For George Bernard Shaw the biggest obstacle to communication is the belief that it has happened already.

However, a bigger obstacle is the fear that communicating is dangerous.  Ironically, this aversion to transparency aggravates risk, because it reduces the supply of information and deprives people of the data that they need to make decisions.

When individuals delude themselves, it’s perceived as madness, when organisations obfuscate it’s understood to be tactful, until all comes crashing down in heaps of confusion, mistrust and missed opportunity.

Communication is proclaimed as a virtue, and yet in the high echelons of our economic and public institutions, concealment and secrecy prevail.