Right now I'm at the pool of an apartment complex in the Buckhead district of Atlanta. Buckhead is that well-to-do, glitzy/wealthy area every city has, and every business/residential complex/everything else anywhere remotely nearby tries to claim they are a part of. While you could genuinely claim one side of this particular complex as true-blood Buckhead (there's a beautiful neighborhood of high-end real estate just as you come out of the entrance), the reality is that it's easier and more intuitive to get in/out of the complex through the opposite side, which comes complete with a series of run-down storage facilities, a late-night "health" spa, and a less-than-attractive stretch of I-85.
This got me thinking about a newsletter I haven't removed myself from yet, a weekly set of thoughts from the founder of JobFox that I started receiving when I used their visual experience map-building tool once upon a time. The founder typically shares some insider insights on the recruiting/job market world, the most recent being a comparison between the current state of affairs for employers and home buyers.
Essentially the following point was being made: just as buyers in the real estate market can currently afford to expect nothing less than perfection at a perfect price, so too are employers settling for nothing less than perfection in candidates, every step of the way. The newsletter more or less recommends putting your best face forward, at any cost.
Back to the apartment complex. I got to wondering how much better off the complex would be were it to put it's best face forward and direct potential residents through the nicer (but less convenient) route to the property. Clearly this is a larger set of thoughts regarding the nature of transparency. I'm thinking that it's questions like these that are putting our intense (although brief) fascination with openness and transparency back into perspective. My initial thoughts are of the starry-eyed transparency camp: certainly this would be a thinly-veiled attempt at concealing the convenient-but-unaesthetic route onto the property. Certainly this assumes that residents are idiots, and when they figure out they've been duped in a way, they're certain to be resentful. Certainly "putting your best face forward" is something of an attempt to hide important realities.
After talking through the idea and the implications for brands, I was reminded at the pool that housing, resumes, and brands all live in somewhat different worlds when it comes to expectations. While I consider successful personal and consumer brands that are driven by a sort of "you know what? We're NOT perfect. These 'imperfections' are a part of our unique story, and we're going to use them to our advantage" philosophy, I also recognize that there are institutions like medical school admissions that absolutely expect and actively encourage in some sense the best faces forward approach (@ashleydickinson's confirmation of the JobFox thoughts).
I find it important to note that even in the brand world, only those of truly quality substance can afford to make that 'unique story' argument anyway. The apartment complex illustrates this well; even if it were the case that people searching for apartments expect less transparency from complexes than from brands, I still find the face forward approach a bit too dishonest for my taste. On the other hand, transparency falls flat here, in consideration of what is unfortunately a true dealbreaker for many people: less than ideal location.
I suppose that outside of thinking about expectations first, there's no clear winning strategy here, no catch-all advice. Just some thoughts to consider as we begin to take a closer look at what transparency truly means. I suppose the only true catch-all strategy is to put the hard work into actually being that quality brand/person/location/whatever (it's more work than you think). And avoid the ones that aren't (also prohibitively difficult).