Budget overlap of control and support processes, disengaged employees with no motivation, below average productivity, dissatisfied customers, declining business and brand value, waste of effort, lack of innovation, poor decision making etc. could be some of the age old problems, most of the organizations face, today.

If I say, there is a one stop solution for all these problems, you wonder, right?

One of the simplest organization change catalysts, ever explored could be transparency and can create amazing results in any organization. You do not require assistance of OD consultants or change management experts. Do it in your own capacity, it is pretty simple because it is the natural way of doing business.

50 years back, may be most businessmen believed that 'unique information' is the key to competitive advantage.

However, today, many successful organizations started treating 'people with right information' as the 'competitive advantage'. Basic philosophy behind this is that people with access to information can innovate, act efficiently, and take right decisions at the right time and certainly all these activities help add value to business

I believe, if we do at least 5 out of 10 of the following, overall morale and motivation of workforce could be increased by 50%

! Empower people with transparency and this can drive self discipline and help to reduce policing
! Complex policies and processes can hamper efficiency of people and incur additional spend towards control mechanisms
! Promote a culture of trust in people and shared information
! Encourage people to share information, support each other, innovate and experiment
! Share information required to understand the whole process and not just to perform a task
! If decisions are visible to everybody, this can make people accountable for individual actions
! Empower people with freedom to take decision and maturity to accept ownership
! Introduce 'cross functional networking teams' with defined business objectives
! Reward innovation, knowledge sharing, accountability and ownership
! Discourage power politics, knowledge gate keeping and information hoarding


Most of these aspects are directly or indirectly related to transparency. I have no intention to flag this as ‘tested through’ and promote as a panacea for entire organizational ill health. Suggesting to try, verify the results and then follow.

Whatever the result - please share to rest of the world