Those of you who have already identified your Critical Number™ (company-wide goal) and the drivers that go along with that goal, will find that MiniGames™ are a great way to bring a laser focus to create small, everyday wins that put you that much closer to the big win. If you, are new to Great Game you might start learning more about how to identify your Critical Number. 

      A company is only as good as its people. Everyone knows that. So why is that in so many companies the vast majority of the information-hoarding and decision-making happens only at the top? Why have we been holding onto a managerial system invented decades ago to fit an industrial society that tells us that only the CEO and the rest of the C-Suite are smart and capable enough to drive the company forward?

  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.   

How Healthy Competition Drives Continuous Creativity And Productivity At SRC By Jack Stack   I’m a big believer in the positive power of competition. I believe it’s a universal truth that all people like to win—and hate to lose. But as I’ve written about before, losing is also an opportunity to learn and to improve. So, why wouldn’t we try to build in some of that healthy competition into the workplace? To take some of the drudgery out of our day-to-day routines and spice things up with some competition? At a fundamental level, that’s what The Great Game of Business® is all about.

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.

    As a grandfather to eleven beautiful grandchildren, I spend a lot of weekends out on the soccer and baseball fields watching these kids tear around. I think that’s why a scene from the movie Parental Guidance, starring Billy Crystal and Bette Midler, continues to stick with me. Billy, who plays a professional baseball announcer, is sitting in the stands, watching his grandson pitch for his Little League baseball team. The grandson rears back and throws a pitch, and the hitter swings and misses. Billy is ecstatic as he calls out, “Strike one!” Then, as the hitter swings through the second pitch, Billy yells out, “Strike two!” Now he’s really excited as the third pitch comes in, and, as the batter misses yet again, Billy stands up and calls, “Strike three! Yer outta there!” But nobody else seems to notice as the pitcher, catcher, and umpire all get back into position. That’s when Billy calls out to the umpire, “Hey, Blue, three strikes! He’s out!”

  Right from their rocky start in 1983 (who else starts a business with an 89-to-1 debt-to-equity ratio in the middle of a recession?), Jack Stack and the team at SRC started planning ahead. Not just for the next day, week, or month. Or even for the next year. For their entire history as a business—which has grown from a single factory into a collection of ten businesses and 1,800 associates—SRC has been planning ahead for a decade at a time.

    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.

  How One Business Owner Empowers Her Team To Think And Act Like Owners In 2006, Aimee Woodall set off from Georgia on a 2,190-mile adventure to hike the Appalachian Trail. Alone. Woodall was inspired to tackle the five-month trek a year earlier when she inadvertently struck up a conversation with a couple of hikers in the town of Hot Springs, NC. While Woodall, a native of Houston, Texas, wasn’t much of a hiker at the time, she wasn’t going to let that fact get in the way of beginning an epic adventure. “It’s my personality to dive into things in an extreme way,” says Woodall. “And I like the challenge of jumping into something cold turkey. I don’t let fear get in my way.”

Originally published in AEPNow on Monday, January 4, 2021 A Shreveport line mechanic installs new equipment on a pole near Line Avenue.   Shreveport construction crews are completing capital projects at a faster pace than ever before thanks to a strategy that helps them understand the financial impact of their work. This year, the Shreveport District initiated a weekly schedule of pole replacements and other projects to build long-term assets.

      We live in a strange time. It’s not always clear what’s true or what’s a figment of someone’s imagination—like a made-up story that people think is true that then spreads like wildfire on social media. When people can’t agree on facts anymore, it creates all kinds of problems.  

        While the world focuses on blaring headlines and dramatic confrontations, humility continues on quietly—but meaningfully—behind the scenes, and away from the spotlight. In his new pamphlet, “Humility: A Humble, Anarchistic Inquiry,” Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig shares his two-year-long inquiry into how the gentle art of humility can bring out our humanness, elevate organizational effectiveness, enhance leadership, and enrich quality of life.