Every business wants its managers to take ownership.
We talk about accountability, responsibility and empowering people to make decisions, but over the years I’ve realised there is one question we don’t ask often enough. How can someone truly take ownership of something they can’t actually see?
I saw this first-hand whilst working with an organisation that operated seven children’s nurseries. Each nursery manager was responsible for running their own site, looking after staff, children, parents and ensuring the nursery operated safely and successfully every day. Like any manager, they were also expected to control costs and work within budget.
The interesting thing was that the budgets already existed. Finance knew exactly how each nursery was performing and the information was all there within the accounting system. The problem wasn’t the availability of the data. The problem was that the people responsible for making day-to-day decisions couldn’t easily see it or understand how those decisions were affecting the financial performance of their own nursery.
More Than Just Monthly Reports
Like many organisations, the monthly reporting process was heavily driven by Finance. Reports were produced, meetings were held and managers were told how they had performed. There was nothing wrong with the process, but it meant Finance spent a significant amount of time preparing reports, explaining figures and answering questions that could only really be discussed once the month had ended.
It struck me that everyone was working hard, but the information wasn’t flowing to the people who could actually use it every day.
Rather than creating another report, we built a dashboard that presented each nursery manager with a clear view of their own financial performance against budget. They could see where money was being spent, understand the areas where costs were drifting and compare performance over time without waiting for someone else to explain it.
The information hadn’t changed.
The visibility had.
The Conversations Started Changing
One of the biggest changes wasn’t actually financial.
It was the quality of the conversations taking place.
Managers stopped arriving at review meetings waiting to be told how they had performed. They already knew. Instead of spending the first part of every meeting explaining the numbers, Finance could focus on discussing why something had happened and what could be done differently going forward.
Managers also started asking different questions. They became interested in why one nursery was spending more than another, why certain costs were increasing and what they could do to improve performance. The dashboard didn’t tell them what decisions to make, but it gave them the confidence to ask better questions and take greater ownership of the answers.
That, to me, was the real breakthrough.
When People Can See the Numbers
I’ve seen this happen in manufacturing businesses, engineering companies and service organisations as well.
People generally want to do a good job. They don’t need telling to care about the business. What they often need is better visibility of the decisions they’re making and the impact those decisions are having.
Once people can see that connection, something changes. Accountability becomes more natural because it no longer feels like Finance is measuring performance from the outside. People begin measuring themselves because they understand what good performance looks like.
The budget stops being a Finance document.
It becomes part of how the business is managed every day.
Better Information Creates Better Decisions
One of the biggest misconceptions about business intelligence is that it exists to create reports.
I don’t believe that’s true.
Reports are simply a way of presenting information. The real value comes from what people do with that information afterwards. Better visibility leads to better conversations. Better conversations lead to better understanding. Better understanding leads to better decisions.
That’s exactly what happened here.
Finance spent less time producing reports and explaining numbers. Managers became more engaged with the financial performance of their own nurseries. Decisions were made with greater confidence because everyone was working from the same information.
The technology didn’t change the business.
The people did.
The technology simply helped them see what had previously been hidden.
Seeing the Whole Picture
Over the last few weeks I’ve shared several stories about businesses that have improved performance by changing the way they use information.
In What If Everything You Believed About Your Most Profitable Business Was Wrong? I shared how one manufacturing business challenged long-held assumptions about profitability and improved gross margin by changing the conversations around project performance. In Why Good Decisions Can Still Create Bad Outcomes, we explored why sensible decisions don’t always deliver the results we expect when different parts of the business can’t see the wider impact.
This story reinforces exactly the same principle.
The industry is different.
The technology is different.
The challenge is exactly the same.
When people can clearly see the information they need to make decisions, behaviour changes. They become more engaged, take greater ownership and start asking better questions. In my experience, that’s where lasting business improvement really begins.
Can You See the Whole Picture?
Most organisations already have the information they need.
The challenge isn’t collecting more data. It’s making sure the right people can see the right information at the right time, so they can make better decisions with confidence.
If you’d like to understand how we help organisations improve visibility across Finance, Operations, Procurement, Supply Chain and Growth, explore See the Whole Picture.