Black and Hispanic teenagers drive fewer miles than other kids, but they're twice as likely to die in car wrecks because fewer of them wear seat belts. If good ideas were enough, everyone would wear seat belts and no one would smoke cigarettes. In the field of public relations, we felt for many years that the goal was to have full and open discussion of issues. Now, we know openness is not enough. Transparency is the proper goal.
Transparency means information is available as it is developed.
It means you show people the options considered, as they arise. Those who will accept or reject your plan, those who must implement it, are bright people. Three factors are driving this move to transparency in organizational decision-making. First, there's a trend in the Information Age toward breaking down hierarchical walls of the Industrial Age. Employees in an organization, and citizens in a community, insist on complete access to the information they want, when they want it, how they want it.