Transparency and Continuous Communication: The Key to Team Effectiveness

Before we get to how you build transparency in a team, it’s worth being clear about what transparency isn’t. Have you ever wondered why so many leaders are afraid of transparency in their organizations? One of the main reasons is that they see it as a threat to sensitive and confidential information. But transparency doesn’t mean sharing everything with everyone. 

What you’ll learn	In short
What transparency is	A culture of candor and equal access to information, so everyone makes decisions based on current data.
Which tools support it	A single source of truth: a work management tool (e.g. Asana) plus a knowledge base and a team chat app.
What blocks transparency in a team	Hierarchical culture, pretending to know, hiding problems, and meetings with no clear purpose.
Where to start	With the leader. How openly you act sets the standard for sharing information across the team.

What transparency is

Transparency means “creating a culture of candor”, where people can speak their minds and have little or no restriction on access to information. In a team like that, information reaches the right people, so everyone has what they need to make decisions that are both effective and ethical: decisions that build and sustain trust and show respect, responsibility and honesty.

When your communication is transparent, it’s harder to make an unethical decision, because people are watching. That goes for you as a manager and for every member of your team.

In the end, a free flow of information makes the company more productive through:

• informed decisions based on current, accurate data,
• faster work, because files and documents are easy to get to,
• more trust within the team. But let’s start with the basics…

Work tools and information structure

Effective communication and smooth day-to-day execution in remote teams aren’t possible without the right tools. Traditional channels like email often aren’t effective or transparent enough. And in-person meetings are impossible in remote teams and limited in hybrid ones. 

With communication platforms, chat apps, internal project management systems and online collaboration tools, information moves fast and in a more organized way. 

These tools also let you run group conversations, share files and documents, and archive information. All of that makes information easier to find and keeps it flowing across the organization.

The other key piece is information structure. For information to flow well, it has to be organized and understandable for everyone who needs it. Structured information, kept in one tool, gives your data a clear hierarchy, organization and categories, so it’s easier to search, analyze and understand. A good example of how structure speeds up access to information, and with it the team’s efficiency, is Slite, a tool for creating and organizing knowledge inside teams. It’s a cloud-based platform that works like an internal company Wikipedia. You can create notes, documents and guides and share them with your team. Slite has an intuitive interface and real-time editing, and it lets you organize information into “trees”. 

A few other popular tools for remote communication and for structuring information:

Zoom 

A video conferencing platform for online meetings with video, audio and screen sharing. With Zoom you can run group calls, presentations, training sessions and other kinds of remote communication.

Slack 

A tool for team communication and collaboration: text conversations, file sharing and organizing tasks in one place. It makes real-time communication, information sharing and coordination easy, for small teams and large companies alike.

Google Meet 

Google’s video conferencing platform. You can hold online meetings with video and audio, one-on-one or in groups. It’s integrated with other Google tools such as Calendar and Docs, which makes it easier to plan meetings and work together during them.

WhatsApp 

A popular messaging app for text, voice and multimedia messages and video calls. It runs on many platforms, so people can talk whether they’re on a phone or a computer. WhatsApp is also known for end-to-end encryption, which keeps messages private and secure.

Asana 

A task and project management tool for organizing, tracking and coordinating teamwork. You can create task lists, assign tasks to specific people, set deadlines and monitor progress. Asana also has communication features, so team members can collaborate and share information in one place.

Jira 

A project management and issue tracking tool that’s especially popular with software development teams. It lets you create and assign tasks, track progress, and manage priorities and workflows. 

Barriers to transparency and how to break them down

Elements of corporate culture

The wrong tools aren’t the only problem. Some elements of corporate culture also block the flow of information:

• team members who aren’t engaged in their unit’s goals,
• no context for the work, meaning no reason why people do what they do,
• communication systems that are too complicated or not built for hybrid and remote teams,
• poor adoption of new tools, with people lost in a pile of apps,
• unclear roles and responsibilities,
• low empathy in the team,
• structural obstacles:
  • top-down decision-making
  • a hierarchical power pattern between manager and employee.

