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WikiLeaks: What’s wrong with whistleblowing?

by Deborah Hinton

I’m guessing that you, like me, have been following the WikiLeaks story.   And if you’re like me, I feel that we’re asking the wrong questions.  Focused on the wrong end of things.

The fact is leaks happen.  They have happened since well before Watergate.  WikiLeaks changes the scale, but it doesn’t change reality.  There are people in organizations all over the world who are willing to risk their jobs, their personal freedom and maybe even their lives to let ‘us’ know what’s really going on in their organizations.  There’s something deeply wrong here.  And it has little to do with a website called WikiLeaks.

In 2008, WikiLeaks was awarded the Economist magazine New Media Award.  Today, there are calls to close down the website.  And cries of foul from the freedom of speech crowd. “There’s always been a divide between those who want the Internet to be open and free and those who view that as a risk, who want information to be protected and controlled,” said Jonathan Wood, global issues analyst at Control Risks. “This obviously highlights those divisions.”

In June 2009, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange won Amnesty International‘s UK Media Award (in the category “New Media”).  And, today the founder, spokesperson and editor in chief  Julian Assange is in hiding.  He’s reportedly had his life threatened, Interpol has put him on its red notice list of wanted persons and there is a Europe wide arrest warrant out on him on charges of sexual assault.

What changed?  In 2010, the WikiLeak’s focused on Iraq, Afghanistan and the US State department.  At the risk of sounding antiestablishment the leaks are getting closer to real political and economic power.  So, the reaction is not surprising.

But focusing on the website and the founder is distracting us from asking another perhaps more important question:  How bad is it in organizations that whistle blowers have to blow whistles at all?  And what do we need to do to change that?

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Deborah Hinton Monday, December 6th, 2010
Permalink Work, Workplace 3 Comments

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“No charges after Axor exec’s trip”

by Deborah Hinton

Imagine you’re an employee at Axor, a large Montreal development company. You wake up one day earlier this month to read that your president and chairman has been arrested and jailed in Florida for drug possession. Turns out he was carrying valium and didn’t have his prescription with him. So the good news is that the arrest was the result of a silly technicality. How many of us carry our prescriptions with us when we travel? You’re sympathetic and probably supportive.

The less good news is that you now know your top executive is taking prescription drugs to reduce anxiety.

What’s he so anxious about that he’s taking valium? If it’s about business should you be anxious too? If it’s something else can he be fully focused on the business and on this drug?

So from a communication point of this little moment is interesting and potentially instructive.

As an institution when, what and how would you communicate on this with employees?  clients?  Or would you?

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Deborah Hinton Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Permalink CEO, Customer, Internal communication No Comments

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