Problems With And Without Honesty

Without honesty there are a tons of problems. It's easy to see why Beck (not again?!) advocates openness and transparency in software development: in short, if we talk about issues honestly we stand a much better cance to resolve them. It's easy to see, but very difficult to realise.
Difficult because of the only problem with honesty: our self-esteem.

More specifically the From and the To part of honesty. The difficulty with the From part is manners and custom. We have a hard time telling our colleague he screwed up badly or has not the first clue what he's talking about, because that's what we are all used to: the not-telling. And because we could be and many times have been at the To-end of honesty and we know first hand how it feels when our mistakes are pointed out. From or To: our self-esteem gets in the way.
In retrospectives mature teams have the strength to be honest about mistakes, as I mentioned before. But it's a lot easier to tell honestly and to be told honestly about problems, when you are team. This is not to underestimate the power of collective responsibility, actually this is to encourage teams to try. You will be susprised how much more honesty you can handle as a team.
However. A team's straightforwardness is not invincible either. At the end of the day the team is made up of individuals, and their willingness and inclanation for honesty ultimately will draw the limits of the team's honesty. Team-members will have to intentionally put aside their self-esteem and pride so that the team can go the distance with honesty, can find real issues, real solutions and once again the team can improve.