Are we making sure that we're conveying the whole story?

After General Wellington had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, the news was brought back to England by sailing ship. When it arrived on the south coast, the message was sent along by flag signals until it got to London. Finally the news was signaled from the roof of Winchester cathedral. It said: "Wellington defeated."

 A heavy fog had covered the area at the time and hid the signals from view. The sad news  was relayed to London and it plunged the citizens into a deep gloom.

But a short time later, the fog lifted and the remainder of the message came through. It had said: "Wellington defeated the enemy."

The good news raced through the city and country. If lifted the gloomy hearts from sadness to joy.

In other words, the "whole story" wasn't told, and until it came out, painted a very different picture.

Ask yourself, if you feel that you're getting the "whole story" from your colleagues in the place where you work, or simply a collection of "sound bites" (and Tweets) that convey little useful information (and require you to stitch the data fragments together to make sense)

Likewise today, our appetite for information often can cloud our judgement.

One aspect where this is particularly evident is in the aility (or skill) of detmining when there is enough quality data available, or to examine the true "information content" of communications, and determine whenh/how it should best be delivered.

Too frequently do we see incomplete (and sometimes misleading) information being disseminated, resulting in poor subsequent decisions / actions.  But there is another aspect of this phenomenon:  Any scientist will acknowledge that premature dissemination (or lack of proper "packaging") of data that has not been vetted or put into its proper context undermines the ability to later publish that data.

It seems that in today's workforce, that too often, much data gets disseminated in ways that don't support the organization's mission.

Question to my readers:  What are some of the "best practices" you have observed in how organizations convey meaningful information that tell the "whole story" in its proper context?