the expressional

Have you noticed that when candidates are seeking office they are over-the-top communicative? Driven to capture every foot-candle of the limelight, they expound about everything, including how "expoundive" they'll be when in office. Even veteran candidates (incumbents) promise transparency when elected, realizing that the electorate is dumb enough to ignore their prior acts.

Once elected though, things change. The idea that some things are better left in the hands of a few and not to be entrusted to the general public suddenly resonates. For example, (thanks to Dana) the FAA doesn't trust the public with information about how frequently flocks of birds fly into and damage airplane engines! As someone who does travel by air, I am very interested in understanding all the risks associated with travel, and then want to make my own informed decision.

Even the current Obama administration (thanks to Andrew Rotherham), despite assurances to the contrary is taking to keeping data to themselves when convenient, as in the case of the effect of school vouchers in DC.

In both cases, it was determined for whatever reason that the public did not "need to know" certain findings, results or whatever. I can see that being reasonable in certain national security situations, where the government wishes to protect a source, not publicize the ability to decipher secret conversations, or disseminating critical research. But I don't see why it applies to mainstream, everyday information.

Once in office or a position of leadership, people have a propensity for not trusting the judgment of "the people," believing the issues too complex, the analysis too esoteric, the information too nuanced to be entrusted to "them." We know only too well how often corporate executives "fail" to disclose seemingly important information, to their customers, employees, investors, or all three.

Why?

I think it's laziness (and maybe faux control). When too much information is available you give up the ability to manage and craft the message, to tell the truth vs. the most convenient story. You may also expose aspects of yourself, your image and your organization that you believe need to be kept well subterranean.

But during the hiding process (and let's face it, we've all done this), we never think about the consequences of being found out. We never realize how much worse it is to keep secrets, but also how much worse things become once you are outed vs. if you had simply come clean in the first place. When you scale this to the level of a large corporation or a powerful politician, the impact of being outed is huge.

The Communications Revolution makes this even more likely - individually people get outed all the time with something as simple as being tagged in a Facebook picture, and then the fit hits the shan doesn't it!

When corporations get outed, the ramifications are much, much greater (more fits and bigger shans), and the process is much more complex. Why? Because large organizations don't have as effective a sense and response machine as an individual. It takes time, process and politics for inputs to bubble up to decision-making layers, and then time, process and politics for them to bubble back down to the actors.

In politics, it's maybe a bit more efficient (their organizations (politics vs. government) tend to be much more horizontal), but all-too-often, the wrong people are driving the decision-making. PR and pollsters tend to have a much stronger voice than they should; they distill information into bite-sized chunks that don't have complexity and nuance (by definition). It's so easy to obfuscate complexity this way, and spin the situation to the point where strategy and integrity are compromised for expediency.

One example of this is President Bush's strident and dire warnings about how close to disaster the economy was so that he could get Congress to urgently vote to approve TARP, but then once they did approve, he realized that his warnings also had the effect of immediately arresting the people's desire to spend, which actually caused a more accelerated slow-down, made TARP less effective, and maybe caused a worse economic decline.

When running for office, you're always out there, and facing the barrage head-on. When you're in power, you're cloistered, and maybe rely more on others for that finger on the pulse. Doing that makes you more likely to agree with spin artists, and make you believe that the public really doesn't need to know everything. Town hall meetings could be a good way to do this, but in then end, they're also about creating spin, and getting a message out. Sharing, listening and responding doesn't really happen. When you're in business, the more senior you get, the more you rely on intermediaries to connect you to reality. But they have a stake in biasing your experience to accommodate their agendas, and that compromises your view of reality. Just like town halls, executive customer or employee visits are crafted - you don't get the real truth.

In the end, the more open and transparent you are, the more likely you are to have a truer grasp of reality, and make a real differences in the most sustainable and efficient way possible.