Excerpted from The Great Game of Business. It's very common for managers, especially new managers, to think they're supposed to have solutions for any problems that arise on their watch. That kind of thinking can get you into deep trouble. For one thing, it sets you up to fail because no one has all the answers. For another, it undermines your credibility because everyone knows that no one has all the answers. It also isolates you from people. A big pitfall of managers at all levels is the notion they have to be perfect. I know supervisors who can't hold a meeting because they're afraid someone might ask a question they can't answer. As I mentioned earlier, I know CEOs who can't leave their offices unless their ties are straight and every hair is in place. Managers like that wind up hating their jobs. They feel they have to live up to an image, to be an idol, to be a representative of a position.

The Great Game of Business® is not for everyone. It's for business leaders looking for true transformation—those who fantasize about a business life in which others share the burdens often reserved for owners and executive staff. It's for those who view prosperity as a journey, not just an outcome. It's for leaders prepared to learn, teach, and share in The Game.

Excerpted from The Great Game of Business. We've all heard how you have to be an S.O.B. to succeed in business. How you have to step on other people to get results. How it's okay to throw your weight around because it's a tough world and you win through intimidation. It's all a crock. I've worked on the shop floor. Believe me, nobody there wants to hear a guy telling you to bust your butt if he's rolling around in a Mercedes and beating up the people he works with. When you flaunt what you've got, when you intimidate, when you treat people badly, you lose power. I've watched guys like that throughout my life. I've learned it's just a matter of time before they get theirs.

Excerpted from The Great Game of Business. You may wonder if it's possible to play the Great Game of Business anywhere—in a division of a giant conglomerate, say, or in a factory with a dominant union, or in a company that doesn't share equity with employees or have an intelligent bonus system for employees. In fact, The Game started in a place exactly like that, in a very small department at the huge International Harvester plant in Melrose Park, Illinois. It was there that I learned most of what I know about managing, and everything I've tried to forget about leadership.

If any industry would have difficulty with transparency, one might argue that it would be government entities, but that has not stopped Greene County, Missouri from opening the books. Greene County began playing their version of GGOB— The Great Game of Government— in 2012 by modifying Great Game practices to fit the needs of a government organization. Their efforts and financial results earned them the All-Star Pioneer Award in 2015, which honors an organization that is the first in their field to implement and practice the methodology of The Great Game of Business. After years of progress in opening the books and improving upon Great Game practices, the officials at Greene County challenged themselves to take transparency to the next level.

Let's take it back a few years....14 years before the famous story of SRC's establishment in 1983. Jack Stack is learning the ins-and-outs of manufacturing, the detailed metrics involved in the industry, and receiving training and education provided by his company, International Harvester. In 1983, everyone is struggling for business, but this company is on the verge of failure. International Harvester owes $6 billion, interest rates are at 20%, and the company lays off 1000 workers weekly for two years straight. Jack and the other managers of the Springfield plant are fully focused on saving the jobs of their 119 employees and keeping the business from shutting down. This critical position shaped Jack's thoughts on how teaching everyone in the company the metrics of a successful and sustainable business through financial literacy and reporting is the only sensible way to run a business.

Through the years, the team at SRC and The Great Game of Business have seen our share of doubters, disbelievers, critics and skeptics - everyone from CEOs, to managers, to hourly employees who said open-book management couldn't work... that teaching employees about business was crazy…that transparency was not necessary in business. Some of the biggest disbelievers came from right here at SRC…the birthplace of open-book management! One doubter with a particularly fascinating story is Denise Bredfeldt, a former transmission rebuilder at SRC during the early days of The Great Game of Business. To be fair, Denise lived through the dismal buyout of International Harvester; a time when trust and morale were at an all-time low. Before SRC was founded, Denise even circulated an underground newsletter mocking the company culture and management, and she wasn’t about to jump on the open-book bandwagon.

Amy’s Ice Creams’ workforce is made up primarily of millennials, most of which are seasonal employees. In the short time these younger workers are with Amy's, this Great Game All-Star company maximizes engagement in order to make a lasting impact on employees' futures, as well as the success of the business. Take a look at what Marketing and Communications Director, Aaron Clay, has to say about the company's fun, fast-paced and positive Huddles combined with open-book management, and his four guidelines for enhancing engagement in your team's Huddles.

“My business is unique. I’m not sure Great Game® will work here.” For-profit businesses of every size, shape, and industry have embraced the Great Game of Business over the past 35 years. Now, lessons learned by SRC have spread into the nonprofit and social sectors in a program called the Great Game for Social Sectors. In recent years, leading organizations such as Missouri Southern State University (MSSU), Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Ozarks (BBBSO) and Greene County, Missouri have embraced the open-book management principles taught by the Great Game as a way to improve their financial sustainability. Since the launch of the Great Game for Social Sectors in February 2017, 24 organizations have adopted the proven principles of the Great Game to transform their not-for-profit organizations.

At the Great Game of Business, we hope to not only transform businesses but also change the lives of the individual employees within those companies. Our goal is to transform the lives of 10 million people in the next 10 years. In this blog series, we are striving toward our 10-million-person goal by sharing stories of personal transformation resulting from the Great Game of Business and open-book management. Here, we feature Rob and Rachel Kelsey from King Maintenance Management in Springfield, Missouri, and how they brought the Great Game home to tackle their personal debts and reach their goal of starting their own business.