For many today, it would be unthinkable— if not sheer torture—to run a company supported by data arriving by pony express and steamship. Yet, in the 1800s, that’s what American industrialists regularly did to huge success. How could Carnegie and Rockefeller have made significant, informed decisions with material gathered by mere telegraph, letters, and only later, telephone? Weren’t they alarmed that their milk was fresher than their business intelligence?
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Every company should have a vision for itself. Jack Stack, CEO of SRC Holdings and the founder of The Great Game of Business, says, "Having a 10-year plan can help overcome unexpected surprises." Recently, Rich Armstrong, President of The Great Game of Business, and Steve Baker, Vice President, "sat down" (via zoom) with Jack to learn about the 10-year vision for SRC Holdings in a post-covid world.
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How one entrepreneur uses The Great Game of Business to help fulfill her childhood ambition Erika Cisneros first dreamed of studying the law back when she was in the fifth grade. Her class conducted a mock trial of Goldilocks—who was charged with breaking-and-entering the home of the three bears—and she presided over the case as the judge. “That’s when I fell in love with the courtroom,” says Cisneros.
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Right from their rocky start in 1983 (who else starts a business with an 89-to-1 debt-to-equity ratio in the middle of a recession?), Jack Stack and the team at SRC started planning ahead. Not just for the next day, week, or month. Or even for the next year. For their entire history as a business—which has grown from a single factory into a collection of ten businesses and 1,800 associates—SRC has been planning ahead for a decade at a time.
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Recessions are painful. They cause businesses to close—and billions of dollars in capital to melt away. Recessions are also about more than just a dip in economic activity. They get personal. People lose their jobs and a way to support their family. Recessions strain our social safety net and put lives at risk. The only good thing about a recession is when it ends. But there’s another ugly truth about recessions—there’s always another one right around the corner. Historically, recessions hit the U.S. economy about every 10 years or so. That means even as we struggle to get through the current recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, we can also start the clock on when the next recession will hit. Recognizing that 2020 has been a heckuva year, the question becomes: What are you doing today to plan for the next recession?
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What a 9-year-old Can Teach Us About Life One Saturday morning, I found myself standing and watching a Little League baseball game. I had a mask on my face and was safely isolated away from anyone else. It was so weird. But I enjoyed being outside in the sun, hearing the familiar sounds of a ball popping into leather and the pings of the bat when hitters made contact. It almost felt like the start of something new.
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