he day starts like any other. You check the weather report, you check your watch for your fitness stats, and you check your texts and emails. You check the numbers, note the trends and plan your day. You go to work and most likely hear your colleagues talking about their “numbers” and what they need to do. Most of us have trained ourselves to look at the numbers and adjust accordingly. Can the same apply to the veterinary team and business numbers?

Imagine if the veterinary healthcare team participated in looking at some business numbers. If you gave the team specific stats, would they be interested? If they saw a negative trend, would they talk about how to change the numbers? Probably. All it would take is explaining why and what to do. So how do you make this happen? Enter Open Book Management…

Open Book Management (OBM) involves sharing data (i.e., business performance and financial information) with the team and training the team to use the information in their daily work. It encourages team members to take responsibility for the business’s success and think as if they own the business and are investing their resources into it. It promotes the feeling of having a part in the business’s growth, success and reputation.

OBM is more than just numbers tossed out to the masses. It is about the numbers that are important to the operational success of the business of treating pets. It is about interpreting those numbers and developing plans for changing them. It is about the team seeing how their actions and decisions affect the business, patient care and their paycheck. Ultimately, it is about strengthening the circle of care and not permitting the circle to be broken.

The basis of using OBM is to give team members information that helps them do their tasks effectively and efficiently, focusing on things they are directly involved in. In the book The Great Game of Business, Jack Stack lists some basic rules for OBM: Teach team members the metrics, keep score to monitor improvements, and provide a stake in the outcome.

With all the talk about employee satisfaction and employee engagement, why not have a system that actively involves your team members in monitoring and changing metrics that they have direct contact with? Establish critical numbers and encourage creative thinking, teamwork, and a sense of partnership to engage your employees and promote the success of the business, world-class patient care and excellent client service.

• Brings every team member to the decision-making table
• Shows how everyday decisions impact patient care, client service and business performance
• Answers the age-old question of why we must cut costs or why we need to be more productive
• Opens the door to ideas, initiatives and insights from others
• Builds trust through the transparency of data sharing
• Improves team member engagement

Once the “why” is addressed, the next step is forming scorecards and assigning teams. Remember, this is about your strategic plan for the year, so focus on what is essential to your practice goals as you build the scorecards. Teach the team about OBM and how to use their assigned scorecard to improve patient care, client service and business performance.

Here are some steps to follow to set up a team to use OBM:

• Create a scorecard with Key Practice Indicators with that team.
• Assign roles of “information gatherers” to team members who will be responsible for gathering data (this may be asking the manager for specific numbers from Quickbooks or having access to a PIMS report).
• Gather information and present to the team at a monthly meeting.
• Discuss trends with the entire team and allow them to give ideas and feedback.
• For numbers that are doing well, use Appreciative Inquiry and see if techniques can be applied to other KPIs that are not doing as well.
• For numbers that are not doing well, discuss ways to make changes.
• Be sure to celebrate successes (catered lunches, bonus pay, etc.).

Here is an example of how the above steps could work:

A strategic goal is to improve the care of the older pet population. Metrics to put on the scorecard are the number of older pets, the percentage of those pets receiving eye exams, senior wellness tests and other vital services beneficial to an older pet. Put that team in charge of tracking the trends and talking to the rest of the team about what works well and what doesn’t when making a recommendation. Now for the spark of innovation—the “old pet” team will see areas of strengths and weaknesses in the program, think of solutions, and be responsible for discussing ideas with management and implementing change.

In addition to pet care, business performance can benefit from OBM. For example, everyone always hears that inventory is the second largest expense after wages. Since the team has its hands all over inventory, why not create a scorecard and assign some “eyes” to it? Income-to-expense ratios (especially lab, food, pharmacy and designer drugs) are valuable metrics for identifying possible problem areas.

OBM enables you to strive for a partnership with your team, which means that there is value in the efforts and ideas of each person. The team sees the scorecard and how their action contributes to the practice’s mission and the business’s success.

It is hard to keep your finger on the pulse of the business. We are inundated with information regarding client numbers, the number of visits, cat versus dog visits, repeat visits, new visits, etc. After hearing all these studies and reports, do you have the time to look at your numbers? Do you have time to track trends in the past quarter, the past year or the past three years? With OBM, you can have teams involved in the tracking. Set up a scorecard, be clear about the target to aim for and let the team start to monitor.

Using OBM, your team can see the changes—rather than just hearing you complain about client or pet numbers. Now you have something to talk about, to get ideas about and to try to change with the help of the entire team. Ideas tried can be monitored and results evaluated; keep with the idea or tweak it and see if it affects the numbers.

Remember, you can’t lead the band and play all the instruments. So while OBM is sometimes thought of as sharing financial information with the team, it is really about leadership, team development, communication, client service, performance improvement and profitability improvement. With Open Book Management, the attention to practice performance is made available to those team members who can make a difference and affect the numbers. Responsibility for the success of the practice is now a team effort.