Jack Welch calls lack of candor the biggest dirty little secret in business in his newest book, “Winning.”

I agree. Not only in business, but in the church.

When he says lack of candor he is talking about when people don’t INSTINCTIVELY express themselves with FRANKNESS. They don’t communicate straightforwardly or instigate debate. They with hold not only comments, but criticism.

I think people refuse to be candid for two reasons:

1. They feel INSECURE - in their opinions or ideas, in their place on team, or with their superiors.

2. They feel DEVALUED - there is an elephant in the room that is obvious to everyone - your boss or superiors are going to do whatever they want and they don’t stop to ask for ideas. This is their show.

Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action and good people contributing to the team.

Jack asked a great question at a Q & A session with business leaders that serves as a gauge to whether or not there is candor in your organization. When was the last time you had this happen?

“How many of you have received an honest, straight-between-the-eyes feedback session in the last year, where you came out knowing exactly what you have to do to improve and where you stand in the organization?”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 8:53 am and is filed under Books I'm Reading, What's In My Head. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.