Open-Book Management - by John Case (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"Read even the first chapter of this extraordinary book and you'll find yourself cheering, screaming, jumping up and down with excitement. The companies described in this book are decades ahead of the reengineers -- and you don't need to be a Bill Gates or a Jack Welch to put their ideas into practice today." -- George Gendron, editor in chief, Inc.

"Companies that practice open-book management seem to have captured some sort of lightning in a bottle." -- Chris Lee, Training

"This book should be required reading in corporate America." -- Chicago Tribune

"If you want to give your preconceived notions a good kick in the you-know-where, give Case the opportunity to articulate the merits of open-book management." -- Entrepreneur

Open-book management is not so much a technique as a way of thinking, a process that actively involves employees in the financial life of the company. Numerous companies have already found that employees who are informed and aware of the company's financial situation are motivated to seek solutions to problems and assume a greater degree of responsibility for its performance. John Case begins by examining the current competitive climate and the history of established management techniques. He shows how the traditional treatment of workers as "hired hands" with little involvement or responsibility beyond their own area is no longer effective in today's ever more competitive global environment.

Case clearly and carefully explains the principles of open-book management: timely sharing of crucial financial information with employees; educating the employees to understand and apply the information; empowering employees to apply the information to their own work; and offering employees a stake in the successful implementation of their ideas. Open-book management will take different forms at every company, Case notes, but he offers a wide range of suggestions and guidelines for implementing these principles. He concludes with a series of in-depth case studies, featuring companies of various sizes and financial situations that have successfully implemented open-book management. Open-Book Management is the indispensable guide to teaching employees how to think and act like owners.

From the Back Cover

Companies are in business to make money. The paycheck of every employee depends on a company's success. But typically, only a few top managers see, understand, and base their actions on the numbers - the financials - that show how the business is faring. Everyone else is just supposed to do as they're told. Does this make sense? Maybe it did once, argues John Case in this pivotal new book. But in today's competitive and fast-changing marketplace, successful businesses need employees who work smart as well as hard. They need employees who understand how the company makes money and how they themselves can contribute to the bottom line. The key: open-book management. Open-book management is the business revolution that's the logical culmination of TQM, reengineering, teams, and most other management innovations of the past two decades. As companies all over the country are discovering, it gets everyone on the payroll focused on business success. It provides the ingredient - one practitioner calls it the "want-to" - that's been missing from every other how-to approach. Step by step, John Case lays out the logic and the basic ideas of open-book management. He shows how it works in dozens of different companies, from big manufacturers, such as Chesapeake Packaging, to tiny service companies, such as Phelps County Bank. He describes the experience of open-book pioneers - including world-renowned Springfield ReManufacturing Corp., with its "Great Game of Business" - and recent converts, such as Sprint's Government Systems Division.

Review Quotes

"Companies that practice open-book management seem to have captured some sort of lightning in a bottle."--Chris Lee, "Training Magazine""Case can illuminate business strategies with a single piercing sentence.""--New York Times Book Review""What a sensible and timely idea--to treat people like adults and surround them with enough business information to do the right thing."--Rosabeth Moss Kanter, author of "When Giants Learn to Dance