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5 Reasons to Bring Your Team to The Great Game of Business Conference

Feb 15, 2024 by Great Game Team 0 Comments
Have you ever wondered what a dose of inspiration, game-changing strategies, and a united team spirit could do for your business? Bring your team to The Great Game of Business Conference and find out! From eye-opening sessions to hands-on workshops, this Conference has value for every member of your team—from associates to the C-suite. Unleash your team's potential, foster collaboration, and watch everyone return with fresh insights to level up your business. Here are 5 reasons you should consider bringing your team to the Conference.
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4 Tips for Creating a Generational Inclusive Workforce

May 6, 2021 by Tonia Morris 0 Comments
For the first time in our history, we have five generations in the workforce, each generation bringing a different perspective and their own set of expectations. Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce, and employers must rethink their workforce norms. As diversity grows with this generational shift, employers across the globe find themselves with a workplace culture challenge as they try to adopt best practices for building and maintaining generational inclusion in the workforce to attract and retain top talent in their organization.
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Building An American Dream

May 4, 2021 by Darren Dahl 1 Comment
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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The Collective Wisdom is Greater Than You

Apr 29, 2021 by Dave Scholten 0 Comments
A few years back, we hosted our Annual Great Game of Business Conference with the theme, “The Wisdom of the Crowd.” The event has always been a great place to learn from other open-book practitioners, and specifically remember this Gathering's opening keynote speaker James Surowiecki speaking about his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, which discusses how the collective wisdom of a group can outweigh the wisest person within the crowd. I was conflicted. How can the average of a group of contributors yield a greater result than that of the highest member in the group? For me, this was a hard-to-understand concept that seemed to severely oppose my traditional, mathematical thinking.
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To Be or Not To Be (Coached) — That is the Question

Feb 14, 2020 by Jeff Thomas 0 Comments
As a proud self-implementor, we have been trying to take our commitment to become a Great Game™ practitioner seriously for the last couple of years. We’ve been to the workshops, (Get in the Game™, MiniGames™, High-Involvement Planning™) and getting a lot out of each one we've attended. We’ve been training our staff in the business of business, instructing them on how to read financial statements, and have opened our books. We’ve done a few Mini-Games and are even reading the new books (which are extremely helpful for giving us insights and motivations into how to better implement The Game.)
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Why Choose an ESOP? Benefits of an ESOP Exit Strategy

Oct 8, 2019 by Tom DeSimone 0 Comments
When it comes to deciding upon an exit strategy, owners of closely held businesses have a lot to think about. Faced with the frightening prospect of turning over the business they have worked so hard to build to new ownership, they might worry about what will happen to the company—and their employees—once they’re gone. Selling the business to a third party isn’t always a welcome or viable option. But if there isn’t a qualified management team or successor in mind, what’s a business owner to do? Fortunately, there is an alternative that can help ensure the continuation of the business while providing significant financial rewards for both the owner and the employees: selling the business to employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
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Get Ready Now for the Economic Upturn in 2020

Sep 27, 2019 by Darren Dahl 0 Comments
More and more news stories these days center around the R-word: recession. It certainly came up often enough at the 2019 Gathering of Games—including in Jack Stack’s keynote speech. There are plenty of warning signs to catch your attention. The list of potential culprits as to who or what might bring the country’s economic expansion to a halt ranges from tariffs and trade wars to increasingly long lead times and historically low unemployment rates. What’s interesting is that Stack and his team at the SRC family of companies have been forecasting a recession to hit in 2019 or 2020 for the past 10 years—a process they kicked off right after the last recession just about obliterated the economy. Part of the rationale behind that forecast was experience:
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Conference Insights, 21 Hats, and a New Book

Sep 20, 2019 by Loren Feldman 0 Comments
Every year, like a little kid, I dread the passing of summer, but in recent years I’ve found a reason to look forward to what follows Labor Day, specifically the Annual Gathering of Games. It’s a special conference where I reconnect with old friends and learn something new – but this year’s Gathering was extra special for me.
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An Emotional 2019 Gathering of Games

Sep 12, 2019 by Darren Dahl 1 Comment
When John Costello took the stage on the second day of the 27th Annual Gathering of Games conference, he had already won a bet with his wife, who happened to be in the audience. Costello, the CEO of Cherry’s Industrial, had wagered that it might only be a few minutes into his talk before he’d start crying. He was right. But the tears that Costello shed on stage—which then quickly spread among the 700 rapt audience members—weren’t tears of sadness. They were tears of relief; freedom from a heavy burden that he had been carrying on his shoulders for years.
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All-Star People's Choice Poll 2019

Aug 27, 2019 by Lauren Haley 0 Comments
At the 27th Annual Gathering of Games Conference, The Great Game of Business® will celebrate the 19th Great Game of Business All-Star Team. This prestigious award recognizes and celebrates the remarkable achievements of companies from around the globe that have fully embraced the principles of open-book management and The Great Game of Business, and have demonstrated outstanding results. The inspiration for the All-Star Awards came from the pioneers of open-book management themselves. Great Game All-Stars not only practice The Game at a high level, they embody a spirit of generosity and a willingness to openly spread the word to help others succeed. That is the essence of the All-Star Awards! Here's your chance to check out the 2019 finalists and vote on your favorites for this year's All-Star People's Choice Award.
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About The Great Game of Business

Our approach to running a company was developed to help close one of the biggest gaps in business: the gap between managers and employees. We call our open-book approach The Great Game of Business. What lies at the heart of The Game is a very simple proposition: The best, most efficient, most profitable way to operate a business is to give everybody in the company a voice in saying how the company is run and a stake in the outcome. Let us teach you how to develop a culture of ownership, where employees think, act and feel like owners.