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Enterprise architecture develops, documents, and communicates the baseline, target, and transition plan for an organization. EA makes information transparent to enable better decision making. Transparency leads to self-correcting behavior.
Hereâs one case where transparency may be better left under wraps.
The Wall Street Journal, 9 April 2008, reports: âCandid Camera: Trove of Videos Vexes Wal-Mart.â
âFor nearly 30 years, Wal-Mart stores Inc. employed a video production company here to capture footage of its top executives, sometimes in unguarded moments. Two years ago, the retailing giant stopped using the tiny company. At first, the decision threw Flagler Productions Inc. into a panic. Now, itâs Wal-Mart thatâs squirming.
âFlagler has opened its trove of 15,000 Wal-Mart tapes to the outside world, with an eye toward selling clips. The material is proving irresistible to everyone from business historians to documentary filmmakers to plaintiffâs lawyers and union organizers.â
So whatâs the problem with exposing some tapes of Wal-Mart executives?
âAmong the revealing moments: a former executive vice president and board member challenges store managers in 2004 to continue his work opposing unionization. Male managers in drag lead thousands of co-workers in the companyâs corporate cheer. In another meeting, managers mock foolish or dangerous use of a product sold in stores.â
âUnlike the polished presentations delivered at business forums, the videos provide an unvarnished look at Wal-Mart leadersâŚthe videos deal with âeverything anyone would want on Wal-MartâŚTheyâve got 30 years of people winging it.ââ
A labor historian says, âWhen they are talking to themselves, and there arenât any shareholders present, you get a level of things being revealed.â
This is a treasure trove for lawyers on various cases, unions delving into personnel policies and practices, and critics of the company. The question from an EA perspective is whether information transparency is really a good thing or not?
- On the positive side, only by getting the information out there or having the âthreatâ of the information getting out (like on the cover of the Washington Post or in Congressional hearings) are organizations and people forced to ensure they are doing the ârightâ thing, and therefore self-correct when they are off track.
- On the other hand, when information is too transparent (like the unscripted videos of Wal-Mart executives), the enterprise can be put at competitive, security, economic, judicial, and political risk, thus jeopardizing any future plans for the organization.
There are certainly risks to an organization when it makes information transparent. It is these very risks of âexposureâ that breed and are the impetus for self-correction. While, self-policing mechanisms (like internal controls, inspections, and audits) can achieve similar self-correcting behavior without putting the organization at risk with external entities, it does not have the same potency as full transparency. Indeed, nobody wants to wake up in the morning and find their organization on the cover of The Washington Post as the poster child for organizational fraud, waste, and abuse!