The Power of Raw Transparency

Raw emotion and transparency are very powerful things - and they cause humans to have searing memories of information.  On my way in to work this morning, I was listening to NPR as I often do and they had on their typical Friday StoryCorps piece.  This week it was a young son,  Rahsheed McKenstry, interviewing his mother Rhonetta.  It was probably only 1-2 minutes long but it was a very powerful couple of minutes.  Why?  Both Rahsheed and Rhonetta gave us the gift of raw transparency.  And it had a very strong impact.

Part of the power of social media is that it encourages this transparency by allowing for conversations, story telling, and personal perspectives. And those are the very things that make data, content, entertainment, and information memorable.

On Twitter, the social media crowd talks a lot of shop.  But they also talk about their kids, their other interests, and sometimes their illnesses. And the crowd rallies around. I have Twitter friends that I have never met but they are unforgettable because of their humanness and the gift to us of transparency.  Examples are @susanreynolds,  @stevemann,  @Pistachio, @chrisbrogan, @astrout, @jstorerj, @DougH, and @SamLawrence...I could go on and on.

HR experts will talk and talk about finding 'passionate' employees.  Most companies miss the boat on this because they ask their employees to contribute one part of themselves to the organization and leave the other stuff out.  But as people we are so much more than what we 'do' at work and encouraging people to express that fully,  giving them the space to do so, and celebrating that with them is what ultimately creates passionate employees - and it will lead to serendipitous opportunities that cannot even be imagined.

And the implications of not embracing your employees is clear to me.  Part of the reason I did not stay with a previous employer (the job there was an amazing experience) is because when my father was dying, not only did I not get a reprieve from weekly travel, I did not receive a card or condolences from my manager...even though I missed the biggest corporate event of the year because of his ultimate death.  I really enjoyed that job and they made clear that they wanted me to stay.  A $100 bouquet of flowers might have changed how I felt about the company dramatically. I wanted to work somewhere that was flexible enough to adapt to my needs when my life got a little messy - for reasons beyond my control - and so I decided to leave because the corporate environment did not support me as a person.

Life is messy - social media can expose that but it can also create a support structure to navigate that messiness.  For embracing that, you may just win over some employees.

Oh...and I know he is only 10...but someone should hire Rahsheed because he is an amazing  story teller. 

Comments

[Terry Fernandez]

Two of my favorite topics, "Raw emotion and Transparency". What "struck me" most in your article is the line that says "What makes data, content, entertainment, and information more memorable".

"Memorable" might be the most critical attribute for Information?

[Rachel Happe]

Hi Terry -

Thanks for stopping by and, yes, I think making information memorable is at the heart of this. It's obviously what consumer marketing tries to do but I think we need to extend that thinking to all content. And to make something memorable it has to make some kind of emotional connection

[Doug Haslam]

Rachel,

What a great post- I muse on the "transparency" often, and mixing of shop-talk (and my PR work to be honest) with more personal conversations.

And I'm not just being nice because you gave me a shout out.

Doug ("@DougH" on Twitter)