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.

Many of our favorite funny celebrities got their start in comedy with the famous improvisational theater group Second City in Chicago, Illinois. The rules for improv turn out to be great guidelines for anyone involved in various types of team-based work. Using the rules to improvisational comedy may seem like a strange way to improve your culture and business, but the foundations of effective improv are also the foundations for effective communication and teamwork: creativity and innovative thinking, active listening, open communication, trust, reciprocity, engagement, effective leadership, responding to mistakes or failures ... the list goes on.

As Jack Stack says, “One of the challenges in leadership is you need to know when to push, when to hug, when to cheer, when to boo, and when to kick people in the butt.” For any individual in a leadership role, there are endless responsibilities, people and tasks to keep in order. We've compiled a checklist of tips and questions to help our Great Game leaders reflect on their leadership styles and stay on track. Check out our best practices for GGOB leaders below!

Attracting and retaining top talent is the #1 challenge most businesses face in today's competitive marketplace. Organizations that practice OBM (open-book management) have a major competitive edge that they should use to their advantage in all recruiting efforts.