The Open-book Experience: Lessons From Over 100 Companies That Have Transformed Themselves - Hardcover

Case, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0201933497 ISBN 13: 9780201933499

Publisher: Basic Books, 1997

Synopsis

Over the last decade companies have struggled to balance the human dimension of business with the need to be aggressive, competitive, and profitable. Of all the management solutions considered, one philosophy, open-book management, has proven its power to transform organizations and enhance morale and productivity again and again.But what was it about a seemingly risky philosophy, in which all of a company's financial numbers are revealed to every employee, that compelled companies as dissimilar as multibillion-dollar RR Donnelley and modest-sized Crisp publications, to undertake such a drastic rethinking of company management? Was it the increased profits other companies, such as Amoco Canada, were experiencing due to their employees' new financial involvement in the company? Or was it he improved production that Bagel Works, Inc., and Dixie Ironworks, Inc., realized through employee joint accountability? Perhaps it was the enhanced employee morale that still other companies were achieving now that their employees were partners who designed their own bonus packages. Likely, it was all these reasons and dozens more that convinced hundreds of companies to adopt open-book management to help reduce costs, improve quality, and boost sales, all while creating an environment that reinvented and revitalized the role of the employee.In this practical and highly accessible book, John Case, the leading authority and foremost chronicler of open-book management, shows how to put the open-book philosophy to work. The Open-Book Experience explains how to identify critical numbers, how to bring the corporate financials down to earth, and how to set up a system that gets everyone in the business working to improve performance. It describes how companies both large and small have actually implemented open-book management—how they got started, how they overcame obstacles, and how they taught employees to understand the business. Using a step-by-step methodology gleaned from the experiences of more than 100 successful companies, and revealing tools and techniques such as electronic scoreboards and collaborative “games,” Case shows how open-book management can work for any company wanting to bridge the age-old gap between concern for people and the need for rigorous performance measurement and improvement.

About this title

Review

The Open-Book Experience is based on the premise that "a company performs best when its people see themselves as partners in the business." By describing precise ways that dozens of firms of all sizes and types have already developed just such a partnership by sharing with all employees the corporate financial information that once was reserved for the boardroom, John Case, a nationally recognized authority on this so-called open-book style of management, shows how the strategy can lead directly to improved morale, increased production, and boosted profits.

About the Author

Chuck Kremer, CPA, is Senior Business-Literacy Consultant for Boulder-based Educational Discoveries. An originator of The Financial Game for Decision Making™,” he teaches financial-literacy courses to managers and executives around the country.Ron Rizzuto, PH.D., is a professor of finance at the University of Denver, where he co-founded the entrepreneurship program at the Daniels College of Business.John Case is executive editor of the newsletter division at Harvard Business School Publishing. A former senior editor and senior writer for Inc. magazine, he is the author of numerous feature stories and several books on entrepreneurship and open-book management.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0201933497
• ISBN 13: 9780201933499
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 237