Case Studies - The Great Game of Business The Great Game of Business

US Tower Services

Company Background

U.S. Tower Services helps wireless phone providers like T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, U.S. cellular and Verizon build, maintain, and upgrade their communication towers. After starting out in St. Louis in 2002, U.S. Tower has expanded across the country and now has offices in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Missoula, Montana – the hometown of the company’s founder, Chad Berg.

Business Challenges

As the business has grown, so too, have the challenges in managing a distributed work-force that operates around the clock in different time zones. The tower installation and upgrade business is also risky work—it has surpassed crab fishing as the most dangerous job in America. That means safety is also at a premium.

Company Background

The truth is that Integrity founder Harlan Geiser first read the book, “The Great Game of Business” back in 1999, after which he picked a few concepts to implement like sharing revenues and handing out year-end bonuses. But after few successful years, those practices fell by the wayside. When the recession hit and the company lost money for the first time in its history during the first quarter of 2009, Geiser was ready for a change. After meeting with GGOB practitioner Jack O’Riley, Geiser decided it was time to revisit GGOB once again.

Business Challenges

The truth is that Integrity founder Harlan Geiser had first come across the GGOB back in 1999, from which he cherry-picked a few concepts like sharing revenues and handing out year-end bonuses. But after a few years, as the company continued to blossom, even those practices fell by the wayside. Then the recession hit and the company lost money for the first time in its history in the first quarter of 2009. That‟s when, thanks to a chance meeting GGOB practitioner named Jack O‟Riley, Geiser decided to revisit the GGOB once again.

Company Background

Skeleton Key is a technology consulting and custom software development firm based in St. Louis, MO, with additional satellite offices in Columbia, Joplin and Nixa, MO. Founded in 2004 by Mark Richman and Oliver Block, the company embraced the idea of financial transparency early on. But it wasn't until 2009, when they began implementing other elements of The Great Game of Business such as identifying critical numbers and creating accurate forecasting through the High Involvement Planning process, that the company became financially sustainable.

Business Challenges

When Richman and Block opened their business and hired their first employees, they of-fered to share the company financials with anyone who was interested. “No one ever took us up on the offer,” says Block. “But the truth was we weren’t financially literate ourselves.” Compounding the problem was that the more the company tried to expand, the more money it seemed to lose. The business had become stagnant. Not only had Richman and Block taken close to 100% pay cuts to make ends meet, the morale of their associates was at near rock-bottom.