Winning is not just a matter of pride, of course. It is also a habit. Unfortunately, losing can get to be a habit as well. When people are in the habit of losing, you won’t see fire in their eyes, only sand. If you want to light the fire, you have to begin by creating wins and celebrating wins— by making a big deal out of little victories and then building on the little victories to achieve bigger victories. It’s a way of putting fun in the workplace— literally. We throw parties and hold celebrations at the drop of a hat. What we’re really doing is creating a team.

We run SRC with a lot of participation, but it is not a democracy in the political sense of the word. A political democracy derives its authority from the consent of the governed. A company derives its authority from the consent of the marketplace. The people who work for a company may think it’s just terrific, but they’ll have to work somewhere else if the company doesn’t make money or runs out of cash. So the market tells us what a lot of our decisions have to be. The trick is to recognize what the market is saying and adapt accordingly.

Does it really work or is it just a bunch of hype? Boy, I wish we had a dollar for every time someone has asked us that question. I wish we had five dollars for every answer we've given. Let's see— that would be a debit to "cash" and a credit to "other income." Overhead, labor absorption, and materials would be unaffected, so we have raw profit going straight to the bottom line. Wonderful!!! Our stock value would be enhanced and our jobs secure. See, you're already playing The Game and you've hardly begun the book. Would it scare you if your employees thought like this? Would it scare you if you thought like this?