Candor: Great for business. Essential for democracy

The framers crafted the First Amendment to protect the right to free speech, which includes the freedom to express candid opinions, even if – often especially if — they are controversial or unpopular. This right enables a "marketplace of ideas" that has been the envy of the world. John Stuart Mill coined this powerful analogy from the concept of business competition, except that he framed the goal around the free flow of ideas and the acceptance of truth, instead of growing revenue and enhancing profits. 

I’m thinking a lot about free speech and candor and their critical place in business today. As a lawyer counseling CEO’s and boards, I often explain that the fundamental fiduciary obligation of reasonable care rests on a duty of candor that requires honest, candid and transparent communication with each other and stockholders. Truth telling can be hard, especially when revenue, profits, and jobs are at stake. Cultivating and protecting candor as a resilient shared value — inside and outside an organization — is even harder. Luckily, we can recall why and how by reading a few new books.

Candor is built on curiosity — just like innovation. That’s as true now as it has been over the centuries, according to Dartmouth Professor Scott Anthony, author of the smart and funny new book Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World. As Anthony explains, the most disruptive innovators across time have been those curious about making the complicated simple and the expensive affordable. He shares timely and timeless examples of how “disruption” shapes product development and growth. From soldiers fashioning gunpowder into cannonballs, Julia Child transforming cuisine on television, and Pampers pushing disposable diapers into every retail store, Anthony traces the historical threads of innovation to a common origin: someone curious about change and honest enough to question the status quo. 

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Of course, if curiosity is crucial for strategic decisions, then successful leaders can hone the confidence needed to make those decisions by using a skill they already have: their intuition. So says Northeastern Professor Laura Huang, author of the revelatory new book You Already Know: The Science of Mastering Your Intuition. Huang has studied the internal, often subconscious, process of integrating experience and data that many decision makers call "their gut.” This isn’t mere reliance on impulse, emotion or rash risk-taking. Instead, Huang explains, effective leaders build confidence and intuition over time by combining data and deep listening with their own experiences, mistakes, mental models and pattern recognition. Her practical tips on how to build and use intuition are useful, smart and grounded in a simple principle: Be candid with yourself.

To me, honest reflection and self-knowledge are essential for the courage to be a leader in a volatile and changing world. That’s why How To Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage, HBS Professor Ranjay Gulati’s timely new book, is one of my favorite titles of the year. Courage, Gulati, explains, is not often innate but can be developed like any other muscle. In fact, our human brains actually are wired for cowardice when we lack certainty and control. Through engaging stories, curated examples, and compelling research, Gulati provides a “courage” playbook for modern leaders and everyday citizens concerned about the direction of their businesses, their lives, and the Nation. As he points out, courage can start individually, and spread collectively, through a community. Anyone hoping to be braver, bolder or simply looking for inspiration to speak truth to power, both corporate and political, would do well to read this book — and then pass it on. 

“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges,” Melville wrote in Billy Budd. I’ve used that quote often to illustrate the unavoidable tension of balancing candor, empathy, and consequence in private conversation and also the public square. If each of us can enter the marketplace of ideas renewed with that in mind, we’ll all be better off.

Read in the Boston Business Journal

Larry Gennari is a business lawyer and chief curator of Authors & Innovators, an annual business book and ideas festival. Watch recent interviews with authors here. Gennari also teaches Project Entrepreneur, a business fundamentals bootcamp for returning citizens, at BC Law School.