On transparency

For the past several years, I’ve made a point of sending a letter to Drift’s shareholders at the beginning of the year. I discuss the details you’d expect: team growth, revenue, product updates and more. 

All in the name of transparency. 

Which is why I share the very same letter, unedited, with the Drift team. Because after all, our employees are shareholders in the business. But more than that, they’re the lifeblood driving our growth and they deserve every bit as much detail as anyone sitting on our Board.

So that’s what I’m talking about here this week: transparency. Why it’s so important and how to deliver on it. 

Drift’s VP of People, Dena Upton, said it best:

Sharing information is one thing. Hopefully at your company, that’s just par for the course. But if you want to go a step further you need to be open to giving and receiving feedback (as always, that includes on this newsletter too). Which is why we’ve worked hard at Drift over the last year to implement and share the following:

• eNPS Surveys: Once a quarter we send out an Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) survey to take a pulse on the team. And more than that, we actually share the results – good and bad – with the team plus actions we plan to take to improve our results.

• Diversity Statistics: As I shared in my newsletter last week, we’re working hard to build a diverse culture and team here at Drift. Which is why we closely track the diversity of the team. And again, share those results internally (and externally) to hold ourselves accountable.

• Tiny Pulse: Similar to our quarterly eNPS surveys, we send out a weekly poll from Tiny Pulse as a quick pulse check on employee sentiment. Responses are anonymous, but if respondents choose to, they can include their name and more context to ensure a manager will follow up directly. 

• Ask Leadership Anything Slack Channel: We’re huge users of Slack so it’s the perfect channel to provide feedback and ask questions of leadership. Our Ask Leadership Anything channel ensures that our senior leadership team is accountable and available to the teams at all times.
  

Seems like a lot of channels, but if you’re actually going to be transparent you need to meet your employees where they are and where they’re comfortable. 

So, in that vein, what can we all do to be more transparent? How can we build trust? What efforts have you made to build bridges across your team?