Flibbertigibbet

Secrets

My company has a bad habit of keeping secrets from its employees. A good example is my boss' recent resignation. Apparently, he gave notice more than a week ago, but his direct reports only just found out two work days ago. Why was this information kept from his direct reports for a week?

It seems to me that much of the secrecy that plagues our organization stems from paranoia. It's like everyone thinks that everyone else is petty, vindictive, emotionally delicate, and manipulative. As a result, when my boss quit, he was instructed not to tell anyone else presumably out of fear that he would start bad mouthing his superiors.

He has been bad mouthing his superiors for months.

Some also said that the secrecy was necessary to prevent a sharp decline in morale. This implies to me that they are already aware of a morale problem. If morale were not a problem, then we would be happy for someone if they left to pursue a better opportunity and that event would not trigger any sort of major itch for a change ourselves.

So, finally, he was given permission to tell his direct reports about his departure on Friday. However, his direct reports were not allowed to tell their direct reports until today.

And even though his last official day is Friday, his last day in the office will be Friday. They don't want him to come in for the same reasons above and they don't want him to destroy anything before he leaves. How will making him leave a day early prevent that? It makes no sense to me.

I understand that companies need to keep some secrets; not every employee needs to know every single going on in the company. In a certain sense, a proper amount of ignorance protects employees from liability should something bad happen.

But things like, "your boss is leaving" don't really qualify as being top secret information in my mind. And the more secrets are kept the more mistrust it breeds in those frequently kept on the outside.

The secret keeping is, I think, another symptom of that mentality that thinks everyone else is a petty, usurping, back-biting, little snake and I think that the people who hold this outlook are themselves petty, usurping, back-biting little snakes.

It's bothersome and destructive. More importantly, it's bad business.