← Unemployable with Jeff Dudan
Unemployable with Jeff Dudan
Most Businesses Lose Money. Here’s Why. With The Great Game of Business Steve Baker
01:18:27
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- [00:01]
A
Oh my gosh. If people can understand that, think of how much more powerful it is to have 10, 100, 2000 people behind a cause when they really understand what they do to push it forward, the biggest impact would be go learn about money. And I mean that. It's not just because my full time job is the Great Game of Business, but that one thing learned younger would have changed the entire trajectory of my life. But everybody talks to me about, well, what about culture? What about culture? Are you kidding me? The best culture in the world is a culture of ownership, of people who think and act and feel like an owner does.
- [00:41]
B
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Unemployable podcast. I'm Jeff Duden. If you consider yourself an artist, first went to art school and somehow found yourself spending two decades working in family owned manufacturing companies, if you eventually connected with the great Jack Stack and learned the Great Game of Business, the world's famous open book management system, and eventually rose to become the vice president and face of the organization and co author of related books get in the game and the 20th anniversary edition of the Great Game of Business. Your name can only be Steve Baker. Welcome, Steve.
- [01:19]
A
Wow, Jeff. Best intro ever. Thank you.
- [01:28]
B
All right, well, it's all true. It's all there. Welcome. I'm so excited to have you on. We just had Jack Stack on two days ago. But you can't get enough of the Great Game of Business because it's really the only sensible way to run a business.
- [01:41]
A
Yeah, that's. That's really it. What I find fascinating is there's so many great business operating systems out there, but so many forget that, you know, people don't like bosses. And what Jack taught me is when you teach everyone in the organization how the business operates, how it makes money and generates cash, how they affect those things, all of a sudden they take on more responsibility and accountability without being, you know, having to be whipped into shape. They're making decisions because they understand the game you're in. Yeah.
- [02:14]
B
Why do companies tend to withhold financial information from their employees, the people that need it the most?
- [02:20]
A
Oh, my gosh, Jeff, in. In the 20 years I've been at Great Game of Business, there is one thing that continues to be the thing I see as a recurrent theme, and that is it's fear. It's fear that of a few things, you know, someone's going to find out how much money the company makes. Well, if we just showed them the data, it's hard to make money in every business, you know, I mean, in The US the median net profit for a small to midsize business is six and a half cents on the dollar. Who knows that? I know business owners that don't even know that. So the reality is that it's fear of someone's going to find out how much money we make. Someone's going to find out how much money I make as the CEO and or owner. Well, guess what? If they find out, they're going to want more. Here's the big secret, guys. I'm the best employee in the world and I already want more. Jeff, I know you want more. You're not going to settle for ordinary. The thing is, what if we gave them an opportunity to participate in business? But the fear is going to be first, you know, they're going to find out how much money we make. They're going to find out what each other make. They're going to X, Y, Z. Well, the thing is that all of those things, or one of the worst ones that I can't hardly stand is when people go, if I make them, you know, train them up, get them real smart, well, they might leave. And I'm like, well, what's your alternative? They're ignorant and they stay, you know, Right. So what I want to do is what I've learned through the years is if I could just appeal to people's higher level of thinking and say, why do you have to carry all the burden? And what if other people could help you? And along the way it becomes the most freeing business operating system and leadership development program there is because you're building business. People every day, the more they understand about money, the more they will understand your plight to try to make a profit in these times. But the real big deal is man, you know, you don't have to share all of the numbers. Open book is kind of a silly name and Jack doesn't even like it. He probably told you that it's, it infers that if you show your numbers, someone's going to care. Well, in reality it's, it's a two way street, right? You got to teach the numbers as well as be transparent. So transparency is worthless without education and you got to keep it up over time. So I don't know if I answered your question, but that's what I run into a lot.
- [04:44]
B
There's a perception, and I would say a misconception that the people that are looking at the numbers are the accountants and the actuaries that are huddled away in the back office and they're just cobbling together over spreadsheets and they're looking at what it is and then they're letting some little bit of information out and, and, and that. But the numbers are for the people that, that went to business school and that are the finance people. And the, the numbers are at the end of it. That's like the result of it where actually the numbers need to be brought to the front of the process. But look, you're a creative, you're an artist, you went to art school. If you can get interested in the numbers, anybody can. Numbers should be and can be for anybody. How as a creative did you find your way to get interested in these numbers and, and stay interested?
- [05:34]
A
I got screwed a lot. And I don't mean in a good way. I mean, look, man, when you come out of school with.
- [05:42]
B
There was a bad way. Anyway,
- [05:45]
A
that's another podcast. Look, the thing is that when I came out of school, you know, I'm like, hey, how do I make money? Well, all through school I worked my way through just like my wife did, but she's a speech language pathologist again, not a business person. I was always doing freelance work at night, you know, that was what I did. And during the day I would go to school and then work a part time job managing an outdoor store. Well, the thing was, I'll just use those examples right there. I would do a freelance job and I would charge. Well, what I didn't know I was the cheapest guy on the planet because I didn't know the market. And then they figured, well, you know, I'll just, I'll just use this for now and we'll see if I can either pay you in 90 days or 120 days or maybe not at all, or they would reduce by negotiating down, you know, and all I wanted was money. But then working at the outdoor store, in retail, you know, I, I ended up managing that store because I'm good with people and frankly speaking, pretty good salesman when I believe in it, right? I was an outdoors guy, a rock climber, kayaker, all that kind of stuff before it was cool. This was in the early 80s, right? And Jeff, I gotta tell you man, the thing is, when you become manager, all of a sudden you're placing the orders so you see what you actually pay the wholesale price for. You're opening the boxes, taking out the packing slips, looking at invoices. But the thing is, I never got taught about it. It was make sure everything's there and then sell it. And the, the guy that I worked for, I, he's still A friend of mine today, I thank him so much for what I did learn. But he couldn't ever quite get over the fact that if I taught Steve how to make money, he wouldn't do things like this. My favorite memory about how bad I was at business was I'd have a rack of 12 canoes in this shop. High end, you know, Kevlar and abs. And some guy would go, I want that one and I want it in red. You bet. I just made a sale. And then later my boss would come in and go, oh my God, why didn't you sell what we had on the shelf? I found out that day that the freight for the canoe actually cost more than the wholesale did. Wow. He never told me that. And, you know, I just. I was smart enough. I was just ignorant. And there's always that issue with every business that you run into.
