Transparency and Trust
The 2020 Iowa Democratic Party Caucuses were an absolute dumpster fire. Few people, if any, would disagree. Because of the delayed results, most of the commentary early on was about the failure of the caucuses themselves, and the lack of transparency and trust.
Iowa Caucus Transparency
Instead of talking about who won, commentators had to talk about why there were no results, and speculate about the consequences of the late results. The commentators were frustrated by the lack of communication and transparency from the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP).
CNN‘s commentators mentioned several times during their caucus coverage that the rules about releasing the three sets of caucus numbers- first round, second round, and the delegate allocation instead of just the final number was new this year. The Sanders campaign pushed for several changes after the 2016 Caucuses. Reporting all three sets of numbers was one of those changes. Reporting more information was meant to increase transparency. More transparency was meant to make the process more trustworthy.
Although there were plenty of things to criticize, from the app they were using to tally the votes and delegates, to the lack of communication from the IDP, CNN’s commentators made it sounds like increasing transparency was the root of the problem. “If only changes hadn’t been made, things would have gone smoothly!”, they seemed to lament. Transparency, however, was not the problem.
Transparency and Trust in Organizations
Transparency is important in public settings such as politics, business, and more private settings such as interpersonal relationships. One benefit of transparency is it helps people understand and accept change.
Years ago, the company I was working for made the decision to no longer regularly schedule overtime. At the time, I was working four shifts a week for a total of about 42-45 hours per week. No longer regularly scheduling overtime meant I would lose about 1/4 of my hours each week, and because some of those hours were overtime, I would lose over 1/4 of my wages.
My coworkers and I were pretty upset about these changes. Thankfully, one of the managers came to our staff meeting and discussed with us why the change was being made. While I was still frustrated with how the changes impacted me financially, I felt a lot better about the change in general after the meeting.
Engaging in a discussion allowed us to share our thoughts and feelings about the change, as well as any ideas for alternatives we might have had. The discussion helped us learn and grow as we heard more about the decisions our management team had to make and the process they went through to make those decisions. Because of our increased understanding, management had more buy-in from us as employees. While we may not have totally loved the change, most of us were at least willing to go along with it without being bitter or angry.
Transparency and Trust in Relationships
Trust is also vital to our interpersonal relationships with our friends, family, significant others, and many other people we interact with. When someone shares information about him or herself with you usually the more you know about them, the more you will trust them. Often, this sharing is gradual. We share a bit and trust a bit. Then we verify if our trust was well placed. When someone has been trustworthy, we will usually share and trust more. If someone shames you or violates your trust in some way, you’ve learned not to trust them. Most of us will choose not to continue a relationship with someone we cannot trust.
Transparency Builds Trust
The single most important ingredient in the recipe for success is transparency because transparency builds trust.
Denise Morrison
There are times where confidentiality or secrecy are important or even necessary. These times are the exception. People will more likely trust systems, organizations, and individuals that are transparent. You should be transparent and show people they can and should trust you if you want others to trust you.
President Ronald Reagan famously took a “trust but verify” approach with the Soviet Union. Most people take a similar approach in their daily lives. Transparency allows people to verify, and therefore, to better trust. With more trust and transparency, we can build bridges, heal rifts, and live better, happier lives.
Garrett Leeds is the founder of the Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness Project
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