Transparency gives progress a “sound.”
🎧 This Topic on the Lighthouse Leadership Podcast
Real stories. Hard lessons. No fluff.
In physical work, progress is visible and audible. A carpenter building a house feels progress with every nail she drives into a timber. It has a sound. It is visual.
Her team feels collective progress with every rafter they raise. They can see the progress happening one day to the next. They can see how much there is to go.
But in knowledge work, progress is much less tangible. Progress is not inherently visible.
Unlike construction, tasks like planning, design, and software development can feel like nothing is happening if there’s no clear signal of advancement.
I was thinking of this as my five year old was in the cow pasture behind our house. She just started walking away from me – looking at flowers all along the way. She was surprised how far she had traveled when she looked up and found me 100 yards away. Even though she was watching her feet take step after step, she didn’t realize how far she had traveled until she picked up her head to take stock.
Even though she was watching her feet take step after step, she didn’t realize how far she had traveled until she picked up her head to take stock.
Humans are biologically wired to seek out signs of progress. Dopamine is the goal-seeking chemical present in humans and animals. We hear about Dopamine all the time because it is what keeps us scrolling on our phones. It’s part of our ancient brains, honed by evolution to reward small steps toward achieving a goal.
Let me explain.
Humans were hunters and gathers until the agricultural revolution just 12,000 years ago. It was unclear where our next meal would come from before we started growing and raising our own food. This is the brain Dopamine was evolved to serve.
Early Man was often hungry. And when Early Man spotted an apple on a tree in the distance and he’d feel a bit of dopamine, a pleasant feeling indicating some relief was in sight in the form of a goal. And Dopamine feels really good, especially when compared to the feeling of the stress hormone, cortisol, he felt in the stress of his hunger. The apple would appear larger as he moved closer releasing another hit of dopamine imploring him to keep going towards this goal. And he reaches the apple, and lives another day.
We crave progress. And in knowledge work, we have to make the work visible so people can feel the progress we crave.
And remember: There are three types of processes-Routine, Complex, and Creative.
Enter the transparent process, a tool to make progress visible and audible:
Transparency gives progress a “sound.”
Tools like Kanban boards, JIRA, or daily standups externalize progress, making it “click” like the sound of a hammer striking a nail.
These “clicks” feed our innate dopamine systems.
Just like spotting the apple on a tree triggered dopamine for our ancestors, seeing a task move to “Done” or hearing a status update creates small rewards that pull us forward.
Shared visibility reinforces team motivation.
When everyone can see progress, struggles, and next steps, it becomes easier to align, support each other, and feel a collective sense of movement.
