Hidden Information: The Invisible Barrier to Company Success

In my consulting work, I’ve discovered a fascinating pattern: the most significant obstacles to a company’s success often lie in undisclosed information scattered across teams. This isn’t about deliberately concealed secrets – it’s about crucial knowledge and insights that never make it into team discussions.

Leaders frequently find themselves puzzled by their inability to align their teams despite clear goals. The root cause? Critical information remains trapped in silos, with team members holding pieces of the puzzle without realizing their significance to others.

This hidden information manifests in various forms: market insights known only to sales teams, technical limitations understood by engineers, or customer pain points observed by support staff. When these insights don’t surface in strategic discussions, they create invisible barriers to progress.

In my experience, these knowledge gaps persist because teams are caught in the daily whirlwind of operations. They rarely pause to ask crucial questions like:

• “What’s preventing us from aligning on this initiative?”
• “What lessons did we learn from similar past attempts?”
• “Do we have the right resources and capabilities to succeed?”
• “What concerns you about our current direction?”
• “Is there an alternative approach that might be more achievable?”

My role involves excavating these buried insights. As I talk to different people on the team, each conversation helps build a clearer picture of the situation and potential solutions.

Here’s a real-world scenario: During a discussion with a Sales VP, she revealed, “We can’t effectively sell this new product because we lack access to the right decision-makers. The CEO assumes our relationship with a major bank gives us access to their data team, but our current contacts don’t even interact with that department.”

This insight led to a creative solution: “What if we designed a product that would motivate your existing contacts to champion it to their data teams?” This sparked interest, but raised questions about Marketing and Finance alignment. Each subsequent conversation with these departments unveiled new insights and concerns, allowing us to iteratively develop a plan everyone could support.

The process resembles a treasure hunt, where each discovered piece of hidden information brings us closer to unlocking the company’s full potential. The thrill lies not just in finding these insights, but in watching how their revelation transforms organizational roadblocks into stepping stones for success.