A euphemism for exhibiting (ahem) radical transparency, this is a phrase that many love to hate (our readers voted it their most loathed a few years ago). It may have come into wide use at Microsoft in the ’80s and ’90s but didn’t originate there. As the New York Times reports:
Probably stemming from the rash of Japanese acquisitions of American enterprises in the ’80s, that has been adopted into the Microspeak marketing lexicon. Basically, a somewhat sexist synonym for ”open the books,” it means to reveal the inner workings of a project or company to a prospective new partner.
If only it were a relic of the past–Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase used in it 2012 when he said his company was “open kimono” with regulators. And most regrettably, Marie Claire used the phrase in 2014 when writing about demographic numbers at Netflix.
Manages to be succinctly orientalist and misogynistic. Ref: https://www.fastcompany.com/90239290/six-business-phrases-that-have-racist-origins