The more I think about it the more I believe creating an environment of open and transparent communication is the best things a company can do to create a great culture. It puts everybody on the same page, eliminates friction and gives each and every employee an ownership mentality. At Employee Navigator the two biggest changes I helped implement were:
- Comprehensive companywide monthly reports highlighting everything from revenue, churn and development stats.
- A requirement that all meetings with more than 3 employees are recorded, and those notes are subsequently posted on an internal dashboard for everyone in the company to see. This apply's to everyone, management, sales, support, engineering, etc.
Because we didn't implement these changes until recently there is the added barrier of educating employees on why these things are important and making the notes something that is second nature.
Ultimately I believe that internal friction results in product friction and creates a poor experience for customers. The only way to curb that (aside from having an awesome product) is to get everyone on the same page, working from the same information, which enables them to make consistent companywide decisions.