I had the privilege of attending my first Gathering of Games conference this year, as a representative from ForbesBooks and ForbesBooks Radio. I’ve been to my share of business conferences, but Gathering of Games was unlike any I’d attended in the course of my career. It was thrilling to record interviews with so many of you and hear your stories in depth. As an “outsider,” there were a few takeaways from the conference that truly resonated with me:

Every year at The Annual Gathering of Games, we recognize the "best of the best" in open-book management with the All-Star Awards. At the 26th Annual Gathering of Games, the GGOB community celebrated the 18th All-Star Team and announced this year's All-Star Champions. Check out the flipbook to read case studies of each member of our Team, and join us in congratulating our 2018 All-Star Champions!

One of the questions that I hear most leaders ask is, “How do I keep employees engaged?” Is money effective? How about bonuses, or a promotion? As most of you know, very rarely do these work, especially in the long term. Usually it’s the simple things in life that works the best. Remember, you are dealing with people. What works for employees works for spouses, children, siblings, and your friends. Below are 3 very simple ideas on engaging and motivating employees. These ideas are simple, but still require focus and take the time to implement.

Want to learn how to enhance how you play the Great Game of Business? Open-book management is a powerful tool to grow profitable businesses that benefit all employees and stakeholders. At the core is financial literacy, which includes financial forecasts that are reported in weekly Huddles and presented on white boards, so everyone can follow the action and keep score to know if they are winning or losing The Game. We want to show you how to go beyond traditional desktop tools like Excel for financial forecasting and scoreboards.

Success happens frequently when playing the Great Game of Business. Whether it is winning a MiniGame or hitting your goals, there are plenty of opportunities to accelerate these results. To be even more successful, what we say when things go right is important (Gable, Gonzaga & Strachman, 2006). After a success, there are four types of responses:

Conferences like the Gathering of Games are incredible opportunities to expand your knowledge base, find solutions to business challenges and build lasting connections with professionals who share common values and goals. But, as is true of daily life, if you don’t structure your time wisely, chances are it won’t be as well spent as possible. What’s your game plan for maximizing your experience at the Gathering of Games this year? Don’t have a strategy yet? Read on…

When the leadership team asked us a year and a half ago to lead Venturity’s Great Game journey, we weren’t sure what to expect. As a group, we all had visions of success, but also threads of trepidation because a lot of the success was riding on our shoulders. This was a huge responsibility and required us to stretch our own leadership and team-building skills. We knew at the beginning that we would be responsible for leading the entire Venturity team in the Great Game of Business® and helping to set and continue the overall direction. We spent hours every week in those initial months understanding the Great Game and creating it for Venturity. What we didn’t realize at the time was the powerful impact the Great Game of Business would have on the culture of our organization overall, and how this would translate into much more than financial success.

It is not uncommon for every business owner to start a discussion about their P&L statement with “well, that net income number is not correct,” then go on to list all of the things they would change if their accountant didn't make them do it that way. Business owners need to take back responsibility and control of their financial reporting in financial literacy training and follow these simple principles to make their P&L a useful document.

(Excerpted from the Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 1: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business) It’s been almost thirty years since I first started learning about visioning in the context of workplace leadership. At the time that I heard about it, I can’t say I was particularly open to the concept. I don’t think it came up in any sort really formal way—it was likely more just hearing about it from people like my partner Paul and others around me who had some experience working with it. At best I was probably moderately receptive, and more than likely, almost actively resistant at first.