Transparency is a good thing. To be transparent is to be open and candid with nothing to hide. To lack transparency is to be dark and secretive. That's why - when technology allows us to be far more open than we used to be - there is a growing call for government and business to embrace transparency.
Regulations requiring greater transparency have exposed corruption in the public and private sectors and made it easier for us to hold politicians, business leaders and other influential people accountable. In many cases transparency also has deterred bad behavior in the first place.
But transparency is also a minefield. As President Obama is now finding out, it's hard to explain that the concept of "open government" applies to some matters (like releasing a list of White House visitors) but shouldn't apply to other practices (like holding a closed-door meeting to work out a health-care reform compromise).
In fact, there are lots of cases when transparency can be more harmful than helpful. "The balance of transparency and secrecy is not always easy to strike," understated Harvard law professor Noah Feldman last year in a piece for The New York Times called "In Defense of Secrecy." International diplomacy, obviously, necessitates careful negotiations conducted privately. He also noted that some of the early decisions made to rescue the financial system could have stalled if they were subject to public debate.
The same problem confronts companies, which face intense competitive challenges, a distrustful public and a tough political climate. They know that stakeholders expect them to be more open - and they want to earn back the public's trust - but they struggle with the process of transparency.
For companies, compliance with current laws and regulations is not the issue. It's the difficulty of going beyond what is required. How do you talk freely about business practices without giving away proprietary information? How do you communicate during a crisis without putting yourself at legal risk? How do you reveal everything you're doing in government affairs without weakening your political position?
The Public Affairs Council's new publication, "Opening Up: The Role of Transparency in Corporate Public Affairs," explores the current environment driving the focus on corporate transparency - and how leading companies are driving transparency in their own organizations. The report is available free for download and in hard copy.
"Opening Up" draws from interviews with nearly 30 public affairs executives and outside experts from a wide range of firms. The report explains, for example, how software firm Symantec Corp. reports its sustainability efforts, how Entergy Corp. communicates bad news to shareholders, how Levi Strauss talks about supply chain issues and how HP discloses its political contributions. It lists standards for social reporting, corporate codes of conduct and best practices for building internal support for increased openness.
Transparency sounds like a simple concept, and some critics of the business community and many in the political world present it that way. But simple it is not. "Strategic secrets are necessary and reasonable, as is protecting the privacy of individual employees and customers," wrote authors James O'Toole and Warren Bennis last year in the Harvard Business Review. "Where to draw the line between what information must be revealed and what should be withheld is one of the most important judgments leaders make."
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