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Top 6 Great Game No-Nos

Top Six Great Game No-Nos: What NOT to do if you (really) want to play The Game During the time that we’ve been helping others implement The Great Game of Business, we’ve seen the ups and downs and are often surprised by the number of people who are “fair-weather Great Gamers”, meaning they have passion and intent to play The Great Game of Business®, but are missing the mark in one or more areas. Here are the top six (because five just wasn’t enough) Great Game No-nos:
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Are You Really Opening the Books?

Sep 1, 2021 by Rich Armstrong 0 Comments
Inspired by Rich Armstrong & Steve Baker's new book, Get in the Game: How to Create Rapid Financial Results and Lasting Cultural Change. For nearly forty years, Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation (SRC) and subsidiary The Great Game of Business, Inc. have been known as the “open-book people.” The term open-book management (OBM) was coined by John Case in reference to SRC's "maverick" management practice in an Inc. Magazine article back in the 1980s, and the name stuck. With SRC and Great Game’s approach to OBM, Jack Stack, our CEO and founder, was even dubbed the “Father of Open-Book Management” by Inc. But if you ask Jack what he thinks of OBM, he’ll tell you that opening the books is only part of the story... financial transparency is worthless without education, accountability, and reward. The only way to see your people AND your organization grow and transform is by teaching employees how business works.
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A 10-Year Vision

Jun 29, 2021 by Great Game Team 0 Comments
Every company should have a vision for itself. Jack Stack, CEO of SRC Holdings and the founder of The Great Game of Business, says, "Having a 10-year plan can help overcome unexpected surprises." Recently, Rich Armstrong, President of The Great Game of Business, and Steve Baker, Vice President, "sat down" (via zoom) with Jack to learn about the 10-year vision for SRC Holdings in a post-covid world.
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Reaching the Front-Line: Turning a Part-Time Job into a Career

Jun 17, 2021 by Cassie Potts 0 Comments
Vontae Douglas' journey at Tasty Catering began with working part-time at small summer events. A combination of business education, financial literacy training, and coworkers close enough to be considered family has transformed Vontae's summer job into a career in a field that he never expected. Financial literacy training and working with the numbers behind the business was new for Vontae, but this business training and education opened doors to a completely new work experience. He and his team have been taught to understand what the financial numbers mean, how to read them, and how to individually respond to impact future results and the success of the company.
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Is The Potential Tax Hike Keeping You Up At Night?

Jun 15, 2021 by Darren Dahl 0 Comments
Ben Franklin famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But that’s only because ESOPs weren’t invented yet. With all the news about President Biden’s proposed tax changes grabbing headlines these days, I was reminded about a story I wrote a few years ago that was published at Forbes.com.
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What Are We Teaching Entrepreneurs These Days?

Unfortunately, it’s not just decades-old companies that hoard information or run out of cash. It happens to companies of all shapes and sizes every day. And sometimes they’re even being told it’s good for their business. If that sounds crazy to you, you’re right. It’s crazy. And what about schools and innovation centers that teach a generation of young entrepreneurs what they need to do to succeed but don’t include classes on managing cash?
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Hey Jeff Bezos: Here’s One Way Amazon Can Become The Best Employer On The Planet

Apr 27, 2021 by Darren Dahl 1 Comment
Demystify business by empowering your people to set their own goals and share in the rewards. Then watch what happens Seems that a day doesn’t go by without the online retail giant Amazon making some news. Whether it’s the surging demand for its products during the pandemic or the fabulous wealth of its founder, Jeff Bezos, the company is a magnet for attention. More recently, the world turned its focus on Amazon to see if the employees working inside one of its facilities in the state of Alabama would vote to unionize. Despite ongoing horror stories of the dog-eat-dog culture inside Amazon—a story with roots dating back to a story that grabbed headlines back in 2015—the vote failed.
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Purpose-Driven Leadership 

Mar 9, 2021 by Darren Dahl 1 Comment
Why more and more business leaders are opening themselves up to pursue a higher purpose The impact that Bo Burlingham has made on the business world is difficult to quantify. In his time as a journalist writing for magazines like Inc. and Forbes, Bo continually put his finger on pivotal changes taking place in the entrepreneurial marketplace of ideas. But Bo may have made an even bigger impact through the books he wrote based on people he was meeting as he uncovered these groundbreaking ideas.
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How One Entrepreneur Learned How To Create More Good Jobs

Feb 16, 2021 by Darren Dahl 0 Comments
When Martin Babinec founded the San Francisco-based company TriNet, a professional employer organization, back in 1988, he thought he was starting a small business that could help other small businesses thrive. Little did he know he was about to embark on a decades-long journey that would lead him to start a movement to bring good jobs back to his hometown—a journey that he credits Jack Stack and the Great Game of Business for helping fuel along the way.
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6 Core Beliefs Business Leaders Should Live By

Jan 26, 2021 by Michele Bridges 4 Comments
I was listening to the January 3, 2021 sermon from Good Shepard NY. We were given the homework of intentionally remembering what brought you light in dark times of 2020. One of my points of light was my work with The Great Game of Business (GGOB). There is no better work than to have the opportunity to build businesses from the Frontline to the back office, enabling all in an organization to learn, develop and grow.
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About The Great Game of Business

Our approach to running a company was developed to help close one of the biggest gaps in business: the gap between managers and employees. We call our open-book approach The Great Game of Business. What lies at the heart of The Game is a very simple proposition: The best, most efficient, most profitable way to operate a business is to give everybody in the company a voice in saying how the company is run and a stake in the outcome. Let us teach you how to develop a culture of ownership, where employees think, act and feel like owners.