- [08:03]
B
I believe in humanity, and I think most people are well intentioned. So would you say that most business mistakes are just a lack of information or, or misinformation? That people just are making mistakes in a vacuum and had they had the information, they wouldn't have made the same mistake?
- [08:19]
A
I'm with you. I totally believe in humanity, and I think there's good in everyone. I do think there are some people that are not cut out for this. I do know. I know that for a fact. I've just seen it. So what I'm saying is the average person, if they understand what you're trying to do, they'll probably ask, well, what can I do to help? And that's what I remember. Do you remember a movie called Life of PI? A boy in a boat with a tiger. It was a great book. And, and if anybody happens to remember that, and I think if you just. Here's the thing, don't go watch the movie. What you need to do is go watch the the Life of PI, a documentary. It's about what was happening at Rhythm and Hughes, a special effects company that was involved in making that movie. They received an Oscar for their work on life of PI 13 days before they closed the place down and laid everybody off. Can you be the best in the world at something and lose everything? Yes. The thing, that's a great example, right? Great creatives, world class, best in the world, and yet they couldn't make payroll. That means that all of that intelligence and wisdom and foresight and I mean, think about it. An artist begins with, oh, this is what I want to do. Wouldn't it be great if businesses did that? Oh, this is great. I want to paint this picture. Hey, everybody, help me paint this picture. So I feel like we just missed something here. That is this. When I grew up. I don't know, Jeff, how it was in your family, but my family was, do a good job. You know, my work ethic was really the currency of the family and trust, right? Be honest, work hard, do what you say you're going to do. Money, though, when I was little, I remember going, hey, dad, how, you know, are we rich or poor? He's like, just don't worry about it. Just do a good job. Go to school, get good grades. Right? Be a good boy. Well, what I really learned was by being out in the world without a financial knowledge and then coming into a place like SRC and working with Jack with the great game of business, is that what was lacking was that understanding of how money works? Because why do you have to be a starving artist? I know plenty of artists are doing amazing work and still making a lot of money, and it's because they learned the business side. But if you would have tried to tell me that at 20, I couldn't have heard it, because there wasn't a good example at the time in my life that I could look at and say, hey, you can do both, and it's awesome that way.
- [10:59]
B
That's an interesting observation. You have three children, correct?
- [11:02]
A
I do.
- [11:03]
B
Okay. And I have three children as well. 27, 24, and 21. And your description of your upbringing was much different than mine. I was. Mine was more. Have you ever seen Lord of the Rings?
- [11:16]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [11:17]
B
Or, no, not Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Flies.
- [11:19]
A
Lord of the Flies? Yes.
- [11:21]
B
It's a little more Lord. It was a little more Lord of the Flies. I mean, there were less loincloths growing up, but still, you know, relatively unstruct upbringing, running around the streets a lot. And so I didn't. But I did observe my father, who owned an engineering business, and I got what. What I described of franchise owners is you might be the first one in your family to own a business.
- [11:46]
A
But.
- [11:46]
B
And you're going to struggle, and you're going to develop capabilities that you. That you have. You're going to find capabilities that you don't have that you need. You're going to grow, you're going to struggle, but there's somebody watching you do it. That will. Might be the unintended beneficiary. It might be your children. It might be a niece, a nephew, an aunt, or an uncle who's watching you operate a business. And that will be their early entrepreneurial experience that will lead them to be a business owner. But when it comes to finances, like you shared, I, you know, we didn't talk about that. We didn't have any, first of all, so we had nothing to talk about. But with my children, so when I grew up, I didn't know any better than to just be absolutely transparent. So I always just was very candid with them because I'm like, well, the world's beat the crap out of me. And I'm just. And you know, I'm going to share. I'm just going to tell you my view of it and not even that intentionally, but all of my children, they have a bent for making money and they, they understand it. They're. They're good with their. They're better with their money than I am. They. They save it, they make it. Um, it's. One of them's. One of, you know, some of them are more entrepreneurial than others, but the ones that. Not the ones is not entrepreneurial. She's. She's a professional and she's very good managing her money and investing her money. And, and I think, like, wow, like, so I, I'm trying to deconstruct it. Going back to it is. I never, like when I was under financial stress, I remember sitting down at the table and saying, okay, we're building the business. I've got $2 million in payables. I've got this big job we did in Florida after a hurricane. They're contesting it. We got $3.9 million due. I don't know if I'm going to get paid, you know, and I would. So I would just kind of process things in the business or payroll or, you know, these types of things. I never withheld anything from them. So in a way, you know, the nut. It was very nat. And I didn't. And it wasn't like I was trying to brag about the business. I was just talking about my day. And I never thought to, you know, I never thought to protect them from the information. And I think the unintended benefit to them is the fact that they grew up with being, thinking, talking about, like the game of running a business as normal.
