Next, bill’s accountant stood in front of the employees and ran down the pro昀椀t and loss for the last month. employees listened attentively. a hand was raised and a question was asked: “why did we make less pro昀椀t this quarter when we had more sales than last quarter?” The accountant said, “good question. we made several warehouse errors that cost us dearly. we ordered our rain ponchos too late this year and had to send many of them back. Plus, we did sell more, but we discounted our prices more than the previous quarter.” another employee spoke up, “so you’re saying we need to hold as 昀椀rm as possible with our pricing to make our pro昀椀t, right?” another employee answered for the accountant, “well we have to hold 昀椀rm on our pricing, but we have to realize that we all can play a role in this. we can be proactive and call up our key customers and 昀椀nd out what they’d like this year — this will eliminate them going to the competition and make them start shopping us. we could also make sure that we’re well trained on each of the products we represent so the customer never feels the need to leave without buying from us.” The accountant spoke up, “all of these ideas, in addition to the ones we mentioned last month, can help — we all play a role. Now, for the fun part. i’m going to hand out your pro昀椀t-sharing checks!” as the accountant did this, Joe pulled bill to the side, “This is amazing, you actually share your pro昀椀t numbers?” “sure do.” “aren’t you afraid the employees will know too much — they’ll think the company’s making too much money?” 14