I believe in being honest, I said I hated them. They showed the CEO flying across Toronto in his helicopter complete with corporate logo. They showed their Indy car racing and so forth. I said, “these commercials show you wasting my money. How is this helping my investment?” Nobody seemed to agree with me - except the Board who fired the CEO not long after for wasteful spending! No…I am quite sure I had absolutely nothing to do with that. I did feel a bit vindicated though.

Back to honesty. How many people have been let go at companies that you work for, who seem to think it came out of left field? Or perhaps an employee shares with you the desire to apply for a particular promotion that you know his manager would never give him. I’ve seen it numerous times in numerous workplaces. Often when fired of course it is an employee trying to save face as best they can. Sometimes though they are more or less right. Management felt for a long time that they weren’t performing, but simply couldn’t share it in an honest way with the employee. It’s a terrible loss for the company, for the former-employee, and indeed for everyone left behind who begins to wonder - “what do they think of me?”

“How many people have been let go at companies that you work for, who seem to think it came out of left field? … It’s a terrible loss for the company, for the former-employee, and indeed for everyone left behind who begins to wonder - ‘what do they think of me?’”

In case of the hopeless employee thinking they have a shot at a promotion - clearly they lack something that someone needs to tell them. Their supervisor has chosen not to share what is wrong, or at least has been ineffective in doing so. Again, this is a real shame. Someone keen for a promotion probably would be happy to improve an area of weakness - if they knew what it was. An employee has been allowed to continue working at a sub-par level because their supervisor wanted to avoid conflict.

All that said, there is a difference between being honest and saying exactly what you think, all the time. As I was writing ideas for this post on an airplane I happened to listen to a Harvard Business School Podcast. It was an interview with Marshall Goldsmith who has a blog titled “Ask the Coach.” I’m afraid I don’t recall the exact podcast, but check out his blog, it’s great. At any rate, in the interview (about a different subject, in fact) he described it perfectly saying there is a difference between “disclosure” and “honesty.” You need to be honest with people concerning your work together. They need to know what you think so that they can grow. You do not have to, in fact it would be unwise to, disclose all your feelings about the person.

How many times do you wish people had just been honest with you?

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