Honesty and Transparency

Today I have been reminded about the importance of Honesty and Transparency when dealing with people. If I ask a question from someone who is in a service industry, what I hope for is an honest and transparent answer. What you often get is a baffling set of half-truths and utter bullshit.

I have spoken about transparency before and it even forms part of the Code of Ethics that I proposed.

I was trying to help a friend with a hosting issue. The company I dealt with showed me just how bad a lack of transparency can be. They were very nice and polite, but they we unable to provide any help. Instead of just being honest about it, they sent me on a wild goose chase. They gave be a website to look at, then a phone number, then another website with another phone number. The final phone number put me back through to the exact same department (possibly even the same person) I had been dealing with a couple of hours previously. Even then they tried to give me more hoops to jump through. In the end, I had to give up, it just wasn’t worth being given so many half truths – essentially being lied to.

Now that may be harsh, the probable truth was they just had no idea how to help me. It would have saved several hours of my time if they had just said up front “sorry, we really don’t know how to help you”.

In our world there is altogether too much nonsense, we seem to create it at an alarming rate. Gamification could easily be lumped into that category. To elevate it above the other nonsense we need to be transparent and honest about it. We are back to the original “Magic Bullet” analogy. Gamification isn’t a magic bullet, it is hard to get right and like everything – it can only be successful if done right.   To help with that we need to be open, honest and transparent in everything we do.

Let’s not become just another bit of management BS!

 

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3 thoughts on “Honesty and Transparency”

  1. Wow! So true. In the end the lack of transparency has negative impacts on almost every level. Well and in Game Thinking, all the more reason for a nascent industry to underpromise and overdeliver!

    Two thumbs up!

    Reply
  2. Amen to that… A lot of marketing regarding gamification promises the sun, moon and stars and whilst it is noble to want to aim that high, the reality is most of us only reach tops of mountains or trees on our own planet which is often a vast improvement from where we started.

    In the systems provider world I have to say especially around learning some crazy promises are being made. Let’s keep it real.

    Reply

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