Build It

3Open & Honest Communication

Chapter Objectives

In this chapter, we will:

• Discuss the link between open and honest communication and trust.
• Be honest about the role that HR has had in creating mistrust through under‐communicating.
• Understand that a key goal should be a culture where staff trust leadership enough to speak up.

Key Points

• Open and honest communication is the foundation of employee engagement because of its link with trust.
• This will take work and commitment at all levels of management.
• To build a high‐trust culture, you have to make room for dissent, disagreement and diversity of opinion.
• The best companies develop cultures of lateral transparency across the company between peers and departments.

Introduction

The foundation of the Engagement Bridge™ is Open & Honest Communication. You can make good progress in engagement without being a master of every element, but we haven't seen any companies do well at employee engagement that did not have real momentum and focus on their open and honest communication strategy.

No One Trusts Us When We Lie

A lack of trust is the issue at the heart of employee disengagement, and it's caused by the fact that we persistently lie to each other at work. We've been doing this for so long and it's so entrenched that most of the time, we barely notice we're doing it.

We start the practice of telling lies about work in our schools and colleges when we train young students in interview skills. “Interview skills” is ...