What Would Change If Everyone Could See Everything?

When I was learning to drive, my older brother gave me a lot of advice (I’ll spare you most)…but one nugget stayed with me. He said: imagine your name and phone number are printed on your license plate.

Oh damn. Accountability? Transparency? I thought…well, only if I can see everyone else’s

If everyone could see who you were, would you cut someone off? Or would you choose to smile while letting someone cross the road even when it’s not a crosswalk? Visibility offers up accountability. And accountability, when it’s built on genuine transparency for the win/win, tends to bring out the best in people.

So here’s the question I’d ask any leader reading this: how confident are you, right now, that your top priorities are what your teams are actually working on?

Hold that one. We’ll come back to it.

Compensation Data: Clarity or Cluster$%*#?

Early in my career, I worked in compensation design, and it was my first practical lesson in the power dynamics of information.

When pay data was opaque, something quietly corrosive happened. Decisions got made, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not… and because no one could see the rationale, people filled the gaps with their own stories. Resentment built. Trust eroded.When organizations moved toward transparency – sharing ranges, explaining the logic, naming the criteria – the conversation got harder in some ways, and more honest in all ways.

Transparency didn’t create conflict. It channeled it productively.

The Intelligence That’s Already in Your Org: Are You Getting All of It?

Last month at the HR Transform conference, Diane Gherson (who led People at IBM for many years) posed a question that stayed with me. The essence of it: how do we actually get ideas from people at every level of the organization? Her point was that in the age of AI, it’s time to fix that.

We’ve always known that the people closest to customers, closest to the code, closest to the daily friction… they often see what leadership can’t (which I also think is why founders are often “too in the weeds” as companies grow…they want that ongoing insight). But organizational structures have made it hard for that intelligence to travel upward. Frankly, even getting strategy to meaningfully cascadedownhas been a challenge for many organizations.

The research increasingly confirms what we’re seeing across the companies we work with: the organizations getting the best results aren’t the ones demanding more output – they’re the ones making it safe to share information in every direction. Brian Elliott and Sophie Wade made this case recently in MIT Sloan Management Review, noting that human-centered leadership consistently outperforms the “tough CEO” approach on long-term results. And Microsoft’s Work Trend Index found that 68% of workers are struggling with the pace and volume of work, a number that jumped to 80% the following year when they asked whether people had enough time or energy to do their jobs effectively.

People aren’t underperforming. They’re overworking on too many things, and a major contributor is when priorities aren’t clear, and work isn’t visible.

What We’re Noticing at Forshay

When our team started using AI-generated meeting notes, something unexpected happened. Not just efficiency – clarity. What was decided, what was debated, what was left open… all of it visible, shareable, searchable. And it made us wonder: what if that kind of clarity existed across an entire organization? What if the conversations already happening at every level could become a source of real organizational intelligence – not through surveillance of keystrokes, not through more surveys, but through collaboration that’s already taking place?

That question is actually what led our technical team to start building something we’re calling Viu: a lightweight tool that surfaces which priorities are cascading clearly, which are going dark, and where ideas are emerging at every level that leadership can learn from. No new workflows. No survey rollout. Just visibility that was previously hard to capture.

“Forshay’s interim consultant has been outstanding. She’s brought a rare mix of judgment, warmth, organization, and ownership, and has already become someone our leaders trust deeply as we think about scaling. She represents the company exceptionally well with candidates and stakeholders, and the fit has honestly been stronger than we could have hoped for.” — Andy Smith, Chief Strategy Officer, Skiffra

Your Best AI-Forward Employees Are Leaving

Here’s where the transparency gap gets expensive. Upwork’s latest research found that employees getting the biggest productivity gains from AI are 88% more likely to be burned out – and twice as likely to be planning their exit. Two-thirds of those high performers now say they trust AI more than their coworkers. That’s not a technology stat…that’s a relationship crisis.

When people don’t know what to prioritize, they overwork on too many things rather than focus on the most valuable ones. When their ideas have no path to leadership, they stop offering them. When they can’t see whether what they’re doing is connected to what matters, they disengage… or they leave.

What This Keeps Teaching Us

My brother’s license plate insight wasn’t really about driving. It was about what we’re capable of when we know our actions are visible, and when that visibility is paired with genuine accountability.

The same principle scales. Organizations that create more transparency in compensation, in communication, in strategic alignment tend to make better decisions, surface better ideas, and build more trust at every level.

When people can see and be seen, when information flows honestly in both directions, organizations don’t just perform better. They become places worth staying.

We’d love to hear what you think…and where we might co-create what comes next.