How Much Information Do You Share With Employees?
TerraCycle Tom-Blog
Early on, I leaned toward limiting the information as I didn’t want people worrying about something that wasn’t their job and becoming distracted and unproductive. The problem was that when challenges came up I felt pretty much alone on them — and the staff was left guessing what was happening. Predictably, the lack of information fueled rumors and damaged morale.
Over the last decade of leading TerraCycle, however, my mindset has slowly migrated to the other side of this question. Today, I’m inclined to give as much transparency as possible. I say as much as possible because we don’t really give total transparency. Human-resource matters (such as company payroll or stock options), legal matters (of all kinds) and certain financial matters (like merger deals we’re working on) are not shared with the entire team. Instead they are shared with those who have responsibility over them.