When asked to list the most important factors for considering a job number one and two was having the right tools and the information to do the job well. Income was down the list a bit. The best selling book – First Break All the Rules – does a great job highlighting this reality.

Knowing your key strategic indicators – the things that you need to measure to determine you are on the right track to meeting your business objectives – and then routinely sharing and updating this information with your team is a terribly empowering practice. If you want buy in from your staff, make sure they know what the game is and how they can win it.

From a marketing standpoint, make sure they know where revenue comes from, profit comes from, leads come from. Make sure they can spot your ideal customer, recite your core marketing messages and play a part in crafting your advertising and pr initiatives. You don’t have to pull every employee in on every decision, but you will find tremendous benefits from holding monthly or quarterly “key indicators” training with your entire team.

A game gets really boring is you don’t know how to win!

If you really want to take this whole information sharing thought to the next level check out the Great Game of Business and the Gathering of Games. This is Jack Stack’s Open Book Management Conference. Here’s a short interview I did with Jack at the Inc 500 Awards.