A spicy week at work – decisions made, and people left to speculate. IYKYK.
It’s made me think about what ‘making things open’ means. The GDS principle talks about sharing code, showing work and discussing mistakes publicly. At its core, working in the open is working accountably. Much of the principle, like making the code we write open to everyone, is about being accountable to taxpayers.
But external accountability needs a culture that supports it internally. An organisation that hides decisions from its own staff will struggle to be genuinely open with the public. The way leaders treat the people doing the work shows up in how the organisation holds itself to account publicly. Concealment is a decision. So is transparency. It’s also a habit, something that can only work if it’s actively sustained.
A healthy, respectful organisation is a precondition of working openly. In a healthy culture, leaders tell you what’s going on. People can be honest about what is and isn’t working, and own mistakes made for good reasons without fear. Transparency runs in both directions – leaders explaining decisions to the people doing the work, and people doing the work raising concerns without fear of consequences.
Principles are good, but they only go so far if the leadership doesn’t believe in them. Working openly as an organisation isn't about show and tells and design history posts – these are signs of an organisation’s health, not the thing itself. It's about accountability to the people you work with. It’s about trust and respect.
This week I watched people live these values at their own cost. How we show up matters.