On Being Consistent

Cynthia is the CEO of a company that’s not adapting well to the AI boom.

They develop and sell networking equipment that’s a solid pillar in traditional computing. But it doesn’t pair well in large AI distributed computing environments. Without a significant influx of capital to change some of their protocols and hardware designs, they may be irrelevant in a few years.

Cynthia has always prided herself on transparency. At quarterly all-hands video meetings, she goes out of her way to share company financials and explain what they mean. And that’s only the start. She also readily shares insights about new products, the features that are bringing in new customers, and the things that have caused them to lose customers. 

They are still doing well. But for how long? Cynthia is starting to look for a merger partner to bring an infusion of cash and new thinking in order to keep her company strong. But she can’t discuss it with her team. Just talking about this, openly, severely impacts the nature of any merger discussions. And if it were publicly known, she would likely lose some of her best people and some important customers. That would just accelerate the decline.

She’s in a delicate position. She strongly values radical transparency. But she doesn’t think she can be transparent - in this case. 

Her worry is simple. What will happen to the culture she’s built? Will people trust her after they find out, eventually, that these discussions were going on in secret? 

She feels like she is stuck between two immovable goals. Transparency is a key value for her. But secrecy is in everyone’s best interest.

Maybe it seems unsolvable because she’s worrying about the wrong thing. She’s worrying about lack of transparency. But lack of transparency, alone, doesn’t kill culture. 

What kills culture is a lack of consistency. 

That’s the problem that she’s sensing. And, fortunately,  it’s something she can manage.