- [14:01]
A
Right. No, I love that. And you're a rarity, let me tell you. That's probably why your. Your podcast is called Unemployable, because.
- [14:08]
B
Yeah, well, you already told me before we started that I was on the spectrum. I don't know how you knew.
- [14:13]
A
But listen, man, you're telling the Great story, because see slightly contrasted, but definitely on the same path. As Joanne and I started having kids, we agreed on one thing, and that was neither of us knew money. We didn't have any. We didn't know how to manage it because we. Neither of us had that education, if you will. We were insulated from that by one reason or another. But the point is that we swore that our kids would not struggle like we had to. And so we taught them about money. And then by the time. I. Now keep in mind, I had a whole career before I joined Great game of business 20 years ago. So I didn't know what I was teaching them, but I knew that they needed. I also swore that they would not study art, and so I forbade them to go to art School. My two oldest, 32 and 30. The oldest, Colin, is a creative director and an artist, and Madison is a fine artist, an illustrator. They're doing great. They're doing awesome, and I just love that they're doing way better than we ever did. And then my youngest has gone back to business school, which is really cool because he's had a stint in the real estate world and property management, and he's caught on how not to run a business by watching other people do it poorly. And what I love is he's going to make a really big impact on the world. But it doesn't matter if you're writing code or turning a wrench in a factory or. Or doing home services. You know, what I want to do is give people the freedom, the freedom to understand what separates the haves and have nots, and that's financial acumen. When they understand how money works and teach other people, it not only affects people at work, and I think they do better. They definitely are more productive, more efficient, and more, I think, trustworthy, because when the numbers become your own, you protect them. You know what I mean?
- [16:11]
B
Yeah.
- [16:12]
A
Sorry. I get passionate if I grab a tissue here later, you know, it's just gone too far.
- [16:16]
B
It's fine. It wouldn't. Wouldn't be the first time it's happened. Let's do this. So this is going the exact way it went when I talked to Jack the other day, is we talked about everything and we got into this great conversation. We just talked about life and the kids and AI and, you know, the whole banana. Right. And. And because he's such an interesting man, and I will tell you, I looked up to him a lot. It was. What was. What made an impact on me was how much I knew about him, how excited I was to have him on the podcast. I'd studied and, and used his works for 20 years and your work and he, he's probably one of the first guests that actually did a lot of research on me. Oh yeah, he used. Yeah. I mean he was, he cares. I mean, so he, he actually came in, he knew all about me. He had said it. He was so kind. He was so generous. And I was. But people don't do that. I mean they, they just don't do it. And I guess that's why he's Jack Stack and that's why he's been so successful. Is, is you could just tell that he really cares about people. And he, he's so considerate. I mean he was just so considerate. But what we didn't do for the audience, for the listeners, is give a simple overview of what the great Gamma business is. So I mean, and I have questions. Does it work in every company? Does it work better in some than others? Where does it. We have all of that, but I've heard you do it on another podcast and maybe I'll just get out of your way for a few minutes. And it's simplest form that people that don't know what the great game of business is, I will say that you should get on YouTube, you should buy the book the Great Game of Business, maybe the other book, which is get in the Game. And you should understand what a simple sensible way this is and, and, and why it's important that you educate everybody in your business to have financial acumen, not only for the benefit of your business, but the impact that it has on their personal lives and in their ability to like, like people grow up without financial acumen. So they don't know. I mean, I had a friend who had credit card debt.
- [18:19]
A
Yeah.
- [18:20]
B
And this person had credit card debt and it had kind of gotten up on them a little bit. And they, you know, it was high interest credit card debt and then they had a windfall of cash. And, and, and I'm like the common sense thing to do is to take that cash and pay off that 14,9% car loan and that 22,29% credit card loan. Because the compound interest you'll that you're going to pay by paying that off, it's going to change your monthly by $2,000 a month or whatever it is. But many people get caught up in it, right? And they're just like, okay, it's. And like the, the great game of business would tell you reduce debt, you know, you know, manage your Cash flow and do these things, but not everybody does. And frankly, I haven't always done it myself as well as I, I could.
- [19:09]
A
So you frame that whole thing in common sense, right? It's common sense to you now that you would pay down high interest and debt in general. But that is not the message people are getting every day. It's, oh, refinance that debt in our card. And by the way, lease this Hyundai. And oh, by the way, okay, so I volunteer. I'm on the board of directors of my local credit union that helped us out years ago when we were trying to figure out money and we just approved, to my chagrin, not only the 72 month car loan, but there is now a 100 month car loan.
- [19:45]
B
Sure, why not?
- [19:46]
A
Are you kidding me? And, but yet people gobble them up. How else can I afford it? They're not really doing the math.
- [19:54]
B
Yeah, look, cash is like oxygen. You don't know how bad you need it until you don't have any.
- [19:58]
A
Yes. So to answer your original question of walking through basically what this is and how it works, I think the principles are really important. So you gotta understand where the whole idea came from, is Jack needed a way to teach everybody business. And I'll explain why. In that episode you talked to Jack about the origins, I'm sure, of SRC and the whole thing. But in a nutshell, if you haven't listened to that yet, guys, this is the deal. Jack Stack and 12 other managers bought a dying division of International Harvester. They were going to lose their jobs. And what they did is they said, hey, we'd like to buy our jobs. So they asked International what they wanted for the business. Basically speaking, it was ridiculous, 9 million bucks. And they had to go out and try to find financing. But when you don't know about how financing works, you go, look, we're the best in the world at remanufacturing. Here's our certificates of best warranty, best safety record, best on time delivery. And at the banks are going, yeah, but how much money do you have to put down? You know? So after 54 rejections and a year and a half of trying, Jack learned about what the banks needed. It was one common thing, one common language universal to everyone, every country, every ideology. I mean, communists use the financials, right? Everyone uses the same financial statements and they're old, they're from the 1400s, 1494. Luca Pacioli, the father of modern accounting, gave us the income statement and the balance sheet you and I are talking about right now.
