Share everything by default

Everything is harder at scale. We know it well in the industry, and we continuously come up with ways to overcome the pain of scaling small prototypes into big enterprise applications. Scaling teams means scaling communication and nothing is harder than scaling communication. It's a broad and complicated topic, with many aspects and many details to discuss. That's why I dedicate the entire next chapter to communication. Here I focus only on the cultural aspect of communication.

Good culture makes people comfortable with the information you share with them. In the first years of my career as a manager, I often found myself wishing I had shared more about this or that decision. At some point, I realised that I could be doing much better if I stopped asking myself what was worth sharing. Now I know that, by default, everything is worth sharing. Choosing what to tell and, more importantly, what not to tell to the people you work with isn't the best way to frame the problem. Nowadays, I ask myself "Do I have a very good reason to not share this yet?". The answer is almost exclusively no. But, before I dig into the implications of this approach, let me clarify what by default means: personal information about people in your teams should not be shared. Best is to let people choose if and how to communicate personal matters to the rest of the team.

When it comes to work-related information, sharing everything by default is the best approach. I readily admit that's hard to put into practice. The first time I asked myself the question "What would be a good reason to not share this yet?", I figured that every answer I tried to come up with was dictated by either control or defence on my part. I then started sharing everything by default. It took many weeks of practice before I felt at ease with it. First of all, I feared that some information may not be relevant for some folks in the team. Guessing how relevant information is to people is difficult because it's indeed just a guess. It doesn't matter how good you are at it, you do get it wrong from time to time.

Here are a few possible scenarios:

  • Info is relevant and you don't share it

    This is the worst scenario. It frustrates people and makes them feel excluded.

  • Info is relevant and you share it

    Best-case scenario.

  • Info isn't relevant and you share it

    You create some noise.

  • Info isn't relevant and you don't share it

    Best case scenario.

Sharing everything by default simplifies the decision process. It does eliminate the worst case scenario altogether, but it creates some noise. The best way of coping with the noise is to build as many communication channels as possible with two properties: public and optional. Give everyone the ability to access every form of communication, but let people decide how to consume it. This approach empowers people more and it makes them responsible for what they want to be informed about. Different people have different needs: some people need a lot of information, others -- very specific details. Sharing everything by default makes your communication more inclusive.

If I look back at the times I regretted not sharing enough with my teams, timing has often been the driving force keeping me away from sharing everything by default. When is the right time to share something? This is the core question you need to answer to correctly implement this policy. Let's break it down:

  • Facts are easy. You can just share them as soon as possible.

  • Thoughts and ideas are harder to share because if you share them too soon, then they are raw information. People may not have the tools to consume them correctly. If you are in a leading position, your ideas may be confused for decisions already taken. To make things trickier, you spend a great deal of time thinking about the future. Most of your thoughts aren't relevant for the specific problem the teams are working on right now. That continuous projection in the future generates many hypothesis, unfinished thoughts, untested ideas. It's a good thing; it's important you practice strategic thinking. But it's a slow process too, so some thoughts slowly turn into more concrete ideas and final proposals.

Finding the right time to share this information is hard, but you can use it at the advantage of your leadership style. If people can't see the evolution of your thinking over time, change might be likely perceived as "the boss said so". As harsh as this may sound, the way your teams perceive changes or proposals is always on you. Being in charge means being able to explain change. Making people part of this process is the biggest benefit of sharing by default. Good timing and overcoming the fear of sharing too much can be achieved by designing different channel of communications. Using different styles for thoughts, ideas, policy, decisions, and so on. That's the topic of the next chapter.