A few years ago, the executives at banking giant Wells Fargo issued a new strategy for their business: the overall goal was to create long-term banking relationships with their customers. And to measure how well the company was executing on that strategy, they began tracking “cross-selling.” In other words, employees would be measured, and rewarded, based on the number of different accounts—from deposits and credit cards to auto loans and mortgages—a customer opened with the bank. The CEO at the time even coined a slogan: “eight is great” to illustrate the optimum number of accounts a customer might have with the bank.  On paper, you could argue that the more accounts a customer had would likely equate with a longer-term relationship with the bank. But, if you’ve been paying attention to the news for the past few years, you know that things went spectacularly wrong. 

Did you have a bonus plan in place last year? If so, was it effective? How is this year’s plan working out? If you have a good year and want to share some of the fruits of your labor with your team, great, but to do so without a well-planned and executed bonus plan is a wasted opportunity. So, here’s a list of best bonus and incentive practices to help you get the most bang for your bonus bucks.

High-Involvement Planning™, or ‘H.I.P.’, has been critical to SRC’s sustainability of The Game and its long-term financial success. H.I.P. has kept us focused and committed to The Game, primarily because it keeps it fresh and exciting by changing things up, year after year. It redefines our Game each year, with new Critical Numbers™, new financial targets, new challenges to conquer, and new goals to achieve. H.I.P. is also where we leverage the business know-how we have worked so hard to create. We use the collective knowledge of our team to raise our level of thinking from 90-day MiniGames™, to annual bonus plans, to 5 and 10-year visions for the company. The result of High-Involvement Planning is a vision—and a specific plan to achieve the vision.

  Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation (SRC) is well-known for High-Involvement Planning™ structure. Using this structure, we develop our strategic plans as a collective organization—involving literally everyone in the company, from hourly employees to management, in the planning process. While it might seem extensive, this process proves an integral component of our open-book management structure. Over the years, involving everyone at all levels of the company has also proven to repeatedly generate positive results. SRC uses four types of key planning that translate directly into our sustainable business success. Let’s dig deeper into each of these four key types of planning:

 A few years ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about a practice called “Zero-Based Budgeting,” which is basically a cost-control process that was being embraced by big-name companies such as Heinz, Kraft, and Burger King. The idea is that companies don’t roll over budgets from year to year, but they have to make a case for new spending plans each year. This philosophy wasn’t new—Texas Instruments experimented with it a few decades ago—but it seemed to gain popularity with investors interested in keeping costs under control. That was especially true when it came to the Kraft-Heinz merger. But things apparently haven’t worked out.

I remember vividly that moment, after many months of management team discussions, when we finally pulled the trigger. We knew that committing to practicing the Great Game of Business would be transformational for our business, but like any change, it was new and scary. We were all very excited, but also nervous and dare I say a little apprehensive. What if the time commitment is too great? What if our team members don’t embrace this new way of thinking? What if it just doesn’t work? BUT WHAT IF IT DOES!?

We're Jenner Ag and we are a practitioner host for The Great Game Experience. We're very excited to partner with The Great Game of Business team for this event. We wanted to tell you a little more about our story and how we practice open-book management in our organization.  Before we had ever heard about The Great Game of Business, Jenner Ag was a profitable company… but we knew we had more potential. Although the profit sharing program the company had implemented years ago was quite successful, the management team could feel it getting stale. Worse, the employees had come to view it as more of an entitlement than something they had to earn. It desperately needed reenergizing.

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. 

Though he’s referring to baseball, Jim Evans’ stance on tracking metrics can be applied to professional organizations just as they are to professional baseball organizations. Metric tracking is a fundamental process for companies that practice the Great Game of Business. And although it’s an essential part of playing The Game, it isn’t uncommon for companies to find themselves at a loss for whether or not they’re tracking the right numbers. Sometimes company leaders don’t even know where to start tracking!

For owners of closely held businesses, planning for the ultimate transition of ownership is critical to the long-term health and profitability of the organization. Assessing your company’s internal infrastructure and management team is one of the most important components of the planning process. In fact, so is assessing the subsequent necessary additions or adjustments.

Every entrepreneur exits. It’s one of the few absolute certainties in business. Assuming you’ve built a viable company, you can choose when and how you exit, but you can’t choose whether. It’s going to happen. You can count on it.

Van Belle Nursery is a commercial supplier of trees, plants, and shrubs based in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada. The company, which was founded in 1973, ships to a variety of retailers in western Canada as well as in the northern U.S.  Business Challenges One of the biggest challenges that the nursery faces is finding a way to build a cohesive company culture for its 100 associates, most of whom are immigrants from companies like Mexico, Iraq, Sudan, Zimbabwe, China, Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, and India, and even a few from Canada.