- [21:32]
B
That's incredible.
- [21:33]
A
It is incredible, and yet we don't have it as curriculum in our schools. No. Instead, what Jack had to do was, how do I get my people to understand this? Because we're going to have to behave differently. You can't just be a great technician. You could be the best in the world and lose everything. We've told you a couple of different examples now, right? Between the Life of PI story or the SRC story, you've got to be the best in the world, but you've got to also be a business person. That's part of the deal. And so he shifted everybody's thinking from we make great engines and engine components to we're building a great company. And a great company does not have this much debt. They did book the worst corporate buyout in American history. Jack probably didn't tell you that because he's so humble. 89, $8.9 million against $100,000 down. It's 89 to 1 financially. You're flatlining and no one told you?
- [22:29]
B
Right.
- [22:30]
A
So imagine this. Jack goes out, and now we're getting into the nuts and bolts of it. How does this work? Jack goes out to his team, and he's like, hey, we got the loan. We saved the jobs. Now we've got to get to work. And everybody's like, okay, great. Give me the tools and get the hell out of my way. Well, that's great. But that's what got us in this predicament the first time, in addition to being the best at what we do. And it doesn't matter again, if you're turning a wrench or you're an engineer or you're writing code or an artist.
- [22:55]
B
Artist.
- [22:56]
A
How do you build a great company? So Jack started with that. He put it in the center of the whole game. Now, I want you to picture three interconnecting ovals, right? A Venn diagram at the center is the critical number. Back then it was, we've got to make this bank loan statement payment rather. And the reason was, he went. Jack said, well, we could go after quality. We could go after more sales. We could go after lower production costs. But he said, I need one thing that will move all these other things. Because a great company wouldn't have this debt. In order to pay this loan, we're going to have to have great quality, great customer service, great sales, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And he had to connect people to it. The problem is this goes for every great technician, whether you're in medicine or, again, If. If you were power washing a home. You guys, it doesn't matter. What we've got to do is we got to teach people about this and tech great technicians will resist learning about the numbers because it sounds like you want me to be an accountant. No, thanks. That's not what I'm into. Right. Tell an artist that I want you to learn about the numbers. Oh, my God. I've been running from numbers my whole life, Jeff. So Jack figures out. Wait a minute. Everybody likes to win. You're a great example of that. You don't play to not lose. Jeff plays to win. He's going to. Whatever he gets into, he's going to win it. I think everybody on this podcast listens to you for that reason. So if you're going to play to win, well, what are the rules? How do we keep score and what's in it for me? So those three circles I described to you, interconnecting around make the bank loan payment was no. 1 teach the rules because Open book, who cares? Transparency is worthless without education. Tell me what it means and how I connect to it. Then follow the action to keep score. That's your second circle. That's literally where accountability and ownership go to live or die. And so we have those weekly financial huddles. We have training to make sure people have financial acumen. We never stop doing that. And we flip the funnel like you inferred earlier. I don't want to look at financial data from last month or last quarter. Yeah. I need it because it's informative. It tells us how things are trending. However, I need to ask everybody to look forward and tell me, how will the month end?
- [25:16]
B
Yeah.
- [25:16]
A
And I bet Jack talked a lot about that. Our forecasts at the SRC companies. And he told you there's. There's 12 different companies. We're the smallest at Great game of business. With 2,000 people and 12 businesses, you've got to have forecasts. So imagine it goes down to the smallest level. Each individual has numbers that they are forecasting, not just KPIs and metrics, because you can give me a quota and I'll give it right back to you. And I'm a good employee. But if I can see what I do to matter. And it doesn't matter if I'm literally creating sales or production of any kind of business. But what if I'm the HR director? What if I'm in it? A cost center still affects the numbers as well. So don't just cascade KPIs and metrics on people, make sure that we reconnect them to the financial outcomes of their daily work. And those decisions change when they see how it affects the numbers. So again, we've got at the center is that critical number. In the early days, it was make the bank loan payment. So there was no one teach the rules, meaning let's teach them how we make money and generate cash and how we make that bank loan payment and how they fit. Secondly, let's keep score by forecasting the numbers. And by the way, that leads us to the last one. A stake in the outcome, which is if we do all this, learn the business, run the business, what do I get for it? In the early days, the stake in the outcome was you get to keep your job.
- [26:42]
B
Right.
- [26:42]
A
Very quickly. I don't know if he told you this story, but I only learned it a few years ago, and I've been here a long time. Those original guys, the first year, they got so smart about the numbers just by having these weekly conversations or what we call huddles, because Jack was trying to make business fun and less. Oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Here's a great quote from him from the early days. He said, why does business get to be this elite sport for the select few that keeps everybody else in the dark and out of the money?
- [27:16]
B
Yeah.
- [27:16]
A
So all he would do, it's.
- [27:19]
B
It's a futile system.
- [27:20]
A
It is.
- [27:21]
B
It's. Everybody does what they're told, and then I make the money and I go live in the house on the hill.
- [27:27]
A
Right. And so what would happen if we broke down that system and said, I'm going to teach you how the lord, and I mean, like the feudal lord.
- [27:34]
B
Right.
- [27:35]
A
You know, made it. Oh, wow. I don't think I like that. But if everyone knew how the. The whole process made money, I guarantee you there'd be people going from one farm to the next to help out with the crop, you know, because we're. We're in a big, you know, more communal system. That doesn't sound right, but it is that it is definitely democratizing business by having people work together and sharing.
