Why do companies keep so many secrets
How to deal with sensitive information
Most managers have an instinct to ‘protect’ their people from the outside world.
9 years ago, in my first management role, my manager explained that my job was to be the ‘shit umbrella’ of my team:
The ‘outside world’ - customers, other teams, the management - would throw ‘shit’ at the team, and I had to protect them so they’ll be able to work in “peace and happiness”.
I've stuck with this approach for a long time. I tried to make my people believe that each bad decision was the last one and that we are right on the verge of a change. I didn’t share bad news and generally isolated them from the rest of the company.
I believe I’m not alone - this ‘over-protectiveness’ very often leads to managers withholding information and keeping ‘secrets’ from their teams.
Today, I’m going to cover:
What’s the problem with secrets
Practical examples of common “secrets”:
A tough financial situation
The roadmap and future plans
When secrets have a place
What’s the problem with secrets
I hate being kept in the dark. I’m a curious person, and I would have liked to know EVERYTHING that happens in the company. I still remember how upset I was when we were told about a re-org that felt completely out of the blue.
When we become managers, we often forget how it feels to “not know”. It’s funny how big the gap is between:
a. How we would have liked our managers to behave
b. How we behave ourselves…
The disappointment frontier is the void formed from the mismatch between your team and reality. The larger the frontier, the more potential for disappointment when reality collides with it.
The best way to minimize that frontier?
Be more open with your team! Let’s see 2 examples of commonly held ‘secrets’ in startups:
Example #1 - a tough financial situation
The startup world in 2024 is brutal. Layoffs, downrounds, and companies closing down are common.
If you are in such a situation, it’s very tempting to sugarcoat the reality in front of your team:
“If the people will know how bad is it, they’ll just be very stressed, and may even start looking for other places. Much better they’ll feel safe”.
This is so wrong!
Let’s use a sinking ship analogy. Imagine you are a sailor, and suddenly you start to find some small leaks in the ship. You report them, and you are told: “Don’t worry, we are fine!”. As the days go by, the holes get bigger. You start to look around, and you see the captain often whispering with the first mate behind closed doors…
You’ll probably jump ship the first chance you’ll have.
Now imagine the same ship. The captain gathers you around and says: “We hit some corals yesterday, which damaged our haul. I won’t lie, there will be some rough days ahead. My plan is to patch the holes in the near port, and then continue to the final destination. I fully believe we are going to make it, and appreciate your help on the journey”.
If you are straightforward with your people, most of them will be glad to help the company survive.
Don’t shy away from talking about those questions with our team:
What’s our burn rate?
What’s our runway? (when will we run out of money)
How are we going to survive?
Or better yet - ask the CFO/CEO to share the answers.
Example #2 - a future product roadmap
A draft of the roadmap is shared with you. Then, usually, the conversation goes like this:
X: "Please don't show the roadmap to the team yet".
You: "Why?"
X: "Because it's not final"
You: "Ok, why can't I show a work in progress?"
X: "Because it will just confuse"
You: "Why do you think they'll be confused by something that is WIP? I can just say it's not final"
X: "Hmm... yeah ok".
Developers are not fragile! They understand the concepts of uncertainty and changing your mind.
When your team takes part in building that roadmap and offers their input, they’ll be much more engaged! Even if their suggestions are not implemented.
When secrets have a place
Nick shared 2 examples of when oversharing can be bad:
Look, I understand that not everything can be openly discussed. I just don’t agree we should be the judges of what is distracting/overloading/unhelpful to our employees. Who says that we think is distracting won’t turn out to be beneficial for them?
My only 100%-of-the-cases guidance is to not share information your manager doesn’t want you to share. No matter the reason. You tried to convince them, and you failed - that’s life. Never break that trust.
Other than that, it depends a lot on your employees. Some won’t care at all about the financial situation but would be very curious about the product roadmap. Some will be the other way.
I prefer to err on the side of oversharing and see where it leads us. If I feel it wasn’t beneficial for the employee, I’ll draw the line differently next time.
Final words
The higher someone is in the management chain, the stronger is their instinct to not share information (most often).
It’s up to us, the team leaders, to bridge that gap and make sure our employees are kept in the loop.
I’ll wrap up with another great quote from
’s article:The first step is to overcommunicate everything that you can from your unique position at the top.
You need to be transparent about what is going on in other teams, the wider company and with customers. This all forms a context that helps the team make better decisions. There should be no surprises. Also, you need to be clear about what you can and can't control amongst this, and what you can and can't promise.
It was a pleasant surprise to see that my company keeps recording quarterly status meetings, usually held by the CEO and the management. These are not some bells and whistles, high-level presentations, but an overview of:
- competition
- finances
- profit
- future roadmap
At the beginning of my career, I had a completely different worldview, and I wanted to know as few details about the business itself as possible and just write code.
Great insights. Totally agree on the fact that uncertainty creates more stress than failure itself.
Also, how oversharing sometimes can be more chaotic as well