Disclosure

I just extended an invitation to readers of ZH WorldMail to access this blog in order to get a personal glimpse of the editor of Zion's Herald. In the spirit of "full disclosure," I believe readers are well-served to know something more about the people who produce the publications they read than they normally find in the publications themselves.

Concurrently, I've also been involved in an issue of "disclosure" with my publisher (i.e., "boss") involving a business enterprise with which I'm affiliated and the need to maintain open relationships for the sake of trust and sound decision-making. From the latter, though, I know that it is not always self-evident which relationships are required to be open, are merely helpful to be open and do not need to be open at all -- in other words, those relationships that remain in the realm of the private and personal. Except where it is an issue of law, such matters can be grey areas requiring judgment calls in an effort to serve all parties to a relationship or web of relationships.

It seems to me that the question of disclosure is one that grows in importance and complexity in a society that values and promotes the free flow of information. In simpler times, need for disclosure was largely moot because in situations where it mattered, virtually everyone knew what was needed to conduct business and understand the context in which they lived. Not so today. With so much information flying around, and the opportunity that we have individually to add more (witness this blog and the thousand others that have sprung up on the Web), it's becoming very hard to know where any of us is "coming from," what webs of relationships we might be part of and how it all affects our judgment and/or influences our behavior. The underlying impact is on the basis for community itself: the ability to trust each other because we believe we know each other. Disclosure is the mechanism by which we remind ourselves of this underlying need in an increasingly complicated world, including especially the need to foster trust relationships for the sake of pursuing common goals.

There's always the risk, of course, that we might not like what we see when disclosure is practiced. But, at least we have the option of walking away at that point rather than being in the dark about matters affecting an important relationship in our life.

But, neither is disclosure a matter of "letting it all hang out." Somehow in an information-saturated society, we must find ways to balance the need to know with the need for personal and private space. I'm impressed, for example, with how little we actually know about the personal, private lives of great religious figures such as Jesus and the Buddha. Who ever asked of Jesus that he disclose his personal affairs so that his followers could judge his suitability for leadership? Sounds ridiculous, I know, but that's part of the point: How much, really, do we need to know about each other in order to maintain relationships of trust, create healthy communities and organizations, and still maintain our integrity and dignity as individuals?

The mere fact that I'm raising this issue as both a public and personal question reveals my bias: When in doubt, disclose – but always with an eye toward keeping personal boundaries that preserve our distinctive identities and nurture the particular gifts we bring to all of our relationships.