- [28:01]
B
Just a quick segue here. You're right in the middle of it. You did an incredible job articulating this. The Zappos book, Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. Yeah. There was four things that he said make people happy. And you want happy employees and not happy, like running around, but you want them content, you want them fulfilled, you want them to want to be there and to want to be part of it. And there was four things. Number one was perceived control. So giving people control over the outcome. People good. You're. If you want a high density of a players in your organization, you don't want to have the people you want to do the thinking for. I am not smart enough to do the thinking for 70 employees at Homefront Brands and a thousand franchise owners and employees running around across the country. I can't do your thinking for you. So I have to give you the tools to have control over the outcome so you know what happens to you. Perceived progress. Okay, well now that I know the numbers, if I impact this number, am I more likely to get a raise? Am I more likely to get a bonus? Am I more likely to. For this to turn into an esop. An employee owned company? Am I more likely to maybe even understand enough to I can go out and start my own business or be a supplier to the company? So now they have. You're giving them the tools for progress. Because negative progress is one of the greatest dissatisfactors in life. Nobody likes to look backwards and say my relationship was better last year, I made more money. You know, no, negative progress is one of the greatest dissatisfactors. Which is why, you know, social media being relative to people, you feel like you're making progress and you see, perceive other people are making more progress. That can be a dissatisfactor. The next one is connectedness and belonging. So you want to be. So what makes a great team is a shared vision and a shared fate. Everybody pulling in the same direction, everybody knowing what winning looks. What is the definition of winning? I think we had a great year. I worked shifts and extra shifts and we put the tractors out and we sold them. And then I come to the financial report and we find out we lost money this year and there's no bonus. Like what, how, you know, I didn't even know the game that I was losing, much less the game that I was winning. And then the last thing is the pursuit of a worthy ideal or a vision like, you know, working backwards from, you know, some future state. Right. So those are the four elements that he said makes people happy. And I've always, I thought that was so brilliant. And you know, and, and look, you've just, you know, giving people understanding. Like what does the goal look like at the end of the year? What when I shoot, when I put it in the goal, when I put it in the net. Like, okay, what does it mean? How many points is it? And is it a three pointer? Is it a two pointer? So, you know, all of those things, the great game of business. It takes what would be a end of the year financial report. It's almost like opening up a present and saying, I wonder what's in here. Did we lose money? Did we make money? I don't know. How did you do? I felt I worked hard, you know, I produced more widgets, but I didn't realize that the cost went up. And you know, we, we, you know, ever. We lost 10 bucks on every widget we made versus taking it and, and, you know, setting the game board out at the beginning of the year and letting everybody have a piece.
- [31:12]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And knowing what that outcome could be. I just think it's fascinating because people like go, I can't get my people to forecast the numbers. That's just crazy. I mean, they'll say, well, what am I, a fortune teller? And I'm always trying to remind them. I go, just, okay, everybody take a breath, you know, let's breathe together. And then say, your job is not to predict the future. Your job is to create or influence it. And so when somebody says to me, and believe me, everybody says it, I said it too, like, this is going to be a total fabrication because that's all I had ever done in a previous career, right? Because I didn't know what it all meant or why it mattered. You come into an src, great game company and suddenly it's like, tell us what you think is going to happen by the end of the month. And the thing is, when you add that up from everyone, guess what you end up with is now I know what this department's going to do. And this department and this department, pretty soon you're going, not only are we forecasting our numbers, we're forecasting, I think you said, as you said, a shared destiny, a shared future, which could be bonuses, career path, all the things that you mentioned. But the beauty of it is, guess what forecasting does? It gives you more control, which you have pointed out so beautifully in Tony Hsieh's book. That number one predictor of happiness in human is some kind of control or agency or autonomy. If you tell me here, here's your quota, right? That's what other business operating systems do so well, is they like, here's your number where everybody's got a number. Everybody's got a number. Well, of course they do, but they're creating the number. The CEO and the board of directors and the shared services, they aren't making any numbers in the business. And if the CEO is selling, I would question, are they really acting as CEO? Do you know what I mean? That. Yes, there's.
- [33:00]
B
Sure.
- [33:01]
A
So just bear with me. What I'm saying is everybody's got a number, but it's. Everyone's creating a number. I want the person out in the field, in that mobile medical system to tell me, how many flu shots do you think you can give? How many people will you serve? You know, and this is very mission centric, which is the fourth one you mentioned. If we can have a worthy cause, I'd even call it a noble cause. The thing is, what if one of those was, I want to elevate every single person's life that works here. You can also elevate the lives of the people you serve and the vendors that you work with, you know? Right. We can pay on time. Fast pay makes fast friends. We can also do phenomenal work and. And really show people what it can be like. But all of that should add up to what's in it for me. Dude.
- [33:51]
B
Yeah.
- [33:51]
A
We just went through Christmas. Tell me you watched Christmas vacation at least once. Of course. Okay, so Clark W. Griswold, right? Every year for 17 years, we've gotten a bonus. We expect it as part of our salary. I can't tell you that movie came out in 1989. I thought I was Clark W. Griswold because I didn't know anything about business. I've been, you know, trying to figure out how to make money doing art. I had to get a real job. And then I found out I was just getting more numbers poured down on me rather than anything else I didn't have. Didn't know it could be different. The beauty of it is there's so many good lessons in that movie because Clark was digging a hole for a pool he could not afford based on a bonus he wasn't sure he was going to get. Holy crap. All Jack Stack did was pull the curtain back and say, you want a pool, you want to send your kids to school, you want a lake house, you want to. You know what I mean? It's all there for you. We just have to build a great company to provide all the things that you want. Oh, my gosh. If people can understand that, think of how much more powerful it is to have 10, 102,000 people behind a cause when they really understand what they do, to push it forward and to make a point.
