We recently participated in an online, professional group created to provide high-quality, responsive programs that are of service to clients while building brand recognition and professional success for the providers.
Early in the negotiations of this group, one of the members, Anton, stepped in to help the originator, Mark, lead and guide the project forward. The early stages of the project were conducted online, in view of the entire group. In fact, it was easy to watch and to participate in the process. There was much discussion about transparency and the very way the discussions were occurring seemed to ensure that the transparency would continue.
(Wikipedia describes the current use of the word Transparency as: Operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed.)
And then it happened. Mark posted that he needed to extricate himself from the group as he felt that his original vision had been compromised, and he no longer believed in how the project was unfolding. His communication was posted on the site for all to see and to respond to, and many of us automatically received a copy of it in our private mailboxes when it was posted.
We were quite surprised by his announcement and we were curious to see the responses of others. We knew that this was the first real test of alignment between the words and the actions of the leaders. In this case, there was much talk about transparency – what of the actions? Well, we will get to those next week…
This week, we’d like to invite you to think about your communications – those that are verbal and those that are behavioral – and identify those places where your messages are in alignment and those where they are not properly aligned.
Next week we’ll talk about what happens when the words and the actions are out of alignment. It’s pretty common and it’s quite devastating to the culture of a group, team, family, or organization.