You wouldn’t drive your car while only looking in the rear-view mirror…why run your business looking only at the past? This is the method many businesses have used for decades: close the books, review the numbers, repeat. While reviewing and analyzing company financials is an important process, you can’t change history. Forward financial forecasting is a way of communicating your company’s financials while keeping all eyes on the target. The purpose of forward forecasting is not to predict the future, but to influence it. This process minimizes surprises by having employees estimate or offer an educated opinion on what to expect.

Many of you have probably heard of Brené Brown. You may have read her books like The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, or her newest release, Dare to Lead. Or, you may have heard her famous Ted Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” which has scored over 35 million views. If you are not familiar with her work, Brown is a social scientist who studies the concept of shame and vulnerability and how they shape us as human beings and as leaders. She found that those who embrace their weaknesses and let themselves be shown are the ones who live the most fulfilled lives. But what does vulnerability have to do with Great Game® and open-book management?

At the Great Game of Business, we hope to not only transform businesses but also change the lives of the individual employees within those companies. Our goal is to transform the lives of 10 million people in the next 10 years. In this blog series, we are striving toward our 10-million-person goal by sharing stories of personal transformation resulting from the Great Game of Business and open-book management. Here, we feature Rob and Rachel Kelsey from King Maintenance Management in Springfield, Missouri, and how they brought the Great Game home to tackle their personal debts and reach their goal of starting their own business.

Goodbye 2018, hello 2019, and hello to a whole new slew of resolutions that last a couple of weeks and then back to our old ways. Are you tired of setting a goal and then not achieving it? With a small amount of self-control and a bit of determination, you can create a new habit that requires minimal effort to maintain. Here are 8 easy ways to create a new habit and stick to it.

I was saddened to hear about the loss of Herb Kelleher, the founder of Southwest Airlines. I’ll never forget the time back in the early 1990s when I was invited to Texas to talk about the Great Game of Business with Herb and his team at Southwest. After I gave my talk, I figured everything I had shared about our open-book story wasn’t worth much given how big Southwest was and how many locations they operated out of. I wasn’t sure our Great Game system would work in a big company. Then Herb stood up. He took over the podium and told his leaders that there were only five things that could take out their company: their five unions. I admit I was shocked because I didn’t know they were a union company. But Herb then told his team that the only way their airline was going to make it was if they could teach everyone, all ninety thousand people—including every union employee—how the company made money and generated cash.

In this series written by Great Game employees, we will highlight some of the highest rated sessions at the 2018 Gathering of Games conference. In this blog, Donna Petiford, Great Game's Quality Assurance Manager, covers the session How to Engage, Motivate and Inspire Employees by John Williams. John, an 8-year Gathering of Games speaker, works at Central States Manufacturing and has been playing since 1988. Check out the highlights from John's "give one, get one" session, where he tapped into the wisdom of the crowd to compile best practices on engaging employees to their highest potential, as well as, the audio from the session below.

It's simple. You cannot successfully implement the Great Game of Business® unless every employee understands the financials and drivers of the business. But what puts the "best of the best" in open-book management above the rest when it comes to financial literacy training? We asked this year's All-Stars how they transformed their businesses to create a financial literacy focus that promotes engagement and accountability from top to bottom in their organization.

Your company Huddle is your weekly opportunity to intentionally communicate with your team. This list of ideas and tips will help you refresh, expand, and even strengthen your Huddle and ensure your whole team is engaged and informed. Check out these best practices for getting the most out of your Huddle, whether it be in person or virtually! Use these tips to make your next team Huddle a big success.

At the 26th Annual Gathering of Games, we had the opportunity to host Gregg Stebben from ForbesBooks Radio as he interviewed participants from this year's conference. In this interview he highlights Process Triage, a business process improvement system founded by Joseph (Rosey) Rosenberger. "Triage is a way to deal with a high volume of problems with the objective to assess the type of solution quickly so scarce resources focus on the most valuable good first." Check out this interview with Rosey below to see how his company has applied this methodology in businesses ranging from start-ups to Fortune® 500 companies.

At the Great Game of Business, results go beyond the financial numbers. Behind the numbers are stories and real individuals. We've asked actual, current employees from our 2018 All-Star companies what they had to say about how the Great Game has affected them personally. See the top comments below!