Blair gets David to admit that he was kind of wrong about open book management being just a fad when he originally wrote about it almost two decades ago, and David offers ways that it can actually benefit both employees and clients when used appropriately.   Links Financial Management of a Marketing Firm by David C. Baker   TRANSCRIPT BLAIR ENNS: David, today we're going to talk about open book management. How does that sound to you? DAVID C. BAKER: Sounds like you think you're in charge. Why don't you say, "Can we talk about that?" BLAIR: Well, let me assert control. David, would it be okay with you if we talked about open book management? DAVID: Great idea. I like that idea. Let's do that. BLAIR: Okay, fantastic. I just happen to have an article here that you wrote. I've actually just pulled it out of your book, Financial Management of a Marketing Firm. We don't talk about that. We should do some podcasts on that book, because that's a book that every principal of a creative firm should have on their desk or their bookshelf. And the reason I had it out is, I was just on a call with the owner of a small creative firm who wants to raise his level of business acumen, and we don't have the training program that he's looking for. Ours is too specific to business development. So I said, "You need to buy this book." And then, as I was leafing through the book, I saw you had the stuff on open book management. We'd already agreed that we were going to talk about open book management. But I want to read something from this that's in the book. BLAIR: It says, "OBM, open book management, is clearly a fad. That doesn't make it wrong, just suspect!" Exclamation mark. "Open space layouts are also a fad, and time will tell how they catch on. Though there's already strong anecdotal evidence, if that's possible, that people jumped on the bandwagon and only later asked where it was headed." DAVID: So you want me to pull stuff out of here to embarrass you, as well? Or not? BLAIR: "In my opinion, open book management is a fad that will not catch on with the masses." When did you write this? DAVID: Last month. No, the first time I took a stab at writing about open book management was in 2000, so you gotta give me a little bit of slack. I was kind of wrong about that. I'm still going to be right about open plan offices, but it's going to take another decade for the world to figure out that I'm right about that. BLAIR: Really? DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: Yeah, you think we're going to go back or away from open plan offices? DAVID: You know, one of the key components was that the principal or leader or whatever should be out with all the rest of the folks, and that blew up in everybody's faces, so we've already walked away from one of the key tenets of it, and we've also walked away from other things like, now we have places for people to go off and work if they want to, and we're not making everybody sit in what looks like a call center and be all disturbed by everybody's nonsense. So, yeah, I do think it's going to be another ten years, but we'll figure that out, too. BLAIR: Okay. DAVID: But I was wrong on this one, for sure. BLAIR: Well, let's just pick up from there. What did you think was going to happen, and what's the state of the nation right now when it comes to open book management? DAVID: Well, people are more open to it for sure, and one of the things that occurred to me as I was looking back over my first foray into this is that I wrote it at a particular time in history, so this is right during a difficult economic environment, and that's typically when principals move towards more open book environment. BLAIR: Yeah, "look, I'm not making any money." DAVID: Yeah, right, so quit your whining. It's like, I'm not making any money, why do you keep asking me for more money? That's very common, like people go to open book management when things aren't going all that well, and then they're not quite as enthused about it when things are going great. B