1.5 - About University

✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✘✘T HE DOS AND DONTS OF OPEN- BOOK LEADERSHIPDo define and relentlessly communicate the big picture—what results you expect, yourstrategy and priorities, interdependencies among groups, rewards for achieving results,and so on. [☛ 8.3 Organizational Communication]Do educate and train your employees in appropriate business skills—the nature of thebusiness, the external pressures, the basics of making money, customer needs and service,understanding and using financial data, production measures, and what all thosenumbers mean for the organization and for themselves. [☛ 14.3 Needs Analysis]Do redesign your information and accounting systems so employees can understandand use the data these systems generate to make informed decisions. Too often, thesesystems are designed exclusively for senior management and for external reporting.[☛ 2.1 Systems Thinking]Do give up control over the numbers. Information is a form of power. Open-book leadershipmust be combined with a participative leadership style and with teamwork.Do ensure that other organizational systems are aligned to support open-book leadership.[☛ 5.6 Aligning Systems]Do combine open-book leadership with rewards that are linked to performance. Use amix of individual, team, and organizational rewards, while ensuring that the overallsuccess of the organization is not compromised.Do discuss regularly the meaning and trending of the numbers, then set new targets asconditions change.Do make open-book leadership fun. Make the numbers come alive with stories andexamples.Don’t use information to manipulate others. Rather, use it to create understanding andto reward success.Don’t go halfway. Don’t provide only half the numbers needed, or fail to fairly rewardperformance.H OW TO USE THIS LEADERSHIP TOOL“Let your people know whatever you know about the company, the division, the department, theparticular task at hand. … Don’t use information to intimidate, control, or manipulate people. …When you share the numbers and bring them alive, you turn them into tools people can use to helpthemselves as they go about business every day.”—Jack Stack, THE GREAT GAME OF BUSINESSSharing the numbers is only one small part of leadership. Use this checklist to assess your readinessto be an open-book leader. Plan actions to improve your leadership practices in those areaswhere you consider yourself to be underperforming as a leader. Your action plans might alsoinclude ways of building on present strengths as a leader.SECTION 4 TOOLS FOR DESIGNING PRODUCTIVE PROCESSES AND ORGANIZATIONS 123