Removing Asymmetry of Information

How you can unlock decision-making and relationships with information liquidity

Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash

I started my time at Ancestry with a listening tour and state of the union, where I spoke to people across the company to identify common themes and challenges. Several of the people I spoke with asked for the launch of an international feature that had been widely available in the U.S. for several years. I knew little about it, but I put it on my to-do list as something to look into. 

A couple months later, I started exploring this feature in earnest, growing curious about why it hadn’t been rolled out in other countries yet. I asked what the blocker was, and someone sent me the original specifications for adapting this feature for an international launch. 

I read through the document, which had been written a couple years before, and saw that the estimated development cost was fairly large. I sent the document back to be reviewed. It came back with an updated cost that was more manageable but still expensive. I then reached out to our CTO, who explained that the high cost was due to a legal requirement. I then reached out to our Chief Legal Officer, who explained the situation further. Finally, after going in circles for some time, we gathered everyone in a room, and within twenty minutes, we had hashed the problem out. 

It turned out that we were all the victims and perpetrators of asymmetrical information. Everyone was earnestly working on this issue from their own perspective, but no one had the full picture, leading to unnecessary roadblocks. We ended up shipping the feature that had been on hold for years within a few weeks. 

This was a valuable lesson on the importance of speaking openly and not allowing information silos to develop. The more people who are involved in something, the more likely it is that someone will end up not getting the whole story. This can have major impacts on progress, so how do you address this problem?

Beware the bilateral conversation 

I met a CEO who told me that he doesn't host one-on-ones with his senior staff. He explained, “When someone has a problem, they reach out to me, but I don't do standing meetings.” This person had built an industry-defining company from scratch with that style, so I listened with fascination. 

The thing about bilateral conversations is that they are powerful, but also dangerous. When you talk with somebody one-on-one, you’re getting information from their perspective, and they’re getting information from yours—but what happens if that information is one-sided or incomplete?

When you take a piece of information from one person and try to suss out what others think, you may end up going in circles, hearing different things from different people. As you go in circles, you inevitably struggle to know who is saying what to whom. It's not that people are intentionally untruthful or malicious, but everyone sees the world through their own lens. What seems unfair to one person might seem perfectly natural to someone else, and two people can legitimately disagree about priorities without being in contention. But when those conflicting perceptions spread through teams, it becomes a much larger problem than something you can manage one-on-one.

How to break down the walls 

The best way to avoid asymmetrical information and break down communication barriers is to, well, communicate. When there’s a new development, challenge, or piece of information, it’s important to get everyone on the same page as soon as possible. 

We were once having an argument about a feature that lasted longer than it would have taken to implement the feature itself. Finally, at an event, I grabbed everyone involved and asked them to come together and talk directly to each other. We suddenly reached clarity about something that had been in contention for months. Think of how much time and work we could have saved if we had just done that from the start!

One of the things I’ve learned about scaling is that, just like with bilateral conversations, you can end up going in circles trying to get to the truth. That’s why, when someone comes to me with pertinent information, I immediately put it on the agenda for a multi-way conversation. Rather than having lots of one-on-ones with my team, I focus on making sure the information is included in our next team meeting so everyone can see the same thing. (I do occasionally have people on my team who ask me to keep something to myself and not share it with others, but that's the exception, not the rule. The goal is that everyone hears the same thing at the same time from the same person.)

We once realized that our senior leadership team meetings often covered topics that were of interest to a broader group, so we invited a dozen key staff members to join us for the first part of the meeting each week. Visibility into the inner workings of the company across teams has made it easier for these leaders to understand our priorities and have input in important decisions. I encourage larger meetings for discussion because I want more people to see and examine decisions. With enough structure and preparation, they can be a game-changer. 

Writing things down 

I remember a time when I was trying to get a contentious product off the ground. It was our third or fourth attempt at it as a company, and as the PM Director, it was my job to get it across the finish line. Our team was growing as we needed more resources, and each new person who joined wanted to revisit every single previous decision we’d made. It was maddening. Finally, one of the PMs on my team created a “hard decisions” one-pager documenting exactly what we had decided, when, and why. The document was given to all new team members. Suddenly, almost no one felt the need to hash out every choice again. As it turned out, it wasn't that the newcomers didn't agree with our decisions; rather, that they didn't know we had thought them through and intentionally chosen our path. 

The moral of the story? Document, document, document. Writing things down is a powerful tool to remove information asymmetry. Take getting promoted as an example. You may think that your path to promotion is very clear, but your manager probably disagrees. If you don't document and align on expectations, you’re more likely to end up frustrated. There’s often a large disparity between what you think your performance is and what your actual performance is, so getting on the same page (literally, with words!) is critical. 

There was a time in my career when I went through seven managers in under three years. Each manager had a different set of expectations and a different bar for promotion. I felt stuck. Finally, when I got to Manager #7, I asked him to work with me to write down exactly what he needed to see to promote me. We then checked in every month. By the time the promotion happened, we were already in lockstep. 

Documenting information doesn’t just help keep both parties accountable. It also provides a historical record. Having that record allows you to easily pass along decisions and thought processes to future team members. Before I left Facebook, I wrote a series of internal posts documenting the history of Marketplace for those who came after me. By putting it all down in writing, I was able to lay out the vision of the team who had built it and provide a foundation they could scale upon long into the future. 

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As I discussed in a recent post, communication breakdowns can lead to disastrous results. When multiple parties end up with partial information, but no one has the full story, progress slows down and misunderstandings run rampant. But information asymmetry doesn’t have to be inevitable. When you’re mindful of where the information is coming from, document religiously, and keep everyone in the loop, you’re setting yourself up for smoother, more productive communication.