In the late 1980s, I was a young sports reporter in Kansas City covering the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers game. The 49ers defeated the Chiefs, and they were on their way to a third Super Bowl Championship in seven years. In those days, the 49ers ruled the class of the league.

Rewards are essential to The Great Game of Business® and for improving work culture and engagement. So much so that we should begin with its definition. Reward: To make a gift of something to someone in recognition of his or her services, efforts or achievements. Reward systems recognize staff members who excel in areas, such as customer service, loyalty and sales ability. There are many reasons to begin a reward system, for example:

Rolf Glass is a small manufacturer of decorative glassware in Pennsylvania. When the company first began teaching the Critical Numbers to its employees, the leadership at Rolf Glass noticed that there was a lot of room for improvement. In 2013, it was running at an average 88 percent efficiency, thus losing 12 percent of product.

This year's 23rd annual Gathering of Games honored several organizations for their outstanding work as Great Game of Business practitioners.

The 2015 Gathering of Games was a huge success in my mind – in many ways because I learned something new with each person I talked to or spoke with. On that note, I’d like to thank all who came to Calming Your Monkey Mind, The Power of Organizational Focus. It was truly my pleasure to chat with and learn from each one of you. What I’ve learned about the Great Game continues to inspire me for two reasons:

This week the Great Game of Business team will hit the road for Orlando, Florida, for the annual Inc. 5000 Conference and Gala. The Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala is an annual three-day event that brings the nation’s brightest, most successful business minds together to celebrate the remarkable achievements of the companies that appear on Inc.’s prestigious ranking of America’s fastest-growing privately held companies. The Great Game of Business made it's debut on the list this year at 2518 with three year sales growth of 148% and will also be speaking at the conference.

Inspiration. No matter the topic, the presenter, the intended audience…all the presenters at the 2015 Gathering of Games produced some powerful inspiration. With each session, we took away so many lessons, but these 14 really stood out, and we think they’re worth repeating because they embody so much of what The Great Game, Gathering of Games and being business leaders is all about.

While you’re still basking in the afterglow of the Gathering of Games, we wanted to share with you an additional opportunity to build relationships with some great leaders who have a deep commitment to values and collaboration from our friends at the Small Giants Community. (A number of whom are Great Game of Business practitioners.) It’s a quick turnaround, but definitely worth your effort. The 2015 Small Giants Summit in Dallas on September 20 - 23 has attendees from South Africa, the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, Japan and Brazil and is an excellent opportunity for global learning on an intimate scale.

Forecasting cash flow is the key to the survival of many organizations, yet it’s a non-existent process in others. Often, organizations with abundant cash see little value in taking the time to put a system in place to do this. Other organizations that operate with little or no cash see forecasting cash flow as a critical element in running their business in such a manner as to avoid a crisis of liquidity. The truth is, Forecasting cash flow should be a part of the monthly business cycle, regardless of your cash situation, and here is why.

According to Gallup and other workplace surveys, only about 18 percent of managers are effective in engaging their employees. Since it is well established that companies with highly engaged workforces perform far better than their competitors, this is a crucial issue for businesses to address. In an era when the prospect of a good job seems unattainable for many Americans, it is also a pressing challenge for the nation.