Mandatory disclosure of information is that rare policy embraced by left and right alike. Liberals see disclosure as empowering the little guy, while conservatives view it as improving market efficiency. Admit It, You Didn’t Read A Word Of This, Bloomberg Businessweek, May 19, 2014.

I love it when we can get people to agree on a course of action, even when they both do it for different reasons.

What struck me about the quote above was that they were, in my judgement, saying the same thing. What I feel people forget when they deal with concepts such as the “market ” is that the market” is simply a notion to try and characterize the interaction of people — of which most participants are the “little guy.” So they were saying, to my way of thinking, essentially the same thing.

See also see How To Avoid Chaos In Our Discussions

The other key thought from this article is that information is key to so many things we do. Just because everyone does not read the information disclosed, doesn’t reduce its power. I’m big into pushing information out, especially in a project, and it is always amazing the number of people — always other managers — who scold me for doing it.

Yes, a lot of information can “confuse people” — at least according to the criticism I’ve received. Again, that is not the point. The critical thing is to get the information out there so that key people, and we usually don’t know who all they are, have an opportunity to get it and act on it.

For more detail see Some Scary Things Are Worth Sharing

As long as we both agree on an action, then I guess I don’t mind too much that it is for different reasons. The danger is that managing tactically on a day to day basis is often driven by “why” we do something and not what we do. So this difference in motivation can cause problems, but for now I’m happy that we’ve agreed on what it is we are to do.

Are you getting the actions you need when you publish your project information?