The Great Game of Business
The Only Sensible Way to Run a Company by Jack Stack
Summary
Jack Stack takes the lessons he learned from buying one factory and builds SCR into a successful company. He emphasizes getting employee buy-in by teaching them the numbers associated with winning. The book goes into detail about how to cascade winning onto your employees.
“If you’re lucky enough to be someone’s employer, then you have a moral obligation to make sure people do look forward to coming to work in the morning."-Stack
Book Breakdown
Educating Employees
Empower your team by educating them on business metrics. They will see that winning for the company is winning for them.
Ensure transparency with your team. When employees are left in the dark, they tend to fill the void with negativity and rumors.
Hiring someone is a huge commitment because you’re providing for their lives and those of their families. Take that responsibility seriously.
Stack gives the example of being way behind on an order to the Russians that would get them a substantial financial penalty. He posted the number of tractors shipped on his office door so the whole company could get involved. Everyone knew what they were expected to do to make it a reality.
Cascade Winning
Cascade the feeling of winning. Build confidence by emphasizing the positive instead of focusing on the negative. Get people to visualize how it will feel to win.
Use the big picture to define winning for the team. Teach them the numbers that they need to hit to win.
Never stop reminding people about the big picture. Bring everyone together once a year and show everyone how the whole company fits together. Let departments show off and celebrate each other.
The Score Keeping
Make sure you have accurate and trustworthy projections. Share the projections with everyone in your company.
Encourage people to set their own standards and let them argue why they are right. Use debate to sharpen those standards, and don’t be afraid to update them as the game progresses.
Employees should have two or three goals on which rewards are based. Pick goals off of financial statements.
Use bonuses to get people to see how the company's success impacts them. Give them a certain level of income but make a substantial bonus opportunity that they can earn based on the company hitting goals.
The bonus program should be communicated clearly and distributed quickly. The bonus structure should be paid out quarterly so people see the impact their efforts have. Backload more money so people can use it throughout the entire year.
Meeting for the Game Plan
You put a bounty on goals for the year and put them in the annual plan. To keep people focused, have regular meetings with leaders.
Take the results back to the rest of the people. “What happens after the leaders' meeting is more important than what happens in it.” Managers need to deliver those lessons to everyone.
People need to write the numbers down. Each department should share its numbers in the big leader meeting.
Jack Stack’s Higher Laws of Business
You Get What You Give
It’s Easy to Stop One Guy, But It’s Pretty Hard to Stop 100
What Goes Around Comes Around
You Do What You Gotta Do
You Gotta Wanna
You Can Sometimes Fool the Fans, But You Can’t Fool the Players
When You Raise the Bottom, the Top Rises
There Ain’t No Next Thing
You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do
If You Don’t Know, Say You Don’t Know
Three Big Lessons
Educate your people on how the game is played and show them what winning looks like.
Give people incentives personally through ownership or bonuses to ensure they buy in.
Everyone sets two or three goals. Celebrate winning publicly when teams are hitting their goals.
Brad’s Review
As someone new to the business world, this book was a massive help. It contained similar lessons to other great organizational books but discussed cascading winning in a way I had not considered. It inspired me to consider how we can better educate employees to help everyone win.
