A few weeks ago, I asked whether you would ever consider sharing your company’s numbers with your wider team.
The replies I received were fascinating.
I heard from business owners who clearly saw the value in sharing financial information — and from others who preferred to keep their numbers to themselves, or within a small group of senior staff.
There’s no right or wrong answer here. No single “correct” way of doing things.
That said, there was one concern raised by several people who were more cautious, and I think it’s worth addressing it properly.
A number of you said that the main reason you’re reluctant to share financial information with your team is confidentiality.
In other words, the fear that someone could leave, join a competitor, and use what they know against you.
That’s a legitimate concern — and not an easy one to dismiss.
Could a former team member use commercially sensitive information elsewhere?
Yes, of course.
But here’s the reality.
Almost everything in your business is commercially sensitive.
Your product roadmap.
Your pricing strategy.
Your marketing plans and sales pipeline.
You can’t keep all of that hidden from your team — or you simply wouldn’t have a functioning business.
A certain amount of disclosure is part and parcel of running a company.
And so is a certain amount of risk.
Some of that risk can be mitigated. For example, salespeople are often put on gardening leave when they resign, so leads aren’t taken straight to a competitor and the team has time to close opportunities properly.
But you can’t eliminate risk altogether.
What you can do is weigh the risk of sharing too much financial information against another type of risk — the risk of not sharing financial information at all.
The risk that capable people you’ve hired aren’t able to do their jobs as well as they could, because they lack financial context.
The risk that they become disengaged or frustrated — not because they don’t care, but because they don’t understand how their decisions affect the bigger picture.
And, ultimately, the risk that good people leave anyway, because they don’t feel trusted or properly involved.
There are also clear benefits — many of which I’ve explored in the last few emails.
For example, helping people understand the financial implications of their decisions.
Giving them a stronger sense of ownership.
And getting better feedback from those closest to the work about why certain trends are showing up in the numbers.
Deciding whether to share financial information with your team — and how much — is always a balancing act.
For most businesses, it’s not about sharing everything. It’s about sharing the right information, with the right people, in a considered and deliberate way.
Every business will land in a slightly different place.
But I hope this short series has given you something to think about.
And if you decide that you’d like to experiment with sharing more financial information with your team, we can help.
We’ll work with you to decide what information is appropriate to share, and with whom — so that anything you do share is thoughtful, controlled, and genuinely useful.
We can then set up clear, real-time dashboards that give your team financial information they can actually use…
And you make sure you, too, have better financial visibility and fewer blind spots as you lead the business.
If you’d like to explore that, simply email garry@insightassociates.co.uk or call our office on 01279 647 447 to arrange a no-obligation conversation with me or one of our specialists.
Warmly,
Garry
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