- [35:05]
B
Look, it's not socialism. It's distributed capitalism. It's letting people participate like entrepreneurs, like owners. And look we're very purpose based and passion based and mission based here at Homefront Brands. But you know, I was in business, I was in a business class, probably economics class back in college and we said, what's the purpose of every company? People are like, sell more things, make this, change the world, blah, blah, blah. He said, no, it's profit, it's profit because there is no outcome without income. You can't do any of the things that you said if you're not making money because now all you're going to do is going to be saving your hide every single day, keep the creditors away. And so without, if you don't run a responsible business, you can't be responsible in the community, you can't be responsible in the, in the world. So like our first mission is to build a business that's efficient and effective and profitable so that we can do the things that we want to do that make a difference in the world.
- [36:01]
A
I love it. And I think that people, when they learn about money at work and they get better at it, they get better with money at home. And we've got a huge problem out there. You know this. Oh yeah, I've lived it and I still work. That's something I'm passionate about, is personal financial acumen. Because I don't want people to go through what we went through. And this just, it just again, it pulls that curtain back. It lets people see, oh, this is the goal. You know what we should try is this. Will their ideas always be right? Not necessarily. But you don't know who you've got working with you. I mean, one of the cool practices of great game of Business to me is called mini games. And Jeff, I don't know how exposed you got to this, but it's like, what can we do in 90 days? Like, we'll create a small reward, a medium reward, a large reward just to improve a number, whether it's financial or operational. And you guys build it, you guys pick the prizes. In other words, this is a really key phrase I think every listener should write down. People support what they help create. If they create the numbers, the plan, the goal, pick the objective, figure out the drivers to it, make a scoreboard, have regular meetings or huddles like we would say, to talk about progress, as you pointed out, and to forecast what we can do, oh my gosh, you don't even have to be open book to do that. But it's so powerful because I, dude, I have so many different examples over 20 years and that's only the 20. I've been there. Great game of business that have been around for decades more. What I'm trying to get at is I love the fact that it could be a not for profit, it could be a big OEM manufacturer, it could be small business, let's say retail, it could be medicine. I've seen them in everything, even government and education. People are so creative. The same ones that tell you I can't draw a straight line when it's theirs. You find out They've got a 3D printer and a large format printer and they've got this and they've got that, and they create these amazing things because they got to pick the theme and build the scoreboard and pick the prizes. So it's not about manipulation, it's about education and a challenge to rise. Meaning when we learn enough about this, like, we'll always start with the income statement because that's essentially an org chart of your business. Everyone appears on it somewhere. Show them where they fit, teach them that for a year. Right? But eventually they're going to need to understand how the balance sheet is affected and how cash flow works. Because like you said, the objective of every business should be profitable. But even Jack Stack will tell you the objective. You have to make money and generate cash, Right? Because you can make money on paper and still not make payroll. So I wasn't. I'm not telling you that I'm disagreeing with you. I'm saying we're on the same page.
- [38:47]
B
Yes.
- [38:48]
A
People have to deal in cash flow every single day at home. And usually it's very tense, right? And a lot of anxiety. But they're figuring out, do I pay the streaming bill or do I keep my phone on? You know what if we could help them understand that, okay, you already know a lot more about money than you think. But we're going to give you the good information and we're going to give you an opportunity to raise yourself. So one of my favorite things is so many of our practitioners around the world over these, whatever it is, 42 or 43 years that src and great game has been around is that people, they teach us stuff. Jeff, you teach us stuff because someone comes up with, hey, I'm going to have a buy a car program. We're having a whole lot of people not showing up because they can't get here. Their car isn't reliable. So we'll create it. And I'm like, what are you doing? We don't even do that at src. And then they came up with Another one, buy a house program. I'm like, good Lord, you know, they're helping build people, build their credit. Yes, we do all kinds of financial literacy and personal financial literacy and executive financial literacy courses off the shelf, but there's so many available. Just try to get smarter so that you can make your people a little smarter. And then ask them, what would you do? They will need your help. They will need your infinite passion and patience, and they need your experience. And don't worry about will they go start their own company. Because I find that the better you treat people, the more they want to stick around. And we have a lot of boomerangs in our community, meaning people will leave for money, more money, but then they'll come back within a year or so because they're like, it wasn't worth it, and I'm living in the dark. Yeah.
- [40:32]
B
You'd mentioned quotas a couple of times. When do companies use quotas? And they have. They go bad or it creates a disincentive of the type of behavior that's in the best interest of the company.
- [40:45]
A
Yeah, well, the. I mean, I could tell you since I worked in factories, you know, my first job was in a wood factory. And, you know, you move very quickly if you're smart and you're good with people and you really want to work hard. I would always find myself at this ceiling where if I wasn't family or I wasn't marrying in, that was as high as you get, like national sales manager or something. I ended up as national sales manager, marketing. And I ran a part of the factory because they said, well, we don't even want to make that stuff anymore. If you want to sell it, you got to make it. And the thing was, I was writing cost calculations. I knew all of this and that, but I never really knew if we made money or not. And frankly, I don't think we did half the time because they just couldn't let me see. Right. Maybe. Maybe I would say, I don't want to make that stuff anymore. I don't know if I'm making sense.
- [41:40]
B
I've experienced where quotas kind of create the great game of sandbagging.
- [41:44]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that you use that term also.
