Candor is described as ‘openness’, ‘frankness’, ‘out-spokenness’, ‘forthrightness’ and so on. For me (especially after reading Jack Welch’s book Winning) candor is almost synonymous to winning itself. And winning not just at work or business but in life itself!
As always, I draw my inspiration for work from life. I’ve always held (more to myself) that the only thing that matters in life – and that includes love, work, social consciousness and the gamut – is being true to oneself and therefore being true with each and every person you come in contact with. Let me clarify something before any of you confuse candor with being a cruel, discourteous, don’t-care-what-you-think attitude. Candor for me is speaking your mind when not speaking could mean the difference between changing the world and being the change you want to see in the world.
We are all faced, time and again, with the choice of listening to our hearts, speaking our minds and taking responsibility for our actions. However, more often than not, we choose not to speak our minds to make sure we are not misunderstood or we don’t hurt a loved one or be rude to a friend or colleague. And we do this all in the name of making someone else’s life easier or better or rather less unpleasant. But think about it! Is not speaking your mind a good enough excuse after all? Or is it just easier for you not to speak your mind? Would you rather let you and your loved one live a make-believe life or your organization fail or be just another ‘we-are-doing-ok’ company than speak candidly and experience the joy of being committed to excellence.
Having said that, I’m surely not claiming that being candid is an easy thing to do or it just makes life so much more enjoyable. On the contrary it does create a lot of pain, sadness, anger or resentment when you speak your mind. But the benefits of doing so far outweigh the unpleasantness that being open creates. For one, someone who is candid and gets into the habit of being so, is respected for being fair and for making the effort to give one’s all to any cause (personal or professional) that one is committed to. From a more work related perspective, candor opens people up, makes the work environment so lively that ideas start coming up faster than they can be executed and over all it just makes everyone feel like having had a fair shot at whatever they are doing. It just cuts out the nice talk and gets everyone down to business much more quickly. Now, just think about the many times you had to sit through gruelling day-long meetings from where you came out thinking that you really didn’t learn anything new or make any real ground breaking decisions but it was nevertheless a nice meeting. Or, weigh that against the fact that most of the time not speaking your mind is after all an act of self-interest, of making your own life easier.
To me those benefits make my decision quite straight forward – the decision to choose candor!
By the way, the book Winning (from where my thoughts on this topic were drawn) is a must read for anyone with an interest in Management. The book is by Jack Welch.
Picture courtesy: http://www.headbutler.com/books/winning.asp
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