Open-book management turns workers into bosses – Starting Over in Lexington: The Picnic Lesson

When I arrived in Lexington, Ky., to give a speech to the workers at a factory that SRC Holdings had just acquired, I truly felt as if I had gone back in time. I was giving a speech just as I had some 30 years ago to convince a bunch of people that their jobs depended on opening their books and running the place as if they owned it.

But as I stood before all those people on the factory floor and started talking about the SRC open-book culture and what it means, I immediately saw a difference from what I had seen back in 1982. Where in Springfield there had been a kind of stubbornness, here in Lexington I saw acceptance — a willingness to give it a try. These people were used to working for a big, stable company that they were all loyal to. They had already been through the valley of death thinking their factory was going to be shut down. Now, we were here to give them another chance, and they were more than willing to roll the dice.

By JACK STACK

Full Story: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/starting-over-in-lexington-the-picnic-lesson/