“She looks like the real thing…”
— Radiohead, Fake Plastic Trees
Most leaders think their team knows what’s going on. They don’t. Visibility inside an organization isn’t something that just happens, it’s something you either design or accidentally withhold. Like a building with no windows, a company without intentional transparency leaves people working in the dark, navigating by feel, filling in the gaps with assumption. If your team seems disconnected from strategy, unclear on priorities, or chronically surprised by decisions that seemed obvious to you, the problem may not be their engagement. It may be your windows.
What Windows Actually Do in a Building
In architecture, windows aren’t decorative. They’re functional systems that solve real problems.
They bring in natural light, reducing reliance on artificial sources. They allow occupants to orient themselves to understand where they are relative to the outside world. They regulate temperature, airflow, and mood. A well-windowed space feels alive. People want to be in it.
A building without windows isn’t just dark. It’s disorienting. Occupants lose their sense of time, of scale, of direction. They become dependent on whoever controls the artificial lighting and that’s a fragile, exhausting way to operate.
The same thing happens in organizations. When people can’t see what’s happening around them, they stop trusting their instincts. They wait for instructions. They become reactive, not proactive. They can’t self-direct because they have no frame of reference.
And here’s the part most leaders miss: the absence of windows is always a design choice. Even if it wasn’t a conscious one.
The Organizational Parallel
In companies, windows are the mechanisms that let your team see what matters: data, decisions, direction, and the reasoning behind all three.
When those windows are small, dirty, or pointed the wrong way, here’s what you see:
- Teams making decisions based on outdated information because no one updated the dashboard
- Employees learning about strategy changes through the grapevine instead of from leadership
- Managers hoarding information because they weren’t sure what they were allowed to share
- High performers feeling blindsided and eventually, leaving
- A culture of assumption and rumour where there should be clarity and trust
The Radiohead lyric hits differently in this context. She looks like the real thing. A lot of organizations look transparent from the outside. Town halls. Slack channels. All-hands meetings. But the glass is frosted. People can see that something is on the other side, they just can’t make it out clearly enough to act on it.
That’s not transparency. That’s the appearance of transparency. And your team knows the difference.
Why It Gets Worse at Scale
When you had five people, you talked every day. Information moved by osmosis. The window didn’t need to be big because everyone was standing in the same room.
Then you grew.
Now there are layers. Departments. Time zones. Managers who were promoted because they were great individual contributors, not because anyone taught them how to cascade information. And suddenly the founder who still has all the context has become the only real light source in the building.
Every person further from you is operating with less light. By the time information reaches the front lines, it’s filtered, delayed, or gone.
Growth doesn’t just add complexity. It multiplies the cost of poor visibility. A decision made in the dark by a team of five might cost you a week. The same decision made in the dark by a team of fifty can cost you a quarter.
What Healthy Visibility Looks Like
You don’t need to share everything. You need to share the right things, consistently, through channels that actually reach people.
Signs your organization has well-designed windows:
- A clear strategic narrative — every employee can explain where the company is going and why, in their own words
- Regular data access — the metrics that matter to each team are visible, current, and easy to understand without a translator
- Decision transparency — not every decision, but significant ones come with context: what was decided, why, and what it means for the team
- Visible leadership thinking — leaders share what they’re wrestling with, not just what they’ve resolved
- Predictable rhythms — weekly standups, monthly reviews, quarterly all-hands that actually inform rather than perform
- Psychological safety around questions — people ask because they feel safe not knowing, and they get real answers
The goal isn’t radical transparency for its own sake. It’s oriented clarity. People need to know where they are, where you’re going, and why the decisions being made are taking you there.
That’s a window. Not a floodlight. Not a locked door. A window.
The Rebuild (A Personal Note)
When I was twenty years old, I was in a car that should have killed me. The recovery was long, painful, and disorienting in ways I didn’t have words for at the time.
One of the hardest parts wasn’t the physical pain. It was not being able to see what was coming. I couldn’t see the end of the recovery. I couldn’t see whether I’d walk normally again, whether I’d get my life back, whether the person I was becoming on the other side of the crash was someone I recognized.
I was operating without windows.
The people who helped me most in that period didn’t pretend they had all the answers. But they gave me visibility. Here’s what the next six weeks look like. Here’s what we’re watching for. Here’s why this is happening in your body. Here’s the milestone that tells us we’re on track.
That information was oxygen. It let me participate in my own recovery instead of just enduring it.
I think about that constantly when I work with CEOs. Your team is trying to recover something too — momentum, culture, confidence after a hard period, or just the clarity to do great work. They can’t do that in the dark.
When I rebuilt my company, I was painfully honest with my team about where we were. Not recklessly honest. Not “we might not make payroll” announced without a plan. But real. Here’s the challenge. Here’s what we’re doing about it. Here’s what I need from you.
Every time I opened a window, people leaned in instead of pulling back.
That’s the counterintuitive truth about transparency: it doesn’t create panic. It replaces the far more corrosive thing — the ambient dread of not knowing.
Final Thought
Your team is not disengaged. They are navigating in low light, and they are tired of it.
They’re not asking for everything. They’re asking for enough. Enough to orient. Enough to trust. Enough to stop filling the silence with their worst assumptions.
The question isn’t whether you’re a transparent leader. The question is whether your organization is structurally designed for visibility. Whether the windows are in the right places, pointed at the right things, and clean enough to actually see through.
Radiohead got there first: she looks like the real thing. The organizations that survive the next decade won’t be the ones who performed openness. They’ll be the ones who built it in.
What can your team actually see right now?
Architect Series • Issue 9
“I rebuilt myself. Now I design companies that can survive anything.”
