There’s no doubt about it, a well written case study can bring the benefits of a service, product or idea to life. As a huge believer in the case study as a marketing strategy, I’m always on the lookout for a great case study, and I found one this morning in today’s NY Times that I’d like to share with you.
Jack Stack writes a blog called “Open the Books”, which is part of the small business blog “You’re The Boss“. According to his bio “Jack Stack is the founder and chief executive of SRC Holdings, a manufacturing company that pioneered open-book management and has spawned 58 companies since 1982.”
In my opinion, open-books management is a terrific way to increase profitability and grow a better business all around. But to many business owners, the idea of opening their books and letting employees see what’s really going on, is a bit scary and hard to swallow.
Jack presented a most compelling case study for open-books management today. He illustrates how his company selects what they call a “critical number” to improve upon each year. A critical number is an area that they’re doing poorly in compared to the competition. They then tie everyone’s performance in this area to their bonus, and give them a portion of that bonus on a quarterly basis as their demonstrating positive efforts towards it and getting results, so that employees can stay focused on these improvements and efforts throughout the year, and the company can reap the benefits consistently rather than depending upon end of year efforts to earn them.
If you’ve heard about the benefits of open-books management, but find the concept a little scary, worrisome or intimidating, I would suggest you read Jack’s case study and see if you agree that open-books management might be an effective strategy to help your company build their business.
Susan Martin, Business Coaching
