Quick Lowdown on Open Book Business Management:
You have probably heard about open book business management and how it provides employees an ownership mindset, but what exactly does it involve and how can your company benefit from the business communication transparency it provides?
For any of the CEO's or senior leadership team members out there looking to instill a hard-working, productive, and company conscious mindset in your employees, then open book management could be your answer. Our CEO, Shawn Burcham, sat down and tackled that answer for you and shared how it has helped PFSbrands rapidly grow to new heights! First up in this series is what he thinks lies at the heart of great open book management: education! [You can find his full article over at ShawnBurcham.com]
Education is at the Heart of Open Book Business Management
To be successful with an open book management approach, you must be committed to TEACHING and EDUCATING everyone. Here’s what I know today after conducting financial literacy sessions with every person we have hired in the last five years and everyone that is employed at PFS.
A very small percentage of people truly understand what it takes to make a business work. Everyone has a false impression of how much money business owners actually make. Even fewer people can explain the difference between profit and cash.
Most of the people I have hired in Accounting can explain the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements. And NOBODY correctly answers the question about what percentage successful entrepreneurs pay for income taxes.
To be successful with open book management you MUST be committed to helping your entire company understand, as Jack Stack explains in The Great Game of Business, “the rules of the game”. They have to understand how a business operates. Otherwise, it’s like putting a bunch of fifth graders out on a football field and not explaining the rules and object of the game.
Wrap-Up
There you have it, a quick lowdown on how what you need for successful open book management. This is just the tip of the iceberg. We will be following this up with much more open book management information to really help your business grow, just like ours did!
