I’ve been a Business Week subscriber for more than 20 years and one of my favorite features is a section called Up Front, that’s comprised of an eclectic group of very short items of interest. A few issues ago BW added one called Analyze This, which is comprised of a question [sent by a reader] and an answer by Kerry J. Sulkowicz, M.D., “a psychoanalyst and founder of the Boswell Group, [who] advises executives on psychological aspects of business.”

When The Boss Won’t Share is the tenth item down in the October 9 issue. The question regards “a top executive who regularly fails to share information…” Dr. Sulkowicz spends 317 words describing, in different words, information presented in the question; the source of the problem in Freudian terms, explains why it’s a problem, says most people work around it, and, at the end, offers one 25 word sentence towards a very iffy solution. This has been the pattern since the Analyze This started.

I have two gripes, one general and one specific.

First, the general. I grant you that I’m not trained in psychology, but it seems to me that responses such as this aren’t much use in the fast day-to-day action of most businesses.

Specifically, I think there is a far more common reason that information is withheld. Power.

There is only one true source of power in a company and that’s control.

There are only two things worth controlling: money and information.

There is no question that the control of information yields power. There is little question that there are people who control the flow of information as a powerbase within their organization, whether they are managers or not. These people don’t communicate adequate information, not because they are inept or unwilling, but because they believe that not sharing information

• enhances their power—The vice president who berated a manager for being over budget, but wouldn’t tell her what the budget was.
• makes their position more secure, or them more important—The engineer who purposely omitted information from schematics and bills of materials so that manufacturing had to keep coming back to him for data critical to building the product.
• allows them to evade responsibility for decisions—The executive who says, “I don’t care how you shorten the testing cycle. Do it fast, get it done, and don’t come to me with excuses.”

These kind of people are communicating with malice aforethought. Communicating is difficult enough when people actively work at it, but when communications are used as part of a devious personal agenda, corporate life starts to resemble a Dilbert cartoon.

In all instances you need to find a way to work around the person withholding the information. Whether you’re dealing with a power trip or insecurity you still need to get the work done, so here are some quick suggestions that may help.

• It’s hard for a subordinate to force change in any superior, so find a peer to the non-communicator, who is also impacted by the actions, and enlist her aid.
• Look for information holes.
  • Assume that information is missing and find other sources for it.
  • Ask others with knowledge or parallel information if what you have looks complete.

Finally, I hope in the future that Dr. Sulkowicz will consider spending more of his column on pragmatic solutions that play directly to the needs of his readers.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 2nd, 2006 at 9:45 am and is filed under Business info, Communication, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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