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Title: The Great Game of Business |
| Author: Jack Stack, Bo Burlingham | |
| Publisher: Currency/Doubleday | |
| Categories: management, open-book management | |
| Pages: 255 | |
| Overview: The concepts
and foundations upon how we run a business are changing ever day.
We are constantly tossing out the old in favor of the new. The Great
Game of Business introduces a new management methodology that replaces
the old technique of telling employees only what they need to know
with a new ideology called Open Book management. Jack Stack draws
from his experiences changing SRC (Springfield Remanufacturing Company)
from a failing venture to one that does over $83 million in sales
annually. The driving force behind this stunning change, Stack writes,
is the great game of business. He explains that by empowering all
the employees with relevant performance data (the score) and information
on how they can affect those statistics (how to play) a company
can grow into something unique and ultimately profitable; a company
full of employees who think and act like owners. This book is a
first-class read for its management style, and must-own for anyone
interested in open-book management. |
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| Key Points | |
For those unfamiliar, open-book management is a relatively new type of management that involves, above all else, teaching employees to understand and use the knowledge of how their decisions and actions affect a company’s performance. Contrary to standard management techniques the knowledge that is shared with employees is the up to date, relevant financial statements of the company. Jack Stack likens this process to any other game. For it to be successful, the employees must be educated on the rules of the game (general business concepts), how they can play (how their job affects the business), and how they can affect the score (how they can make changes). Stack also notes that there must also be some sort of reward (bonus program) for winning the game, otherwise the employees would not want to play. The reward for creating this game is a company with a unique atmosphere and structure; where the employees and management are excited about both the game and their work to the profit of all involved. Table of Contents |
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| 1. Why We Teach People How to Make Money 2. Myths of Management 3. The Feeling of a Winner 4. The Big Picture 5. Open Book Management 6. Setting Standards 7. Skip the Praise 8. Give Us the Raise 9. Coming up with the Game Plan 10. The Great Huddle 11. A Company of Owners 12. The Highest Level of Thinking 13. The Ultimate Higher Law: A Message to Middle Managers |
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Reviews |
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| "The results at SRC are nothing short of breathtaking.
The Great Game has resulted in one of the most competitive companies
I’ve come across in all my years at Inc. This is one game that
anyone can play, as you’ll discover when you read this elegantly
simple and profoundly radical book" – George Gendron, Editor-in-chief Inc. |
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| “At a time when doubt shrouds the U.S. economy,
Jack Stack’s book is a beacon of hope. It is a little bit about
technique and a lot about unleashing the good sense of the American
worker.” – Tom Peters |
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| Other Recommendation | |
| Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, et al | |
| Open-Book Management: The Coming Business Revolution by John Case | |
| Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1 2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation by Robert I. Sutton | |
| The Open-Book Experience: Lessons from over 100 Companies Who Successfully Transformed Themselves by John Case | |
| References | |
| - Amazon.com - Barnes and Noble |
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| - Stack. The Great Game of Business. | |
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