Is your management team one secret handshake away from becoming a street gang? Does the phrase “need to know” appear regularly in your communication plan? When faced with a major challenge or decision, top management often huddles behind closed doors, waiting days and sometimes months before admitting that change is coming.

The law of unintended consequences states that for every action (and not keeping people in the loop is definitely an action) there are at least two consequences you didn’t expect/want. Here are some of the consequences of keeping your team’s change information:

culture of mistrust – You could also start your meetings with “since we don’t trust you…” – your actions say it anyway. A culture of secrecy works both ways: if you can’t be honest with your team, you can bet they’ll start keeping things from you.

rumor party – Your job is your livelihood – it’s how you feed your family and pay your bills. If your team members think there’s something going on that could affect their ability to keep the lights on at home, you can bet they’ll be relentless in trying to figure out what it is. At best, rumors waste time. At worst, they lead to consequence #3.

Flight of the High Performers – Instability makes people nervous, and your best people are also the ones with the most options to find employment elsewhere. It’s a challenge at best to make sure your key individual contributors aren’t headed for greener pastures – add a dash of poor communication about change and you might as well help them clean their desks yourself.

So the next time your management team is faced with a big decision, try something radical: announce it. Hold a quick meeting to define the problem or change, rally the troops and let them know there’s a problem, you’re working on a solution, and you’ll share more information as soon as you have it. If you want to be really radical (and maybe move your company up a few notches on the “best places to work” list), suggest that if anyone has ideas or comments that you’d like the management team to consider, they should share them. with your manager.