Leadership at its most effective can be defined as giving people the opportunity, resources and information to do the best work of their lives. Put simply, people need information to identify opportunities to improve themselves, an organization or an industry.
Too often, many organizations miss opportunities to improve because of a lack of transparency. Sharing detailed information on performance measures and errors across an organization and externally—total transparency—can help organizations seize these opportunities for improvement.
In today’s challenging environment, where organizations of all kinds are confronted with the dual challenge of more government involvement and decreased revenue, opportunities for improvement cannot be missed. Transparency as a management strategy can help organizations acquire knowledge for the purpose of improvement.
The air transportation industry provides a powerful example of how transparency serves to empower people to improve processes, their organizations and their entire industry.
That air transportation is statistically safer than driving is one of the most underappreciated achievements of modern times. No other industry faces more scrutiny when errors occur than the air transportation industry does.
But, to the industry’s credit, airlines share information about their mistakes and the net result is enhanced safety procedures.
In manufacturing, the Japanese pioneered the automotive industry by embracing transparency as a means for process improvement more than 30 years ago. The approach is rooted in the mindset that every critique is a gift to the organization because it points out an area for improvement. Now, every successful manufacturing industry uses transparency to drive process improvement.
Many would challenge transparency as a management strategy by pointing out that sharing information about mistakes as well as successes can damage customer relationships, expose an organization’s vulnerabilities and invite increased scrutiny from regulators, plaintiff’s lawyers and the media.
But in an era filled with profound mistrust of government and businesses, building trust with customers, clients and the community is vital. Sharing information with customers about an organization’s strengths and weaknesses has the power to improve customer relationships as well as drive improvement.
It could be said that healthcare is the most clandestine industry in existence—right down to your doctors’ handwriting. Thankfully, this is changing, and the healthcare industry is in the early stages of a progression toward more transparency.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston has championed total transparency (reporting both quality indicators and errors) as a practice in healthcare. The medical center provides patients and anyone interested with detailed information through its Web site on the organization’s performance in critical areas, both good and bad.
As one of only a few hospitals to adopt transparency, Beth Israel has been exposed to criticism.
Some have said transparency has led to unnecessary attention from the media and government authorities to the hospital’s errors.
In the face of this criticism, Beth Israel’s commitment to transparency has not wavered.
Unfortunately, in many organizations fear of criticism often trumps improvement. There’s no doubt that it’s difficult to remain committed to transparency when faced with criticism. So, it’s vital that everyone, from leadership to staff to the community, understands why the organization is embracing transparency. Then, when the criticisms arrive, everyone within the organization can help explain the case for transparency.
At Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, we are embracing transparency as a management strategy and moving toward more open and transparent communications about our patient care practices.
The quality report section on our Web site now provides information on how Hoag compares on key patient care quality indicators, even when our performance needs improvement.
There will be days ahead when we share our mistakes and what we’ve learned from them. Embracing these opportunities for improvement rather than denying them will drive improvement at Hoag.
Most importantly, it’s the right thing to do.
I consider it my job to make the case for transparency at Hoag and as a management strategy for leaders of all types of organizations. Let me know how I’m doing.
Afable is chief executive and president of Hoag Memorial.
