The trouble with transparency

Apologies for the gap since my last email! I recently started a new 9-to-5 doing email marketing for TimeOut. It’s super great, but it’s been a heck of adjustment to working normal hours. I plan to move to a bi-monthly schedule for the summer while I adjust to the existence of 8 am.

Transparency is not the default for any workplace in America. We’re taught that talking about money is not considered polite conversation and everyone has a story about being punished for giving honest feedback about a higher up or for speaking out against dangerous or illegal conditions. That's why we have had to enact so many (yet still so few… and rarely enforced) laws around pay transparency, whistleblowing and retaliation.

But study after study shows that transparency is necessary to workplace equality and can improve productivity and morale. And I think as humans we all just instinctively know that knowledge is power and would rather not be kept in the dark about things.

And yet, even in corporations with HR, ombudspeople public accounting and reporting requirements, it's difficult for transparency to take hold.

So what chance does an island of misfit toys have at creating a more open and honest work environment?

Especially misfit toys who are generally classified as independent contractors - and therefore aren’t entitled to many workplace protections - and can often be treated as fungible, easily replaceable assets.

We'll start this week with just a short, high level overview of obstacles (because I've already rambled on enough). But we’ll circle back in depth over the next few messages.

Top Down Obstacles

The people in charge don’t know any better or don’t know anything else. The perennial “It’s just always been this way”
Lack of communication. Whether it’s lack of time/bandwidth to communicate properly, not realizing their communication is spotty or unclear, or some intentional power play mind game.
A culture of secrecy. I’ve seen this in other industries, but it feels like comedy makes this the rule rather than the exception.

Bottom Up Obstacles

Fear of retaliation.
There’s always a snitch or a scab.
You don’t want to get a reputation as a shit talker… no matter how objectively accurate the shit you are talking may be.

Great! Are we all depressed now?

Never fear, in the coming weeks we’ll not only dive more deeply into the obstacles, but also solutions (or at the very least, mitigation techniques)!

Do you have something I left off the list?

Or a story about helping a team, a show or an entire organization become more open and above board?

Reply to this email or HMU on DM.