There is a fascinating cultural phenomenon called Information Asymmetry. It means that one person or faction has access to information that others do not. This is the foundation of intelligence (spy) services through history. You have advantage over enemies when you have more data. In the work environment, your goal is (usually) not to defeat your foes, but rather to get to mutually beneficial outcomes. If you are working to defeat your co-workers, this post is not for you.
On the other hand if you are interested in resolving disagreements and gaining alignment, you should understand how it works and what to do about it.
Causes of Asymmetry
There are many ways that this imbalance can occur. This is a non-exhaustive list.
Gatekeeping
Gatekeeping is when one party is hoarding information and blocking others from accessing it. This can happen in many ways.
- Not inviting key people to important meetings
- Not sharing key findings or documents
- Overuse of power talk
- Not cc’ing the right people in email/slack
- Culture of secrets
I really hate gatekeeping in the work environment. It feels like shit when you need information to do your job and someone actively blocks you from knowing about it. Being excluded is one of the worst feelings you can have as a human.
There are articles that help address this, but I have found only one good method over the years. “Break bread” with them. Having a meal with someone changes the entire dynamic of a relationship. Psychologically, when you are eating with someone, you lower your guard a little. You are more likely to be on friendly terms. It doesn’t work 100%, but I find this technique to be the best I have tried.
If you are a leader in your organization, you should not tolerate gatekeeping in your team. You should always be looking out for that. It not only poisons the wellbeing of your team members, but it also diminishes your teams impact and effectiveness. If you are a CEO, you have to be stern when this happens. It boggles my mind how CEOs tolerate gatekeeping.
Power Talk is a whole post by itself. In short, it is a way of talking to gain the most information possible while divulging the least amount of information in return. I wish no one had to actually do this, but in the real world, it is a helpful technique.
Tip: Read The Gervais Principle. It’s short, funny, and actually enlightening.
Inability to understand analytics
I often use the metaphor that analytics is like jazz music. Everyone says they like jazz, but I think many are lying. There are absolutely people who love it (Jazz or Analytics) and speak the language. However, when you get down to brass tacks, most people are really uncomfortable with the details. This leads to all sorts of data bias problems such as:
I have an analytics group within my team and I talk with them often about storytelling. You can’t just play experimental jazz for someone who doesn’t understand the music. Likewise, you can’t just show charts and raw data for someone who doesn’t understand how data is collected and what it means.
One technique is to focus on hypothesis first. Don’t start with the data, but rather start with a statement of what you think is true and then think about what data would prove or disprove the theory. You need to be very strict so that it truly does prove the case and can not be attributed to other causes.
The lack of understanding about analytics along with the biases makes information asymmetry even worse because different groups have different information that might even be flawed or false. In the worst-case scenario, this is called propaganda and can skew public opinions or stoke conflict.
Remote Work Issues
I believe information asymmetry is exacerbated by remote work. When you and all of your coworkers share an office space, you can just walk over to someone’s desk and talk to them. You can overhear conversations. You can stop someone in the hallway to confirm facts. None of this is easy in a remote work model.
Slack is generally difficult as a medium to convey complex or nuanced thoughts. Even zoom can be problematic when you have too many people in a meeting or the person you are talking to does not turn on their video. 50% of communication is non verbal.
Watching recordings of meetings at 2x speed is sometimes used to get more information, but again it is a poor substitute for small group working sessions. What inevitably happens is certain parts of the organization get more information and others less. This asymmetry leads to disagreement, misalignment, and conflict.
This can be made even worse when some people are together in an office and others are remote. You get a feeling of an outsider looking in. I think this is unhealthy for productivity, but it’s also a reality of our post-covid world.
Realistically, I am not sure what the answer is. You can’t rewind time.
Historical / Expertise Gaps
One problem I often face is that my experience stretches over 3 decades. I have seen many of the problems and already discovered how to deal with them, especially when it comes to information architecture, platform building, performance, and scale. Even if you re new to the workforce, you have expertise in the details of your projects. Sometimes, a person who has been in an organization for a long time, knows how/why things are the way they are.
This experience or history is known by some and not others. Unfortunately, we don’t give credit to people with this knowledge. This is true in many areas, but I have experienced it acutely in Information architecture and platform design. It is difficult to explain complex concepts to people disagreeing with you in a group meeting.
I usually try to meet with people 1:1 to go over the concepts and do a little education to get the info symmetry a bit more even.
Summary
This is one of the key ways people disagree. Sharing information widely is the best way to get people aligned. If you can, have lunch with people. If you can’t have more 1:1 sessions to align. If you are in very different time zones, communicate with pictures and work on being concise and to the point. Do everything you can to combat information asymmetry to help work together productively.
Whatya think?