Running a business can be a lonely job. That’s why entrepreneurs are drawn to groups like the Young President’s Organization, Vistage, EO and the Birthing of Giants programs.

One of the questions I get asked the most by other business owners is, “How do you know how much your company is worth?” The simple truth is your company, not unlike your house, is worth only as much as someone else is willing to pay for it. But there are many benefits in getting an appraisal of your company’s value – and that’s something we have been doing at SRC since we got our start. We understood early on that we needed a way to cash out our shareholders without crashing the whole company in the process. That’s why we made annual appraisals a part of the shareholder’s agreement we signed 30 years ago (it’s also a requirement for an ESOP – which we started 28 years ago).

I took a client to open book management pioneer SRC Corporation last week. For them it was an eye opener. For me it was a reinforcement of what’s possible when a company shares vast amounts of the right information with its people. They make smarter decisions and take performance to unheard of heights.

Since I promised to deliver Part Two of our prior blog, here it is. As a recap, I blogged last time about how challenging it can be to focus on numbers that tend to change even after you’ve technically closed the books on an accounting period. It can be difficult and confusing to determine what number you’re starting your new period off with because your books close so many weeks after the period ends.

The race to end the accounting year is full of twists and turns. You really don’t know where you are going to end up until that final day where your year officially ends, after which you can begin the arduous process to close your books. But those twists and turns sure make life interesting to plan for.

Rethinking the Debate Over the 99-to-1 I hold a staff meeting every week here at SRC. We go over the financials of the company and anything else of material significance. This is a critical part of how we communicate to our associates. It keeps a constant flow of information coming and going. You always hear a lot of companies talking about their “communication problems.” Well, I think the problem is that we don’t give people enough information to communicate.

I consider myself a student of business. I love to learn and to push myself to understand every nuance that distinguishes success from failure. That's why I was so drawn to Bo Burlingham almost 30 years ago. Bo, who was then a young writer for Inc. magazine (www.inc.com), and I struck up what has become a 30-year friendship based on a simple idea: we wanted to dig as deeply as we could into every idea, decision or best practice involved in running a successful business. That's how Bo and I came to write two books together as well as, for a while at least, a column for Inc. I'll admit that it wasn't always easy. In fact, it was downright frustrating at times. Bo is relentless in asking questions and it can drive you crazy. But he was asking those questions because he, too, has this desire to learn and understand. And I deeply respect that.

Craig Durosko, Founder & Chairman of SunDesign, Inc., recently gave his perspective on Open-Book Management to "Housing Zone". Read the excerpt below and click the link to see the full story. If you arrived at work and found that there was a fire and everything was gone, there would be nothing you could change. If you were to know in 30 days there was going to be a fire at your office, there are so many things you could do to change the outcome.

Unusual in business and especially among call centers, Telisimo International Corporation practices Open-Book Management (OBM) to improve business communication, productivity and performance. It is an important practice that distinguishes us from a traditional call center or contact center and truly elevates us to a dynamic Customer Communication Center .

After reading this blog on the NY Times Website, GGOB practitioner James Mauch wrote the author with the following response; we thought our GGOB community would enjoy his thoughts as well: Your column today on loyalty in the workplace left me wanting. You positioned well an often discussed issue in business these day but offered very little by way of solutions. I have a suggestion.