In our world of social media, we seldom discuss those professionals who safeguard secrets, focusing all too often on the decreasing privacy of those who broadcast their beliefs and thoughts on Facebook or Twitter. Yet for CEOs, CIOs, human resource managers, counselors, physicians, and many other professionals, confidences are a way of business life.
Sure, we understand the need for corporate secrets. Does everybody need to know each other's salaries? Is there any purpose behind openly discussing ad spending with the truck drivers? A patient should expect the doctor won't discuss her ailments with other patients. A business owner doesn't want the bank executive to share his financial situation with other patrons. And some information has to be kept quiet by law: You don't want the Security & Exchange Commission investigating you for insider trading, after all.
Leadership has its costs, however, and as a good manager, you are probably privy to quite a bit of insight into many of your direct reports' lives, as well as the challenges and opportunities your organization faces. Sometimes, secrets can hurt.
Want to Know a Secret?
Knowing things others don't is part of being a manager -- but it can be stressful, especially when executives cannot share this insight.
Although she didn't find a direct link between keeping secrets and being physically sick, Anita Kelly -- an author and doctor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame -- has studied the topic, and did find those who are "self-concealers" show anxiety, depression, and overall body aches and pains, reports Discovery.
Stress is one of the biggest side effects, many researchers have found, and as we know, stress can lead to all sorts of medical problems, from heart attacks to strokes. Sometimes, even more sadly, it can prove deadly.
In a tragedy that shook my Central Florida community last year -- and made international news -- a human resources manager shot and killed her four children, then took her own life. Beset by grief, despair, and a desire to never see this occur again, the Space Coast Human Resource Association wondered who the single mother could have turned for assistance. After all, as an HR manager at Ronco Electronics, her career often centered on keeping colleagues' information confidential.
Perhaps, association members thought, she felt alone in her worries. Bound by confidentiality, she couldn't share many of her job stresses with friends, family, or colleagues. (Other factors were reportedly involved, including alcohol, and at least one reported domestic violence arrest.)
Although it's tragically too late for Tonya Thomas and her children, the association hopes the employee assistance program for HR professionals, co-created with partner L-3 Communications at Patrick Air Force Base, will help peers today. The program was one of nine chosen from 65 applications to get recognition, a Pinnacle Award, from the national Society for Human Resource Management.
The online-based program includes services from trained HR counselors and legal assistants. As Valarese Poole, one of the Space Coast board members who created the program, and an HR partner with L-3 Communications, told Florida Today:
We're so busy trying to make sure everybody else is in sync that we don't think about ourselves. But with the recent layoffs we've had in the area due to the demise of the space program, we do recognize that our HR professionals...[may be under] another level of stress.
The same could be said for any executive. How do you cope?
Do IT managers have a special susceptibility here? Are they more or less likely to keep professional secrets, or have different professional secrets, than other people?
I would love to hear from ThinkerNetters about that great question, Mitch. As IT professionals, I'd think they would be: After all, CIOs and other high-level IT pros know about every department within their organization, they know the organization's current and future plans, they know how technology will be used to improve productivity (possibly resulting in layoffs), and they are involved in integrating systems when there's M&A activity (leading to interaction with a whole bunch of often disgruntled people throughout a company). They're in a very high-stress position, where there's often pressure to do more with less and often a need for 24/7 support. IT pros are on a constant learning curve, something most enjoy, but which nevertheless requires time and energy to stay current.
In short, there are many high spots, but I'd think IT pros do know a lot of corporate secrets, from security to personnel.
In my career I have managed Customer Service, IT, Project Management, Development teams, ecommerce teams, new product development teams, Human Resources - and probably a few others that I have forgotten about. For my experience, IT is right behind HR in managing secrets.
People being asked to leave - HR knows first followed by IT.
Employees work habits being investigated - HR basically asks IT to check logs.
Offices/People being moved - HR, Office Admin and once again - IT.
HR employees are often taught about the importance of keeping employee information confidential, but IT employees who have access to almost as much information are rarely briefed/educated on employee confidentiality/privacy issues.
Thanks for providing your perspective, @David. Yes, IT HAS to know early: They're the ones who must remove soon-to-be ex-employees' rights, ensure they're not taking corporate secrets or copying files, etc. -- especially if these fired workers have access to particularly sensitive data. Interesting to hear that IT often doesn't get the confidentiality training of HR, particularly since they are on the inside track of so much inside information. This could be a big problem for a company: You'd think loose lips by IT could actually create a data-loss problem that IT's early knowledge was designed to prevent.
It's an area of IT that really intrigues me. I had the experience, perhaps the unique experience, to be VP of HR and IT and the same time for a mid-sized company (over 150 million in revenue). From that perspective I got to see multiple angles of corporate secrets.
I recently taught a graduate level course in IT security and noted that none of the texts, references I found had more than a passing mention of this basic lvel of security. Chapters on ecryption and secruity protocols - but almost nothing on the most basic of security issues - learn when to keep your mouth shut!
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