1:00PM
I researched a little bit on secretive cultures to see if I could learn something from it. I stumbled on articles about Apple and Snapchat and the corporate cultures there.
They are two of the largest and most popular tech companies right now and are known for having secretive cultures. At both companies, sometimes employees don’t know what products will be released until they read it in public news. Also, many doors and locked with restricted access keycards and even passcodes to enter. Employees are told not to leak things to the press, not to really tell people what role they have in the company, and other acts to withhold information to the public.
And yet these companies can create magical products (or at least magical marketing). They control the narrative strongly, top-down, and emphasize bringing delight to customers—surprise followed by pleasant experience.
I see that it works, in terms of outcomes—some of the Apple product releases have generated a tremendous amount of excitement, and the secrecy has built up a lot of anticipation amongst fans and reporters. I guess I question how it works in terms of the emotional health of the people in the process.
While I love to give surprises to people, I can also obsess over something and only want to deliver it when it’s perfect. Hiding it allows me to close it off and delay release until it reaches perfection, which is never, and so I often delay and delay. In the meantime, I evade people’s questions, often by not responding to them, or giving them vague, undecipherable clues. I wonder if some of them start to think I don’t care about them or if they did something to hurt me and push me away. I think I just want it to be perfect, and secrecy gives me a great cover for that.
On the other hand, when I open up and share it with people, their reactions can really impact me. When I shared this book-writing project with my good friends from high school, many of them seem confused or unenthused, and I started to feel less confident and more embarrassed as a result. Whether they were even intending to send me their reactions, I made assumptions about them and incorporated them into the work.
I believe that secrecy can give us the cover to work on and develop something without it being so tainted by what we believe how other people will feel. I believe it also cuts us off from getting the positive feedback from others, which can fuel our motivation, or even better develop the concept.
I also wonder the toll that secrecy takes on our bodies and relationships—the hiding and lying that is required to maintain secrecy, the distancing, the evasion. I think this can damage relationships in unforeseen ways.
I know that it’s hard for me to hold in information. I feel the struggles every time I try to fib or change the subject. It may lead to more perfect outcomes, but I believe secrecy may lead to imperfect processes.
1:10PM
