An Introduction to Open Book Management

by Sean Foster | July 12, 2023 | Coaching, Continuous Performance Management, Culture, Open Book Management, Personal Performance

Cultivating Transparency and a Performance Orientated Culture in Your Business

Open Book Management (OBM) is a management approach that emphasizes transparency within a business. This transparency generally involves most aspects of the business including information related to the business strategy, planning, and the financials.

By opening the books and involving employees in the decision-making process, OBM fosters a culture of trust, engagement and accountability. In this article, we will explore why open-book management is vital to businesses, what it entails, and outline steps to develop an effective open-book company. We will also discuss when you should not be considering this management approach.

Why Open Book Management is Important to Businesses?

OBM offers several advantages for businesses:

1. Engaged and Empowered Employees

Research has shown that when employees have access to relevant financial information and understand how their efforts directly contribute to the company's success, they feel both more valued and motivated. (Birkinshaw, 2019)

This fosters a sense of ownership and with ownership comes a sense of empowerment. After all, do you have employees just to complete activities in your business or would you prefer that your workforce are able to make better decisions aligned with the organization's goals? I hope it’s the latter. Especially as your business grows, you need to increasingly rely on others to do both the thinking and the doing.

Related Article: Employee Recognition & Engagement

2. Alignment with Organizational Objectives

By sharing strategic plans and financial goals, employees gain a deeper understanding of the company's vision and direction. This alignment allows them to make informed decisions that support the overall objectives, driving growth and profitability. (Vancil, 2020)

3. Improved Problem-Solving and Innovation

When employees have access to relevant data and are encouraged to think critically, they become more effective problem-solvers. OBM promotes a culture of innovation, where diverse perspectives contribute to finding creative solutions. (Martin, 2017)

I may need to put some of these aspects into perspective. OBM does not assist with problem-solving and innovation by itself, rather it creates the environment where this can flourish. You still need to teach and demonstrate how to go about problem-solving in order to reap the benefits of this new environment.

Related Article: Powerful Model for Strategic Thinking & Planning

4. Enhanced Financial Literacy

Open book management exposes employees to financial information. In itself, this only offers value after you have provided the necessary financial literacy training and upskilling. This knowledge allows employees to make informed decisions, understand the impact of their actions, and contribute to financial success. (Lin, 2019)

I could include this additional point as a separate item, but that may undermine why you as a business owner would really like to practice OBM in your business. That reason is to improve the overall performance of your business, and this will be different for every business.

What is in it for your business: To improve revenue as you scale the business, or to improve profitability; or to get the business working well without your direct involvement?

What exactly is Open Book Management?

Open Book Management involves four key components:

1. Financial Transparency

OBM involves both educating and sharing relevant financial information. This could include statements, budgets, what-if scenario planning and performance metrics. This transparency enables employees to understand the financial health of the organization and how their contributions directly impact the performance of the business.

As OBM is a company-wide approach, it’s unlikely that your standard accounting programme will suffice for reporting. Instead what is required is a management-based approach, rather than a compliance-based approach.

In many companies, there is usually someone who has a flair for developing these management accounts in Excel or Google Sheets. There is however an alternative in that these management accounts have been built out in Sukuma, including many of the ratios and what-if scenarios that are absent in traditional accounting software.

Related Article: Leveraging What-If Scenarios via MRR's

2. Education and Training

To ensure employees can interpret financial information accurately, companies invest in training programs to enhance financial literacy. This equips employees with the skills needed to make informed decisions and contribute meaningfully to the company's goals.

And if you are a business owner and feel that your financial knowledge is lacking, you may be surprised to learn that this is extremely common. A lack of financial knowledge, including how to interpret your management data has an effect whereby many business owners either tend to avoid the numbers or to misinterpret their meaning.

3. Employee Involvement

OBM emphasizes involving employees in the decision-making process. Regular meetings, such as weekly huddles or quarterly reviews, provide opportunities for open discussions and the exchange of ideas.

Employees' insights and perspectives are listened to and acknowledged, leading to a more engaged and committed workforce. For any individual, it is important that they fully understand the ‘Why”. i.e. ‘Why’ what they are doing matters. These meetings, including 1-1 meetings, should be continually explored to build commitment and understanding around this ‘Why.’

