For years, we have battled with explaining to others how the concept of open-book management and The Great Game of Business are not one in the same. To sum it up quickly, The Great Game of Business is an operating system in which open-book management plays a critical role. GGOB companies practice a methodology that includes open-book practices; the difference is that GGOB companies employ three specific practices:

If you’re an entrepreneur, business owner or manager, you know that “transparency” is one of the big buzzwords in business right now. Most businesspeople get a little squeamish at the mention of such a bold word. There are a few pretty terrifying myths about what might happen if you become transparent with company information. Here are a few of the best myths along with reasons why you should stop believing them:

At The Great Game of Business, Inc. people often ask us if it is possible for Open-Book Management to work in a government organization. While it might seem difficult to share financial or operational information in a government organization, it is possible and very practical. Recently, Greene County (located in Missouri, where SRC Holdings & The Great Game of Business, Inc reside), made the bold move to begin educating employees on the County financials to overcome some significant barriers.

Every business leader / owner I know has too much to do. That is particularly the case in the fourth quarter of each year. The challenges include, but are not limited to: The ongoing need for solid short-term improvements to finish the year strong. Get an inclusive business planning process in place for next year. Tax planning to minimize taxes for the current year. Take care of personal / family commitments that tend to expand during the holidays. The fundamental challenge is between the short term commitments and the long term priorities, or as Stephen Covey put it, sharpening the saw versus sawing. If you are sharpening the saw, you are not sawing, so the short-term production suffers. But if you don’t sharpen the saw, longer-term production suffers. Neither choice is very attractive.

During our annual Happy Hour Socials, we have a "What's the BIG idea?" contest. Here are the winning entries from the last three years: 2012 - DELIVERANCE FROM RECEIPTS - by Agape Construction This is a mini-game to reward employees for reducing the number of trips they were making to Home Depot/Lowe's. This saves time for both the employees in the field and for accounting processing all those receipts, thus saving them a significant amount of money.

Way back in 1970, Milton Friedman wrote that any business’s responsibility to society was simply to increase its profits and not break the rules. He’s absolutely right. That’s all business should do. What happens with those profits, when that money is put into the hands of those who have earned it, is where the notion of multiple bottom lines truly comes in. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks the way Mr. Friedman and I do.

Who wouldn’t want to make the journey to fantastic Springfield, Missouri? After all, it’s the birthplace of Cashew Chicken, Brad Pitt and Open-Book Management (hopefully you’re most concerned with the latter). So, if you’ve been putting off the trip, there has to be a good reason why. But, because we know there is no good reason to avoid doing something that could transform your company, we’ve tackled the top five below:

I think that it’s all too common these days to pick up a newspaper or a business magazine and read all about visionary and charismatic leaders in the mold of someone like Jack Welch. It’s like the individual guy or gal at the top gets all the credit for a company’s success. We’ve gotten into the habit of making CEOs into rock stars.

First off, let me thank all of you out there who attended the recent 20th anniversary of The Gathering of Games in St. Louis. It truly was our best celebration yet. Getting the chance to learn from our keynote speakers, Kim Jordan of New Belgium Brewing and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, as well as our breakout session leaders, panel members and newly crowned All-Stars, truly made for an inspiring couple of days.

One of my favorite traditions of our annual Gathering of Games celebration is that we recognize a handful of companies each year as Great Game “All-Stars” – an honor we commemorate by writing up a brief case study about the company. In the 20 years we have been doing this, we have covered an amazing variety of companies across just about every industry out there, from manufacturing to retail and food service to banking.