Section Five
John Case has described numerous successful
implementations in his book, The Open-Book Experience:
Lessons from Over 100 Companies Who Successfully
Transformed Themselves.^56 Firms have obtained positive
impacts in achieving a number of specific firm goals such as
reduced error rates, increased average sales per customer,
improved quality, improved order accuracy, and reduced
expenses for shop supplies.^57 Although anecdotal reports do not
control for other factors that may have contributed to such
performance improvements, the large number of positive
reports argue for an optimistic view of the potential impact of
this practice.
Reduced Status Differentials or Symbolic Egalitarianism
There is little empirical evidence that reduced status
differentials have a positive performance effect. Nonetheless,
there are several examples of top-performing companies that
have devoted substantial effort to the elimination of status
differentials. Executives in these companies believe that such
differentials create dysfunctional divisions in the workforce and
detract from the company’s performance. Many high-
performing companies, such as Whole Foods Markets, Lincoln
Electric, Kingston Technology, Wal-Mart, and Southwest
Airlines, have gone to great lengths to minimize status
differentials in their organizations.^58