A lot of people talk about transparency in business these days. It is a really fantastic thing, but it can also backfire. I don’t just mean “backfire” like clients finding pictures of the CEO passed out with a couple of strippers. It can be a lot more subtle at times. Transparency and decorum in business does not just have to do with hiding things you want to hide and letting fly with things you want people to see about you. Transparency and business decorum meet when you present the person or company you really are, while also actually being what people expect and deserve of you.
Transparency and Business Decorum
So what about transparency? Some people think that transparency is the latest and greatest new invention, but some of us have always known the importance. Making transparency and decorum play nicely together is even more important.
When you walk into a doctor’s office, you expect to see people in scrubs and suits, behaving “properly”, but if you go to Hooters, you expect to see people wearing tight shirts and helping people get drunk. The same people can be found in either place, but there is an accelerating shift in the sense of what is proper.
I am clearly not the only person who has noticed changes in our world. What defines decorum today is not what defined it in times past. We see examples of business decorum changing all around us. Some of it we like, and some of it we despise. I like wearing blue jeans, and I don’t give a damn what my clients or peers wear. You see, there goes my decorum in a big wreck, but it matches who I am and also my readers’ expectation, which shows transparency. I am a creative geek who thinks stuff up. I am not the guy greeting people at a grand ball.
Business Decorum and Attire Are Not the Same Thing!
Business decorum and attire are not entirely the same thing, although attire is a part of decorum. Since it is an easy way to visualize, I’ll go with it. I am reminded of a funny thing I saw while I was speaking to a group of marketers a couple months ago. It was a great event, with over twenty speakers on different marketing topics. At the speaker’s reception afterward, I visited with Jamie Turner of Bennett Kuhn Varner, Inc.
Jamie gave a great talk about marketing. While we bellied up to the bar and prepared to answer questions about our respective talks, I joked with him that it looked like we were at a coroner’s convention. Everybody was wearing a dark suit, while Jaime and I were the only guys with enough good reasons to come in blue jeans and sport coats. We were the best dressed guys in the whole place by a long shot! Everybody else looked like the guy you saw when your sweet aunt Crystal passed away. Did our blue jeans and more relaxed attire make us less desirable to clients? If so, I suspect either of us would thumb our nose at a pretentious client without ability or sense to read into the numbers anyway. The real mystery is in who could see the market, and who grasped the shift in expected decorum. My bet is that if you walked into the same group of people in another city, you would see a different outfit on both attendees and speakers. We were on the front of the shift for Midwest USA.
That same night, I also saw attendees doing things that were so entirely opposite of the propriety their business suits suggest that I went back to my room and called my wife to remind her how much I love her. OK, here goes my decorum flying off the hook again when I say “Who is proper now, bitches?”
Decorum Guidelines Are Blurry Lines
I work in a very diverse group, in many cultures, and with many varying expectations. So, in my case, my clients know that I can be as prepared in marketing a medical supply manufacturer to hospitals as I am marketing burritos and beer bongs. That is just me. I am a quintessential marketing guy. I do what is best for my clients, while maintaining their transparency and business decorum at the same time. It is like magic how it all comes together, and I love this about my job. I am expected to be a little quirky and occasionally pop off with something unexpected and sound like I suffer from Tourette syndrome (shit). Yes, I am expected to be unexpected, but for many people and companies I would suggest: “Do not follow my example!”
Something I find astonishing is how often a client will be just as quirky and unexpected as me and do something totally stupid in their marketing. I can do it … I am supposed to! Unrestrained expectations of what works for one company automatically working for your company is like testing cyanide to see if it works. It is best to send it to a lab.
In reality, we are all collectively the ones who make decorum exactly what it is. It is a social standard that is bestowed upon us by those around us, and carried on by each of us. When there is a great disparity between your sense of decorum and that which people expect of you in business, you have the making of a marketing failure … or success. Knowing which way to go is where the lines are very blurry, and if you are not up to proper research, you could end up on the wrong side of the cyanide test.
Business Decorum Changes Over Time
Standards change, as they always have over time. It may happen too slowly to notice the change until you see extreme instances. The video below gives examples from a supreme court nomination floundering for smoking marijuana, President Clinton being teased, and then the rush for politicians to talk about their marijuana use. Today USA has a president who spoke to a group of high school kids about getting high and doing blow. That is change! It should also speak to the importance of transparency and decorum working together. Transparency for transparency alone can be very off-putting to many people.
The standards of decorum for one person may be completely repulsive to another. With enough exposure to a change of standards, the repulsion weakens, and we take a “since we can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach. Considering this from a business standpoint, it can take a whole lot of branding to overcome and win people over. Sometimes this works, but sometimes you are better off to stop trying to beat your market and join them. First, you should know who you are, who they are, and what is proper in your instance.
Tell me what you think about the marriage of transparency and business decorum. That is why my blog has a comments form.