The world is a jumble of contradictions.
And this is just one of the big ones. Open communication is critical and so is confidentiality. Your privacy is important to us, now tell us everything about yourself so we can help you.
How do you have both at the same time? Even though seemingly contradictory things can bother be true, I am not sure that this is one of the instances where you can.
This is where we get into the weird problem of creating rules with the exceptions. We are open ‘except for’ or things are confidential ‘except for.’
This seems sensible enough on the surface, but in reality lead down a path of grey areas.
Laws and rules have a lot of gray areas and it is the contradictions that are hard to manage in the analog world. Life in the digital universe eventually comes down to a binary choice. There are over 16 million colors defined in our current digital world so that leaves a lot of shades of gray (more than 50).
Every organization has its rules. Some of these rules are formal and others are informal. The formal rules may say one thing, but the informal rules say another.
Ultimately, somebody has to make a choice. Sometimes they feel like they are in a position where they have no option, and other times they might feel like they have too many choices.
A system or a framework that is consistently applied can be helpful in those instances but even the best systems breakdown. At some point, you can be left in an uncomfortable place.
