Openness, transparency, and honesty

To truly get to the bottom of a given problem, you need to gather as much information and data about it as possible, so that you can collectively analyze and agree the best way to overcome or address it—you need to know how big the elephant truly is before you can expose it and remove it. The natural reaction of most senior management types—especially those in the higher MBA educated echelons—will be to then enlist a costly business change consultancy agency to run a closed-session top-level investigation with a handpicked select few from middle management to take part to produce a management report.

Although this well-trodden approach may provide some information and data, I would argue that it will not give you or the business what you need. In addition, during these types of investigations the environment is normally such that attendees will feel watched and intimidated therefore will not feel free to be honest and disclose pertinent pieces of information—just in case this adds a black mark to their record and/or career. Because of this, basic human nature will kick in and things will be missed, individuals may simply forget an important detail, or worse still some of the information may be misinterpreted or simply taken it out of context. All in all, closed-session investigations are a hotbed for distrust, non-disclosure, disengagement, blinkered points of view, and secrecy.