Great Game of Business

Rating:
Summary: You Can't Manage What You Don't Measure
Review: All games have rules. When the score is kept, there are winners and losers. Business is no different. The concept of open-book management has been around since some company owner in the distant past gathered employees and attempted to explain to them why it is so important to produce quality work, on time and without waste. No doubt at least one of those employees wondered "What's in it for me?" Good question.

With contributions by Bo Burlingham, Stack wrote this book (first published in 1992) partly in response to that question. He introduces "The Higher Laws of Business":

1. You get what you give.

2. Its easy to stop one guy, but it's pretty hard to stop 100.

3. What goes around comes around.

4. You do what you gotta do.

5. You gotta wanna.

6. You can sometimes fool the fans, but you can never fool the players.

7. When you raise the bottom, the top rises.

8. When people set their own targets, they usually hit them.

9. If nobody pays attention, people stop caring.

10. As they say in Missouri: Shit rolls downhill. By which we mean change begins at the top.

To these Stack adds "The Ultimate Higher Law": When you appeal to the highest level of thinking, you get the highest level of performance. These are the eleven laws on which Stack's system of open-book management is based. He explains each in thorough detail. Let's say that you agree that these laws make sense, that they are relevant to your own organization. Now what?

Pretend that you have entered "Stack's Open-Book Management Store." He greets you at the door. For the next several hours, he guides you through an abundance of strategies, tactics, measurement instruments, communication devices, policies, procedures, etc. He answers all of your questions. He offers a number of caveats. He shares his own successes and failures. He directs you to the latest "newer and better" but also to "what still works really well." At the end of your visit, you are fully prepared to pick and choose from among all the options. Then he assists you with formulation of a plan to design and then implement your own open-book management program, one which is specifically appropriate to the needs of your own organization. In effect, this what happens as you read the book. I recommend it highly. Even if an open-book management program is not what your organization currently needs, the issues Stack addresses and the questions he raises are still worthy of your thoughtful consideration.

Rating:
Summary: The best business book I have ever read
Review: Great Game of Business zeros in on productivity in the USA.Employees are dynamic, creative and in the thick of the action...Great Game shows how to capitalize on that, how to get everyone focused on the same target, and above all... how to communicate within the company. Few businesses know where to start. Great Game says start with the most fundamental tool of a business, the financial statements. As a CPA, I love what Jack Stack has to say in this book.

Rating:
Summary: The Old Testament of Open Books management....
Review: which is still "management."

This book ignited the "Responsible Revolution" in American business.

Historically, American management worked along the lines of the organization that won World War II. This is called "Theory X," and assumes people are not to be trusted.

The Boomer Generation came along, and can be led; it can not be bullied, and ordered about like a PFC before Patton, and does not like being "mananged," at all.

"Open Books" to the rescue.

With "Open Books," everyone can finally understand what The Great Game of Business really is at a level they can understand

The greatest single problem - and there are many, as the sequel, "A Stake In The Outcome" documents - is that most middle management is largely superfluous in an "Open Books" environment, particularly as the people grow in knowledge about the Great Game.

If you decide to implement Great Game ideas, know that (1) they have a website, and (2) it REALLY helps if you have a working knowledge of Economic Value Added accounting.

With the clear understanding EVA allows, and the empowerment an "Open Books" environment provides, a lot of the swamp is drained, and a path to Victory can be clearly defined, and accepted, by all parties.