New Ideas Spring From Fresh Info

Every company wants its employees to be true visionaries, to see opportunity and the means to exploit it.

Q. The owner of the company where I work is always pushing us to come up with new ideas to improve the business. He doesn’t seem to realize how little we know about what’s going on. How should we respond?

A. To create outputs, visionaries need inputs. Workers cannot be effective in the intimate process of idea generation if they are “outsiders.”

To creatively contribute, you and your colleagues must have access to detailed information about the firm’s past development, current condition, and anticipated future. Such access does not occur naturally. Employees, like you, must be convinced that any efforts on their part to seek information beyond their normal purview, will be looked upon with favor.

Moreover, they can’t be expected to ferret out all of the relevant information about the company on their own. The company must provide it. Too often, firms dish out information only on a need-to-know basis, with some elusive number-cruncher in the controller’s department determining “who” should know and the dimensions of the “need” to know.

Since “knowledge is power,” the information generators and gate-keepers in companies are too often loathe to spread the “power” generously. Accordingly, business leaders must make a concentrated effort to overcome the natural reluctance to pass on information.

A good rule of thumb is that relevant information should be distributed routinely to those workers who need it, might need it, possibly could use it, or conceivably could be constructively stimulated by it.

In small companies, the problem is particularly difficult. Owners typically don’t want everyone in the shop to “know their business.” The big “secrets” about sales, customers, bottom line profits and the owner’s salary are often shared only by the owner and his trusty bookkeeper. I have never been able to understand why owners, who apparently are comfortable using bottom line pressures to exhort workers to greater performance, are uncomfortable with the prospect of letting their workers see just how big the challenge really is.

Whatever reasons there were for “access denial” in the past, companies of all sizes and ownership configurations must come to the realization that a completely informed cadre of leaders and followers is their best hope for attaining the kinds of creative, innovative performance they need to successfully compete. Consultants currently refer to this approach to employee enlightenment as “open book management,” an apt description of a technique whereby the rank-and-file get a chance to see, first-hand - and in an unexpurgated manner - the facts and numbers that reflect just how the company is performing.

In his tome, “Open Book Management: The Coming Business Revolution,” John Cane demonstrates that such involvement really works. “It helps companies compete in today’s mercurial marketplace by getting everybody on the payroll thinking and acting like a business person, an owner, rather than like a hired hand.”

I’m not suggesting that all PC’s be cranked-up to produce a daily data dump for every employee. It would be counterproductive to try to keep everyone informed about everything. However, workers should know enough about the key aspects of company performance to allow each of them to make informed judgments and to take enlightened actions that reach beyond the limitations implied in the typical job description.

The goal is to get people to act differently because they think differently. The “fuel” required to energize that kind of performance can come only from a well-balanced diet of information. Moreover, it must be information that the recipients understand. This often means that some workers, especially those participating in this process for the first time, will need some additional education.

An understanding of fundamental concepts, like how the “top line” becomes a “bottom line,” is essential. An investigation of “mysteries” like that will beg other questions, the answers to which will open employees’ eyes and minds.