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Seth Godin comes up with brilliant marketing concepts.
But at times, I find myself on the opposite side of the fence with his opinions.
This is one such instance – primarily because of the choice of his examples. In his recent post, “Why you might choose to be in favor of transparency“, Seth refers to:
1. Why doctors should encourage transparency in their results.
2. An Indian bureaucrat’s argument in favor of legalizing bribery in some instances.
The variable being ignored or brushed aside, in this over-simplification of what is in reality a rather intricate and involved interaction of ‘action’ and ‘reaction’, is the dynamic impact transparency (or the risk thereof) can have upon the action being performed itself.
A surgeon whose operation is transmitted live to a patient’s family sitting outside the O.R. (something that’s technically possible) is bound to be nervous and jittery, even to a point where he may make more mistakes or errors of judgment.
‘Anonymous’ transparency, as when an institution reveals aggregate data of medical performance statistics, is free of this effect.
As is internally audited information that is initially perused only by competent and qualified experts who know how to interpret the technical data.
Most hospital departments have weekly or monthly audits to monitor performance, even sub-stratified by specialty or individual practitioner. But this is NOT made public – for good reason!
When patients post reviews, they are conditioned and influenced (not unreasonably) by emotion, personal feelings and incomplete technical knowledge. Having that in the public domain, where it may adversely impact the general perception of a highly skilled and qualified technical specialist, isn’t quite good practice.
How many of us are competent to judge intricate economic decision-making, or the rightness of protocols to shut down nuclear plants in a melt-down situation, or merits and drawbacks of a cutting-edge technological innovation like stem-cell therapy, or cloning, or nano-tech?
Not many. In fact, precious few. Yet transparency in these processes is being called “desirable”.
Exactly why?
‘Empowerment’ is not making data available willy-nilly – but more of allowing access to it by qualified experts who are able to make sense of it.
The paper by the Indian bureaucrat is intriguing… though also whimsical.
In this instance, it is presumed that the bribe-taker has ethical standards, and will cringe or worry about being outed in his bribe-taking. Reality, though, is different. Everybody concerned KNOWS already that these folks are taking bribes. It isn’t as if making this information public will change much, if anything at all.
And the bribe-taker knows it’s possible to bribe one’s way out of being prosecuted – unless you’re small fry! See this interesting cartoon from a recent issue of ‘The Hindu’.
The risk, then, of being too transparent, is that you become invisible!
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