Pretending to know

The higher you are on the corporate ladder, the more likely you are to know less and less about what’s happening “at the bottom”, which is often where people are closest to the customers. The reason is simple: when team members are asked about something, they pretend to understand and end up hiding what they don’t know.

You don’t want to be the one who answers your own boss with I don’t know either. And so, because information doesn’t flow openly, a chain of not-knowing begins. Your team doesn’t know, you don’t know, your boss doesn’t know. 

The fix is equal access to information at every level of the decision ladder. Abstract, vague conversations disappear, and looking well-informed stops being a goal in itself.

It might seem that full transparency and equal access to information are impossible in a distributed team. But today’s technology and the progress of digitalization make them achievable. Use video calls, yes, but above all adopt work and task management tools. They become more than a place to organize tasks: they become the source of information and the place where the files you need for the work are kept. 

Tools like Asana have been used around the world for a decade and have helped companies get through digital transformation almost painlessly. They also help them work in a remote or hybrid reality. 

Because you can create an unlimited number of tasks, exchange feedback, and add and store files, documents and data, every team member can get to them, wherever they are. 

How people see their leaders

Especially in hierarchical organizations, it’s easy to slip into a mindset of deference. 

It’s common among people at the bottom of the company hierarchy: they see the world through a lose-win model, as in “I (the employee) give way to the other side (the leader) so they feel good.” 

What to do about it:

Be aware of this pattern, and when you spot it, give your colleague room to speak. Listen actively and write down their suggestions together. Then turn them, point by point, into a to-do list.

That shows them their opinion matters to you, the team and the whole organization. 

If they don’t bring anything new, give them the information that lets them see the issue in a new light. Check why that information wasn’t available earlier and how to avoid it next time. If it wasn’t easy enough to access, change that: agree with the team where and how you keep information.

Work and task management tools like Asana are a great place for exactly that. 

How problems get handled as they grow

People who are new to remote work often don’t report problems. This is especially true of new hires. In the first days, sometimes weeks, they can’t get a handle on organizing themselves and their space. Delays in delivering results follow, and the guilt can grow so big that the person simply disappears from the communication channels.

Part of this reaction comes from protecting the ego, the self-image each of us has built up over a lifetime. It’s made of past experiences, opinions, and professional achievements too. You can reduce the effect by building self-awareness, in your team member and in yourself. 

What to do about it:

First, watch for withdrawal, lower engagement or communication that stops flowing. That’s the first sign that someone might cut themselves off from the team completely, and it’s time for an honest, open conversation about what’s blocking them. 

Once you’ve listened, you can tell them how the problem looked for you and how you solved it, without handing down orders like “do this and the problem’s gone”. You’ll get closer to them emotionally, because they’ll see you as a person with the same kind of problems. At the same time, you stay the leader who solves problems and advises the team. 

Especially in the first days and weeks of remote work, some team members will have deeply hidden tendencies to procrastinate. That’s the moment to put a few mechanisms in place:

• short, regular meetings (the stand-ups known from agile teams), where people share what’s blocking them,
• a list of frequently asked questions and blockers with suggested solutions. Keep it in your team’s knowledge base.

No transparency as the default

Transparency is desirable and necessary, yet for many people it isn’t the natural way to work.

Most companies start with the opposite policy: people get access to information if, and only if, they need it. Unless you’re in the military or one of the few companies that handle classified information, keeping barriers that strict weakens teams, even whole companies, and takes away the resources people need to do their jobs.

What to do about it:

1. Introduce a transparent communication system in a remote session with the team, over video.
2. In those meetings, review the current rules together and plan when and how you’ll evaluate and change them.
3. Introduce short, frequent meetings where each team member answers 3 questions:

🗹 What did you get done yesterday?

🗇 What do you plan to finish or do today?

🗵 What didn’t you get done, and what blocked you?

It doesn’t have to be a daily habit. Use it when staying on schedule, clarity and the team’s focus really matter.

Not sharing problems openly

When you don’t keep your commitments, for example because you’re in a new work environment, frustration and distrust build up in the team. 

Your colleagues start complaining behind your back as soon as they decide you don’t care.

Eventually trust starts to fade, and your team’s productivity drops drastically.

What to do about it:

This is exactly the situation that calls for full transparency.

