No Lies, No Surprises: The Operating Standard for Teams You Can Trust (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798993413167)

Every reliable team runs on the same four words.

No lies. No surprises.

The words sound so obvious that people nod past them. The definitions carry all the weight, and a brand-new frontline manager can apply them on day one, without a program, a budget, or anyone's permission.

Drawing on a thirty-year aviation career, including seventeen years with the FAA, Dr. Philip Mann builds the standard with the precision of a safety system. A fact is material when knowing it would change someone's decisions, plans, risk, or ability to help you. A surprise is not bad news; it is material news delivered too late for the people affected to respond well. Timing is the whole test.

Then he delivers the half most leadership books skip: yours. Why good people hide things, and the prices that make hiding rational. What your reaction to the first broken thing costs, and what it buys. The four-sentence early report that drains the drama out of bad news. What to do on the day a source stops being usable. And why the FAA, holding every sanction in the book, concluded that candor cannot be commanded, only made affordable.

Bad news is guaranteed. Being surprised by it is optional.

Truth is the one thing that never has to be reconstructed later, and it is the only place repair can begin.