How well do people in your organization respect confidentiality when dealing with other organizations?

Our reader poll today asks: How well do people in your organization respect confidentiality when dealing with other organizations?

• Extremely well: we never disclose someone’s information to a third party 46.85%
• Very well: we occasionally slip and accidentally disclose information 28.83%
• Well: we keep sensitive information confidential but sometimes share other topics 18.02%
• Not well: we have a hard time keeping information confidential 3.60%
• Poorly: we routinely share confidential information that shouldn’t be shared 2.70%

Keeping things quiet. 75% of you report that your organization does a good job of keeping information about others confidential. Unfortunately a large group of you report that your organization is less than secure about keeping confidential information quiet. These “loose lips” can have catastrophic impacts. You might expose your organization (or yourself) to lawsuits, ruin relationships, and create a bad reputation for yourself. Even the most innocuous-seeming information can damage the other party. You might not think it’s a big deal to disclose that you got a great discount on something you bought but now you’ve put your supplier in a pinch when their biggest customer finds out about your discount and demands the same level of pricing. That’s a simple example of how disclosing information can be damaging. So the next time you’re inclined to share something about another party, pause and ask if sharing it is really necessary. It usually isn’t. If it’s not necessary, simply keep quiet.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.