One thing we wanted to fully purge from Axios from the get-go was internal drama — the whispering and gossipy wonderment that plagues and pollutes so many workplaces.

Why it matters: By sharing everything other than how much someone makes or why someone left — those exceptions are out of respect for the individual — we mostly eliminated the suspicion and resentment that flows so easily from not knowing what’s really going on.

The backstory: Before we started Axios, four of us — Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz, Kayla Cook and I — spent countless hours reflecting on our time at Politico and dreaming up the ideal culture for a yet-unnamed company.

We wanted to work with insanely talented people, but also insanely good people, in a wildly ambitious but truly enjoyable workplace.

Here are three things we do that might be helpful in other settings:

1. Overshare. In relationships, at work, as leaders, you build trust by being open and honest, constantly and consistently. You cannot say you are transparent; you show it with hundreds of little acts of openness.

2. Take tough questions. One of the hardest but best things we do is take questions anonymously every Monday, read them verbatim even if it hurts, and answer forthrightly and non-defensively.

3. Resist retreat. Twice, someone on staff leaked private Axios discussions, presumably to embarrass a colleague or stir trouble. My initial reaction was annoyance — and then a fleeting thought that we needed to stop being so transparent.

The bottom line... It’s true in work and life: Demystifying things with candor and transparency eliminates a lot of the needless drama and sneaky suspicion.