Lessons from the dark side of information use: The impact on people, values, and company performance

Senior managers must promote and impart the right information behaviors and values. They need to ensure that employees use customer, product, operational, and financial information to improve the company’s business performance. If they compromise integrity, falsify formal reports, cloak the real performance of the company, hide bad news, discourage information sharing, and encourage excessive competition between people – or inspire their employees to do the same – business performance will drop. In serious cases, the company may be crippled and its credibility in the marketplace shattered. The bottom-line! What people in a company know and how they act on their information directly affects business performance. The link between the mindsets and actions of senior managers and company performance is more important than ever.