Case Study #1 : A Culture of Candor by James O’Toole & Warren Bennis

Summary: An automobile mechanic with a steep sales target generally finds repairs that don’t exist, boss appreciates the salesman chasing a lucrative deal “accidentally” becoming family friends with the Procurement officer, ?employee in the production line of a pharmaceutical company doesn’t report the speck of mascara from her make-up that accidentally drops into a batch of medicine( impossible to detect otherwise).All these incidents have a larger problem where the culture lacks candor.

Key Take-Aways from the Case:

1)????? Why Good people do bad things : Ethical problems in organizations are not because of few bad apples but a culmination of the underlying culture

2)????? When in doubt, let it out : Most Companies treat potentially embarrassing information as equivalent to state secret, the alternative is to use technology to counter mis-information with facts and convey honest messages

3)????? Don’t shoot the messenger: Culture should encourage people to speak the truth and the only messenger to shoot, should be the one who arrived late.

4)????? Set information free: Setting information free rather than withholding it makes everyone with the information an internal auditor, applying it, improving it and reviewing it.

5)????? Practice having Unpleasant Conversations: Speaking honestly about difficult subjects is very difficult without creating unintentional harm, it requires a lot of practice.