Is Open-Book Management Dangerous?
If you are a leader at your company, is it dangerous for you to share financial information, have employees know the business’s performance on a regular basis, and have them understand their role in its success or failure? You bet! With the books open, employees identify their company’s weaknesses and discover the business’s competitive challenges. They gain the knowledge to question decisions, the insight to challenge day-to-day operations, and the motivation to upset the status quo. If that wasn’t frightening enough, with an effective short-term reward, they know the bonus targets and hold themselves and leaders accountable for reaching them. Sharing performance information can put a leader on the hot seat. Moreover, and more troubling, more than just your rear end could get burned. Once you begin discussing financial results and performance statistics, your company’s sensitive information could fall into the hands of competitors. Given these headaches, why would anyone put himself i
