Leaders often spend as much time trying to figure out what information they should and shouldn’t share with employees as they do actually communicating with them. The reasons vary. Some leaders feel information is power and they don’t want to relinquish that power. Others feel their employees will become demoralized if they learn of bad news. But whatever the reasoning, the facts are this: the more you share information, the more you’ll gain your team’s trust and the more openly you’ll be able to discuss problems and solutions – ultimately resulting in a higher performing team, say the authors of Go Team! Take Your Team to the Next Level (Berrett-Koehler, 2007).

In Go Team!, business experts Ken Blanchard, Alan Randolph, and Peter Grazier point out that team members with more information have more control over their work and feel heightened pride and ownership in their work. So what can you, as a sales manager, do to reap the benefits of information sharing in your team? Here are some ideas:

1. Share sensitive information. That’s right: air the dirty laundry. Show you trust your team by “sharing information about critical issues facing the organization, including information about loss of revenue, quality issues, or complaints from customers,” say the authors. By doing so, you send a powerful message that you are all working together. As a result, your team will feel they are part of the solution rather than just hanging on for the ride.
2. Celebrate mistakes. Buoyed by increased feelings of trust, your reps will also feel a greater desire to contribute ideas and solutions and try new ways of doing things. In so doing, they are likely to make more mistakes. Make sure you have a system in place for learning from these mistakes and sharing their lessons rather than placing blame. Think of it as rewarding risk rather than punishing errors because ultimately you’ll find your team generates more innovative ideas and truly unique solutions.
3. Get comfortable in the hot seat. The more you promote dialogue and open up the lines of communication with your team, the more likely you’ll sometimes find yourself in the “hot seat” – answering pointed and difficult questions raised by your team. You need to be comfortable in this place so you can answer these questions with candor and clarity. The Go Team! authors tell the story of a leadership team in a computer company who sat in front of a group of team members responding to questions about the business. There were some tough questions about resources and strategic decisions management had made. The leaders remained very calm, responded thoroughly to every question and acknowledged that some of their decisions hadn’t been the best. Then they asked for suggestions to help combat the competitive pressures in the market. The result: the energy that came out of the meeting helped the company deal with its problems in a collaborative way.
4. Urge “bottom up” communication. Information sharing goes both ways. Your sales team gets critical information every day about customers, about your product and how it is being used, about competitors. Make sure you have systems in place to collect and disseminate this information. And make sure you have created an environment that encourages – even rewards – reps for sharing this information.

With all this in mind, the authors recommend you sit down and ask yourself these questions: What information do you have that should be shared? What kinds of additional information could help your team be more productive? How could your team make good use of mistakes to learn how to improve results? What information could your reps be sharing with you to help you make better decisions and move sales in the right direction? By breaking from the traditional use of information by managers and employees, you’ll energize your team and results will soar.