Related Article: 360 Surveys: What are They and Why Your Business Needs Them

4. Incentive Programs

OBM often includes profit-sharing or other team-focused reward schemes. These initiatives incentivize employees to work collectively towards achieving company targets, both financial and other strategic goals.

The schemes reinforce the idea that everyone is responsible and shares in the success of the business.

Examples of Open Book Management:

Many companies are running with an open-book management approach: however, measuring this number is impossible as there is no standard approach to exactly what OBM is. For some companies, financial results will be shared with senior management, or at a quarterly meeting they will run through the high-level results with everyone. These companies may consider themselves to be following an OBM. I would disagree.

For a company to be considered as following an OBM approach there are two essential elements.

1. Educational Program

The first is that there has to be an educational program in place for all employees to better understand both the business strategy and the financial drivers.

2. Evidence

Secondly, there has to be evidence that all staff understand the direct correlation between what they do and how their actions impact the overall business performance. This is for all levels of employees, and to some extent to some subcontractors as well. Finally, there have to be active feedback mechanisms, or measures, to ensure that knowledgeable people know exactly how well they are impacting these results.

An excellent example of OBM, which also makes for a great read is “The Great Game of Business” by Jack Stack.

Steps to Develop an Effective Open Book Company

To cultivate a successful open-book management culture, consider the following steps:

[A] Leadership Commitment

Ensure leaders are fully committed to transparency and are willing to share information openly. Lead by example and communicate the benefits of OBM to gain employee (and management) buy-in.

[B] Financial Literacy Training

Provide comprehensive training programs to improve employees' financial literacy skills, enabling them to understand and interpret financial information accurately.

[C] Keep the business strategy alive and relevant

A business strategy is nothing more than determining how a company is to differentiate itself and in this process also add value to the business and their customers. The strategy must be kept alive. Ensure the strategy is easily accessible to everyone and forms part of the regular dialogue in meetings, development reviews, recruiting etc.

[D] Regular Communication

Establish frequent communication channels to share financial updates, strategic plans, and performance metrics. Encourage open dialogue and address any concerns or questions raised.

[E] Incentive Programmes

Implement profit-sharing or similar programs to align employees' interests with the company's goals. Design reward systems that acknowledge contributions at all levels of the organization. The dominance of your reward programmes should be focused on team rather than individual performance recognition.

[F] Continuous Improvement

Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your OBM practices. Seek feedback from employees and make necessary adjustments to ensure ongoing engagement and transparency.

[G] Celebrate Successes

Recognize and celebrate milestones and achievements, emphasizing the collective efforts of employees in driving the company's success. This reinforces the sense of ownership and encourages further engagement.

[H] Learn from Failure

Failures could be one-offs or longer term such as a downturn in the economy. The emphasis needs to be on reflection and building insights (see point F above). If you are running on a profit-share programme consider lowering the threshold if this still makes financial sense, however in most situations the sound advice is to ride out these lower-performing periods by continuing to focus on what we could do to regain the required performance.

Conclusion:

Open Book Management is a management approach that promotes transparency, engagement, and accountability within a business at all levels of employees, and in certain situations with subcontractors as well. Research has shown that when employees have access to financial information and understand how their efforts contribute to the company's success, they feel valued and motivated (Birkinshaw, 2019). Implementing OBM requires leadership commitment, financial literacy training, regular communication, and the establishment of incentive programmes.

By following the outlined steps, businesses can cultivate a culture of transparency and collaboration, leading to increased employee satisfaction, improved financial performance, and a stronger competitive edge in the market.

References:

Case, J. (1997). Open the books. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1997/03/opening-the-books

Fotsch, B & Case, J (2017). The Business Case For Open-Book Management

The Business Case For Open-Book Management (forbes.com)

Lin, Z. (2019). The relationship between open-book management, employee satisfaction, and productivity: Evidence from Taiwan. Open Journal of Business and Management, 7(1), 129-139.

Martin, J. (2017). Open book management: Lessons from the real world. Business Horizons, 60(1), 81-89.

Vancil, R. (2020). The impact of open-book management on the performance of small businesses. Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, 21(2), 1-17.