Every year at The Annual Gathering of Games we celebrate practitioners of open-book management with the All-Star Awards. This year we celebrated the 17th All-Star Awards, and had a great pool of nominees. It was not easy to decide this year between the nominees by any means! Without further ado, here are 2017’s All-Star Winners:

The number one rule of running a business is “know thy numbers.” We depend too much on accountants, bookkeepers, CPAs, controllers, etc. to inform us on our numbers. In my experience these folks, as necessary as they are, mostly look in the review mirror. We can’t do anything about the past. What if you, and your entire team could see through a clean windshield and forecast the financial performance of the business? Would your business be more financially fit? This conflict between the past, present and future is holding back great people in great businesses. Nothing is worse than feeling like you are not living up to your full potential.

There are a lot of “moving parts” in the day-to-day management of a business. Business owners are likely wearing many hats and ownership succession may not be top of mind. However, it is a topic that must be addressed. When it does, it can be a stressful, but ultimately a worthwhile conversation.

If you have any interest in open-book management, you will not want to miss The 25th Annual Gathering of Games. This conference offers several networking opportunities, as well as a chance to learn everything you need to know about The Great Game — from speakers who will cover a variety of topics about the business world in their sessions. In part one of this blog series, we covered the pre-conference speakers and sessions on the agenda. Today, we'll cover the speakers that are lined up for Day 2 of the conference, which takes place on Thursday, September 7th.

If you have any interest in open-book management, The 25th Annual Gathering of Games is a conference you can't miss. The speakers are experts in a variety of topics. The Gathering of Games going to be a great way to network and learn. In part two of this blog series, we covered the pre-conference speakers and sessions on the agenda. Today, we'll cover the speakers that are lined up for Day 2 of the conference, which takes place on Friday, September 8th.

For many years, when I would speak with Jack Stack about implementing the Great Game at my company, imageOne, I was usually explaining to him why it wouldn’t work for us. “We are unique,” I would explain to him. Jack would just snicker and shake his head. I remember those days vividly and now I know that he was right: business is business and the Great Game works for thousands of companies - why would mine be so different?

The 25th Annual Gathering of Games is not only going to be a fantastic networking and learning event — it’s going to feature some of the brightest and most influential business speakers in the world. You simply can’t miss these Great Game experts if you have any interest at all in open-book management. The pre-conference speakers alone cover a wide variety of topics and industries that you’re sure to enjoy.

You’ve likely heard that analytics is all the rage. Marketing. Sports. Fraud detection. Analytics is everywhere, yet many organizations struggle with successful implementation. Before covering the six steps to successfully use analytics, a quick definition: analytics is generally defined as the procedures and methods used to extract useful information from data to help answer a strategic question.

Employee engagement can bring a true competitive advantage to organizations that make it a priority; however, increasing employee engagement levels, and maintaining them, takes time, commitment, and investment. Having said that, developing a game strategy to do so doesn’t have to be overwhelming – and can actually be fun!

Each year, several hundred business leaders and key influencers from companies across the globe come together to learn and share the principles and practices of open-book management at an event known as “The Gathering of Games.” This year, the conference — which is in Dallas from September 6-8 — celebrates its 25th anniversary and features a reunion of “All-Stars” who have been enjoying success playing The Great Game of Business.