1. Use a task system and list your commitments to the team so nothing slips through the cracks. You could use your own calendar or, better, roll out Asana, a task management tool. You can add individual tasks, break them into subtasks and set a time frame. On the timeline you’ll see how much work falls on each day or week, and email notifications won’t let you forget a deadline.
2. Help them understand why you can’t do what you promised. Say what went wrong and fix it together with the team. That pulls people together and encourages them to share their own difficulties, which you’re more and more aware of and, thanks to transparency, can now fix.
   The last thing you should do is sweep it under the rug and act as if nothing happened. Face it as directly and openly as you can instead. Even if you’re dealing with a company crisis or personal problems.

Meetings that could have been emails

Regular meetings may have started as a way to keep information flowing. But when people set up meetings with no clear purpose or agenda, those meetings get in the way of doing the work and sharing information. They lose their meaning, and people stop taking them seriously.

The short version: avoid them whenever you can. We’ve covered this in a separate article, so we won’t repeat ourselves. Here are the key rules in short:

• Hold a meeting only when it’s really, really necessary;
• Invite only the people whose presence is absolutely essential.
• Take notes during the meeting.
• After the meeting, send everyone a summary with the action items and deadlines. In line with the transparency principle, that includes the team members who weren’t there.

So it’s time to stop treating transparency as a concept. Here’s how to put transparent communication into practice. 

The leader’s role in building transparency

As a leader, you have a huge influence on transparency. You set the standard for how information flows and how people relate to each other in the organization.

You want access to all the information, however bad the news. Build candor and transparency in your team by setting the example. 

To show you practice what you preach, take the first steps yourself:

• Share information openly and honestly, and show your people there are no consequences for disagreeing with you. 
• Notice when someone is afraid to reveal information that, from where they stand, matters a lot. React right away and bring more transparency to wherever information is being held back.
• Be open about the reasons behind how you coordinate the way your team works together. Make sure your people can see what drives your actions and your approach. That unites the team, which learns and grows from what you pass on. It’s another way to make transparency start with you and then become the foundation of how the team works.  
• Give your people several ways to reach you, and make sure they all work.
• Act on feedback from your team. Turn it into tasks that can be picked up quickly, so their suggestions and changes actually happen. 

Your goal is to build an organizational culture where:

• people at every level can freely challenge their leaders,
• the pursuit of truth and the best solutions outweighs every other concern, like ego and precedent,
• people are rewarded for challenging the status quo, not just for following established practice,
• everyone has equal access to current files and data, which makes work faster, smoother and more efficient.

Trust, together with shared cultural assumptions, is what binds people in a group most strongly. That’s why, once a team no longer shares a physical space, focusing on transparency gives you the key element that moves people to act and hit their goals.

Transparent communication won’t hold up on its own. It needs structure and habits. In the Reliability Protocol we work on this in Stages 6-12, organizing how information flows and how the team works together, in one work tool.

If you want to check how transparent communication really is in your team, take the Reliability Diagnostic. In a few minutes you’ll get your Reliability Score and see which areas to start with.

Frequently asked questions

What is transparency?

Transparency is open, equal access to information: people share knowledge, decisions and the reasons behind them instead of hiding them from part of the team. In team communication, it means a culture of candor where everyone knows what’s going on and why.

What does transparent communication mean?

Transparent communication is a way of sharing information where decisions, progress and problems are visible to the whole team, ideally in one shared tool rather than in private messages.

What does it mean for a person to be transparent?

A transparent person is open about their intentions, decisions and mistakes. They say plainly what they’re doing and why, instead of leaving colleagues to guess.

Does transparency mean sharing all information with everyone?

No. Transparency doesn’t require disclosing sensitive or confidential data. The point is that the information people need for their work reaches the right people without artificial barriers.

What does a lack of transparency lead to in a team?

A lack of transparency sets off a “chain of not-knowing”: people pretend to understand, decisions get made on outdated data, and the team’s trust and productivity drop.

Where do you start with transparent communication?

By organizing how information flows in one work management tool, and with the leader setting the example. We cover the typical obstacles in a rollout like this, and how to solve them, in our article on the four problems that block an Asana rollout.