What if you reveal corporate strategy?
What if you accidentally (or not) reveal corporate strategy? The link is to a dilbert comic that's truly apropos.
The typical policy is that employees don't reveal corporate strategies unless you're specifically blessed and sanctified by management and legal to do so. Management tends to like to keep strategy secret, hence the general secrecy rule. And, there is good reason to this as corporations are in competition with other corporations, and secrecy as to strategies is part of the competition.
The typical employee would know various bits of the strategy, know various bits of schedules and whatnot, but maybe not know which parts were meant to be kept secret and which weren't.
At least, that's how I see the what I know in my job. I know a lot of things, but don't know which can be publicized. Fortunately my employer has a clear Intellectual Property policy, that includes a guideline saying that any document containing information meant to be confidential should be market with a footer saying "COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL". When followed this makes it clear which is meant to be kept secret.
Unfortunately not all companies have this clear of a policy. An employee might have the best of intentions, but unknowingly reveal something that's meant to be secret because they didn't know. I think this is what leads to the general blanket gag rule preventing the typical employee from saying anything so that they don't accidentally reveal the secret sauce.
But that's a shame. The typical employees tend to know a lot that could be useful to the customers. Plus if they could enter into a conversation with the customers the employees could learn a lot which they could then use to improve how they treat the customers. It's a potential win that's blocked by a blanket gag rule on employees.
The typical policy is that employees don't reveal corporate strategies unless you're specifically blessed and sanctified by management and legal to do so. Management tends to like to keep strategy secret, hence the general secrecy rule. And, there is good reason to this as corporations are in competition with other corporations, and secrecy as to strategies is part of the competition.
The typical employee would know various bits of the strategy, know various bits of schedules and whatnot, but maybe not know which parts were meant to be kept secret and which weren't.
At least, that's how I see the what I know in my job. I know a lot of things, but don't know which can be publicized. Fortunately my employer has a clear Intellectual Property policy, that includes a guideline saying that any document containing information meant to be confidential should be market with a footer saying "COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL". When followed this makes it clear which is meant to be kept secret.
Unfortunately not all companies have this clear of a policy. An employee might have the best of intentions, but unknowingly reveal something that's meant to be secret because they didn't know. I think this is what leads to the general blanket gag rule preventing the typical employee from saying anything so that they don't accidentally reveal the secret sauce.
But that's a shame. The typical employees tend to know a lot that could be useful to the customers. Plus if they could enter into a conversation with the customers the employees could learn a lot which they could then use to improve how they treat the customers. It's a potential win that's blocked by a blanket gag rule on employees.
posted by David at 7:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home