I recently enjoyed this conversation with Ed Sheeran (one of my favourite musicians) on the Theo Von podcast. During the interview, about 58 minutes in, Ed said something that really resonated with me; he talked about how he always tries to be as honest as he can with people concerning what he’s thinking or feeling.
He tells the story of how a fan came up to him at a train station wanting a photo right after his aunt had died. Ed defaulted to being honest (I feel a better word to use here is ‘transparent’) and simply told him: “Hey, my aunt just died, can I have a minute”. Rather than hiding the truth or telling the guy to go away, he handled the situation with transparency and honesty.
And this is something I’ve always tried to do. Whether I’m on a sales call, helping a client, or talking to a friend or family member, I usually try to be as transparent as I can.
When you’re transparent:
- You encourage vulnerability. When you're transparent during a conversation, you’re demonstrating that you’re willing to be vulnerable. This often results in the other person reciprocating. This is great in a sales conversation as it helps you to bring down resistance and get to the underlying issues that you need to solve.
- You increase your credibility. When you're transparent you’re showing that you’re not hiding anything and this increases your credibility.
- You can shift the responsibility. By being transparent, you put the other person in the conversation in a situation where they can now decide how to react. I often think of it as putting all my cards on the table. Here’s my hand, this is what I’m thinking or dealing with, now you can decide how to proceed. Depending on the situation, this can be a very powerful skill to use.
- You’re less likely to get in trouble later. When you keep things to yourself, or you’re not 100% honest, this can come back to bite you. When you're open and transparent, this helps to shield you from future potential criticism as you’ve pre-warned people.
Whatever you do, you can use transparency as a tool to build relationships and navigate tricky situations. You don’t have to give away all your secrets or share everything that’s on your mind. But I usually find being open and transparent to be a positive thing and very rarely hurts your cause.