From this, you might now have a sense of where I'm going. I'm trying to discover fundamental changes that will not only make it much more pleasant for people to work within a business, but will also make the business itself far more effective and efficient. The kicker is that, by instituting these changes the desired results will happen by themselves (possibly with small occasional tweaks). The key is to do things that will unleash the natural desires and creativity of the participants in a business, as opposed to what we've been doing -- things that shut down creativity and make people resentful and unproductive.
One of these "big change candidates" is transparency. Note that "pay everyone the same amount" has built-in transparency regarding salaries. It also requires some transparency in the company because everyone needs to see aspects of the books. Why not take it all the way and make all the books open? If the CEO feels the need to buy a jet to fly around in, and then later lays people off, everyone can see how much both things cost. If you end up with furniture police "saving money" by increasing population density, the books are open for more creative analysis -- which might discover a corresponding trend upward in employee departures. Even better, open books might allow more effective and creative solutions that everyone might discover -- including the reallocation of "furniture police" salaries to more useful and productive purposes.
Full transparency is a foundational shift for a company. If everyone knows what's going on, then everyone can make better contributions to the company. There's no barrier between those who are "qualified to know" and those from whom things must be hidden. And this certainly supports a true "we're all in this together" environment.
I think transparency might also produce a very important fundamental shift in the way the company works. On the discussion group, the topic of psychopaths has been coming up a fair bit. The book Snakes in Suits cites research showing that a disproportionately high percentage of people in upper management are psychopaths, and I think that it's possible that an environment of secrecy is important for those psychopaths to get into positions of power, and to maintain and develop that power. If this hypothesis is true, then an environment of transparency is going to discourage psychopaths from joining your company, and make it much harder for them to gain power and behave badly if they do. It will probably frustrate them out the door.
Psychopaths aside, I think transparency tends to expose bad behavior at all levels, and also reveals good behavior. It can eliminate the need for whole "oversight" departments (accountants who check expenses, for example) and it changes the company's attitude from "big brother is watching you" to "you are accountable to your company-mates."
Once again, the world seems to be already moving in this direction. Here's a group that's dedicated to all aspects of openness (not just transparency). They recently had a meeting in Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor - Open Everything.
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