Being Secretive and Hiding Inconvenient Truths
"Whatever you do, don't tell them that!"
"But, when they find out, it'll come back to bite us."
"We'll worry about that when and if it happens. Now, go get them to agree to our plan."
Sound familiar?
While this is often seen as an expedient tactic, it is usually short-sighted and creates a multiple of problems upstream. However there are exceptions.
My starting position is that to maximise success, you should proactively pursue open and honest communication, even with those who oppose you.
This topic arose on a workshop a few weeks ago in a workshop as we were reviewing delegates experience of using my Stakeholder Influence Process (see Chapter 13 of Advocates & Enemies. When we analyse stakeholders, one of the dimensions under consideration is “agreement”.
Between the positive and the negative there is what I call the grey zone, or rather those people whom you are unsure about ― you don’t quite know if they have bought into your idea or not. The general strategy is to work with those stakeholders to move them out of the grey zone; even if this is into the negative agreement space ― at least then you know what you have to deal with.
However, one delegate suggested that his strategy is Read More