Transparency as a tool to build trust?

CharlieSellew · Newbie Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 1

I was doing a research project on The New York Times and came to a realization that I think can be valuable to a lot of organizations and businesses.

One of the ways The New York Times is able to continue to thrive and maintain a lot of its credibility despite many very public scandals that exposed serious flaws in the way it reports the news is that it openly confronts and takes responsibility for these criticisms.

It’s pretty simple, really. Being open and transparent about issues, especially potentially negative ones, increases the credibility of everything else you say.

Most businesses do an extremely poor job of this, covering up things that they think are embarrassing. But in reality, the cover up can actually be the thing that does the most damage. I think being honest about what is going on during these situations builds a lot of trust and loyalty among your customers.

There are complex ways large organizations can help create transparency – organizational ombudsmen, for example – but even small businesses can benefit from simply being open to answering questions and critiques of customers.

Do you agree that transparency is a potentially important tool to build trust?

Are there any situations where transparency has helped you? Hurt you? Or where a lack of transparency hurt you?