- [41:47]
B
Yeah. You create a quota, you give it to a sales team, and they're just trying to figure out, like, how do I get the biggest incentive, and if I push the quota lower and then I exceed it, what do I get so they don't give you a true shot at it? How does a Great game of business. Keep quotas honest and accurate.
- [42:05]
A
Because people.
- [42:06]
B
Look, one of the hallmarks of a. Of a. Of a. Of a business. I don't remember where I heard this was their ability to forecast accurately. It's, you know, it's like. It's like six Sigma, right? It's like if you're too early, it's as bad as being too late. It's like you got to be right on because you're spending against a budget, you're spending against a forecast. It'd be great if you could blow your sales forecast out, but you can't count on that and spend against it, and then it doesn't happen. So, you know, how do you. What is. What. What are some of the things that people can do to get accurate projections?
- [42:38]
A
Well, the first thing. So I love that you brought me back to quotas again, because I did have a thought. I wanted to finish on that, which is usually quotas are simply metrics that we have laid upon people and said, this is what you got to do. That's the job. Of course we have those kinds of measures, but I would never call them quotas. What I want to do is I want to ask people, what would it take to get this many units down the line, get this many houses painted, get this many clients serviced, get this many lines of code written, right? You tell me, you're the expert. And nobody knows the job better than the person doing the job. They must have been hired for some kind of expertise, I would hope. If not, we better be training them. So what we do is instead of saying, here's your quota, we say, here's what we need. Here's the plan for the business. And now we can break it down and say, in our area, this is what we need to accomplish. How do we need to do that? The first thing people will do if they don't have enough information is, I need a new computer, I need a new truck, I need a new this, I need a new. If only we had a robot. But what happens is when it becomes their number, when ownership shifts, and I'm talking about mental, psychic ownership of a task, when it shifts from the boss to you. And they say, oh, well, shoot, you know what I'd do is I'd straighten this conveyor out. I'd make sure we. You know, I'll always ask for more people. But I'm also looking at it from a business standpoint and saying, what does it really cost to employ a person? Most people don't even know that. So we Actually get right down to that. And then the way we take it to the future is we say if those folks are involved in setting the goals for the business, what happens is to us, it's what we call high involvement planning, high involvement culture, if we work together on it. And my job as a leader is to help to educate and also challenge you and say, well, here's what the marketplace says. You say this many. The marketplace is doing this. How do we close that gap? Because it's not the boss telling you, it's the market. And they're the ones who set our wages, by the way. Right. So what we do is we try to help bring people up so that they can say, this is what I think is going to happen, honestly. And you're right. Forecasting too low or too high, bad problem. Because they both throw you into a situation, where can I cash flow? Do I have enough resources to make it happen? We have to cut back. But the thing is, this is the takeaway. If you want to get people to think more about the future, remember that if you're in control of your forecast, that means forecast accuracy. Jeff, just like you said then you are in control of your own plan, you're in control of your own future. And what Jack would say is you're in control of your own destiny. That's a big one. But it's all true. And we do it all the time. Right. I think I told you before we came online that I'm currently in Florida. My family came with me for a week, which was beautiful. We celebrated New Year here on the beach. That's awesome. Doesn't happen without planning. You know what I mean? It's like I better make a budget for that. And while not everyone is going to be the same level of engagement, I'm just going to give you an example. Joanne, my wife, speech path, she doesn't want to see my plan for the trip. She wants an awesome trip. And you know. Right. So she doesn't want to see all the numbers. Yeah. But in reality what I need is people who will embrace the numbers because we all want good outcomes. Right. But you know that, that last circle we talked about, knowing and teaching the rules, follow the action to keep score. There's your forecasting and forecast accuracy that determines the stake in the outcome. For most folks it would be a self funding, team based bonus program. Well, I want to tell you so Joanne has been a speech pathologist for 35 years. She's probably the best in the state of Missouri. I think she's A miracle worker for what she does. She can turn around entire school systems. And she's been doing that for a couple of decades. Out of that 35 years. Here's what's interesting. She finally said, you know, I've had enough of doing all the paperwork and this. I just like the therapy. I like helping the kids and turning their lives around. So she went to work for an agency, and they just pay her hourly wage. The first year she was there, she got a $500 bonus. She wept, Jeff. She wept. She cried because no one had ever given her a bonus. Right. She's an education that doesn't happen.
- [47:02]
B
Right.
- [47:02]
A
The beautiful part is, is I'm an idiot. And so me being the guy that I am, I'm like, ooh, what'd you do to get it? She almost threw the check at me. You know what I'm saying? The next year, she got a $50 gift card to a local store. Let me just say, she's a really angelic person, but she was sort of like, if she could have said these words. She's like, what the hell? You know? And I. But I was smarter this time. I got to be a better husband by not asking, what? Well, what didn't you do to get this? Yeah. So the thing is, that particular bonus structure that the owner of this agency, and by the way, he follows a business system. I'm not going to mention what it is, but only partially. And it certainly isn't a great game. But what's funny is he knows intrinsically, he wants to reward his people, but they have no idea how it works. And that black box is worse than anything. You're right. Back to Clark W. Griswold. Well, wait a minute. Why did I get jelly of the month? So what I want to do is I want people, I'm going to ask them to help set the goals, to help forecast the numbers, to work at whatever you do at world class level so we can beat the market. And if we're better than market, we deserve better than market. But all year long, we can be forecasting our numbers. That means we can forecast our own bonuses. That's when the stake in the outcome works. So, again, sorry for the long personal story, but, dude, it's really hard to see your loved ones being treated the way you've been treated your whole career. You know what I mean? Before. And I want that transparency for everybody now, because it's like, well, why does the boss have to pick out what the number is? Let the numbers decide. And all year we can be working toward that instead of fighting over there all year.
