How many times have you had somebody say to you, “Please don’t share this with anybody, but…” The lead in is usually followed by everything from pure gossip to serious heads-up stories about something related to the industry, their personal lives, business etc. Here’s the issue – you can’t stop people from sharing unsubstantiated stories with you, but you can prevent feeding the rumor mill.
So the first rule is, if you don’t want people to know something then don’t tell anybody! Today, so much more so than when I started out in business, every person has the ability to literally reach out to thousands. Most of you Tweet, you’re on Facebook, you have email accounts and you’re probably on Linkedin. Every day we have the ability to talk to thousands of people.
The second rule is, know who you’re talking to. If you are going to share something that’s confidential or maybe you just don’t want anybody to know you’re the source, then be careful who you choose to bring under the cone of silence! (Maxwell Smart was just ahead of his time.)
The photo industry is really very small. New photographers especially don’t realize that so many of us have worked for other companies. I’ve worked for three great companies in photography. I met Dan Steinhardt from Epson when he was at Kodak and I was at Hasselblad. Jerry Grossman at the Industry Reporter and I met when he used to be at Nikon. Today he’s publisher of the best trade publication in our industry. Now take my two examples and scale them up to just about everybody in the industry who’s been around for more than five years!
As I’ve often said, we all go to the same rubber chicken dinners together. We’ve been at same conventions, retirement parties and meetings. You never know when you’re talking about somebody or something with another company who’s really listening.
The third rule is, if it’s really confidential and you want to keep it that way, have those people you want to share information with sign a non-disclosure statement. Just use Google and you’ll find dozens of examples free on line. This is really the extreme case, but if it’s something critical to your business, but you need the input of another party, a non-disclosure statement puts the right perspective on the information and stresses its importance.
And the last rule…just be quiet and don’t share information that isn’t appropriate to pass on. Work to maintain trust with your clients, your associates and your friends. I don’t usually find myself quoting Hilary Clinton, but she’s credited with saying:
“In almost every profession – whether it’s law or journalism, finance or medicine or academia or running a small business – people rely on confidential communications to do their jobs. We count on the space of trust that confidentiality provides. When someone breaches that trust, we are all worse off for it.”
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January 26th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
My rule – if I don’t own the information I don’t share it – period. Also, nothing sent with the press of a button is ever a secret – if you don’t want to read it on someone else’s website or blog, don’t push the send button on email.