What if you could do something that would help your business increase profitability, help you better market your services, increase clarity, and help employees see and care about how their effort directly relates to the big picture?

Wow, that’s a lot, and of course most leaders would be saying “Yes” to that list!

At our latest Small Giants Executive Breakfast, we had the opportunity to hear from Tony Schroeder, CEO of Choice One Engineering, who did just that through open book management and by making his employees owners in the company.

Although there were many other insights from the Q&A, here are three insights I took away.

1. Open book management can be transformative

Tony said that the adoption of open book management principles was a pivotal moment that helped take his business to the next level: “It was amazing the difference that open-book management made for us,” he said. Giving team members the knowledge about what financial statements mean helps to increase clarity and focus in the company, not to mention ownership, results, growth, and responsibility.

He said he recognizes how some business owners may be held back by fears they have about going open-book, but that for Choice One and for him, none of those fears were realized.

He said the key to being transparent about your numbers: ongoing education.
“The key is…education, education, education,” he said. That education is an investment, but it’s an investment that pays off.

“Our surveyors and our clerical people know more about financial statements than most [company] Presidents do. And it’s just educating around it—and [teaching] what’s important, what’s not important,” he said.

2. Keep seeking to find clarity in your business

A common theme throughout the Q&A session was the importance of clarity. Clarity is what, at the end of the day, helps to advance your company.

Put simply: Clarity is what helps your people focus on what matters most so they can do their best work.

“Have a vision? Provide clarity for it. Have a value? How can you get more clarity around it. Want a good culture? Define it [and align on it],” explained Tony. “The more clarity, the more chance you have for alignment.”

Tony explained that ambiguity is actually an opportunity—an opportunity to bring clarity to your vision, your values, your mission, and your culture. “Want certain behavior? Get clear on what that behavior is,” he said.

3. If you want people to think and act like owners, make them owners

One of the best pieces of advice Tony gave? Many of us talk about getting team members to think and make decisions as if they were business owners…Tony said it plain and simple: if you want your people to think and act like owners, make them owners!

“We had a philosophy as a company to think and act like owners…and we did that by making them owners,” he told us.

After making team members owners in the company, Tony said he saw so many benefits. The company brought in more business, they maximized profitability, and they enhanced the culture.

Check back in for part two in the series.