Given the increasingly greater impact of globalization, the information revolution, and what Case calls entrepreneuralization , companies must find new and better ways to answer that question. For Case, each company needs a mission, a strategy. But more than anything else it needs eager, willing employees, people who have a reason to care about their employer s prosperity and who know how to help it succeed. If employees are treated as being essentially interchangeable, if they can say of most tasks That s not my job , and if they see no need for personal initiative, they have no reason to care about anyone else, or about anything which is not of direct and substantial benefit to them. Employees treated as hired hands tend think only in terms of money in hand.
Case suggests an alternative perspective.
Open-book management is based on this perspective, as indicated in the implementation process. Next, Employees assume that, whatever else they do, part of their job is to move those numbers in the right direction. Finally, Employees have a direct stake in the company s success. The same is true of continuous-learning goals. The open-book company has a scoreboard which everyone involved can see it.