- [48:42]
B
Yeah, look, in your example of the vacation, you put the budget together, you're paying for logistics. I don't know how you do it, but if I invite my kids down, I'm going to pay for the travel, I'm going to pay for the room, I'm going to do all that. But her department was probably the fun department. So she probably wasn't responsible for picking the restaurants or setting this up or setting this activity up. And she inside of that was probably like, well, that place would be really expensive. It's the white tablecloths. We don't, we can go here on this date for New Year's Day, but then we're going to go here for this. So she had her own, she had her own control over if it works the way in your family, as it does in my family. Like we're responsible for different things. Like I know when there's a trip getting planned, like I get out of the way. Other than the fact that I'm, you know, consulted on budgetary items, like do we want to take the helicopter ride or you know, do we, do we want to ride the camels into the desert? What do we want to do, you know, which is as well, how much, you know, you know, get me over the hump. How much is this going to cost?
- [49:45]
A
So that's really cool. Could I riff off of that for a second?
- [49:49]
B
That's what we're here for.
- [49:51]
A
Dude. I really think you hit on something that's magical and that is over the years, Joanne still doesn't want to see the numbers because see where I didn't have any access to money or money information when I was a kid. She grew up in a military family, so they never had money. They were always moving. And all of the talk about money was bad, you know, and so imagine how diseased our relationship with money was. So she doesn't want the anxiety of the money. But what we do do is I'll put together a budget, I'll have it on the table and I'll say, hey, this is what we can do. We can do five days with all this, we can do seven with this, we could do nine with this. And she'll start to say, well, maybe we don't have to ride the camels into the desert.
- [50:34]
B
Right.
- [50:34]
A
If we could take a six person dune buggy or, you know, that sort of thing. So the beautiful part is that in business now, that's at home, right? You're always going to have Like Dave Ramsey says, you have the, the numbers nerd and like the free spirit budget adjuster or something. That's our relationship. But in business, guess what? Joanne's not my employee. And I'm just telling you, in family owned businesses, you got to figure out who is the person that embraces the numbers. In a normal business that's not all family, what I would tell you is you're probably going to bring people in and you say, this is how we do it here. We talk about the numbers, we forecast the numbers, we share in the benefits, but this is the way we do it here. It ain't for everybody, Jeff. And you know this. You've seen this happen, right? I want people to at least be able to agree that we're going to work toward that common goal. I don't need everybody to be an accountant.
- [51:24]
B
Sure.
- [51:24]
A
Hell, I don't want to be one. I love accountants. They keep me out of trouble. But I don't have to become a GAP accountant. I can just understand how money flows through, just like in any business or any other home on the planet. And so for me, that what you've kind of unveiled for me is that in business to me, what happens is it's sort of cultural Darwinism, a culture of accountability and high involvement, to me, that attracts and retains a certain group of people and some people who like to kind of operate in the shadows. Your sandbaggers, your heroes, all these kinds of things. Or someone who's just a freeloader and just like, hey, I've worked here for 15 years and nobody's told me, boo, but nobody's firing me. So I'm just going to keep doing it. You know what? If somebody doesn't fit in, I'm going to help them get a job with our competitor.
- [52:16]
B
Right.
- [52:16]
A
Because that's where they should be.
- [52:18]
B
Yeah.
- [52:18]
A
And I'll take the high performers every time. So, long story short is I just feel like, you know, it's about understanding. There was a lot of resistance at the beginning, and 83 is my understanding now. Remember, I wasn't there then, but that story I was gonna tell you earlier is fascinating. Along these lines that we're talking because you have a situation where at the beginning it was the critical number was just make the bank loan payment. But if you're meeting about that all the time, talking about debt, bad, equity, good, you're learning all the time, even if you're resistant to it, it's like, okay, whatever. But eventually what they figured out was that $9 million purchase price included $2 million of inventory that was considered dead or obsolete. Holy moly. Somebody got smart enough, I mean, I'm talking on the factory floor, and said, wait a minute about this. Yeah, we're paying 18% interest on $2 million. If we liquidate that, turn it into cash, we won't be paying interest on $2 million of 18%. Yes, they created their own bonus plan because they got smart about the numbers. Not accounting wise, but just simply as you pointed out earlier. What should we do first? Why don't we pay down debt? For goodness sakes, man, it's everywhere and yet it's under the surface of all the social media and the capitalism's bad and all of that stuff. It's. Money is a tool. It doesn't care. It's agnostic. What if we could just make more? We could do better at work, better at home and better in our communities.
- [53:50]
B
Look, and I think people have to make the paradigm shift that says just because you're looking at the numbers doesn't make you the fun police. You know, my, my wife will say, what's the, what's the budget for the vacation? I'll be like, ah, you know, and I'll throw a number. I say, well, who's going and how long is it? And I'll be like, okay, how about this? And she'll be like, and then, you know, and then she'll start with that as a premise and, and then she'll start, you know, how much fun can we have for that amount of money in this venue for this? And we can, and she'll, but like she needs a target to work within. And then of course the, then you come back to the fun police and they say, well I really need, I need more. Right, but that's the way it is in a company and the finance people and somebody, look, somebody has to be the adult in the room because what you're doing on a vacation is you're balancing a future memory based on an experience you're going to have for the future value of those dollars invested at 8% over the next 20 years. Okay, so you're basically saying I'm buying with the, you know, in a thousand dollars at 8%, 25 years from now is like 65 grand, something like that. Better be saying, well I'm going to spend $65,000 of my grandkids money today to ride the camels into the desert, you know, and then we'll have pictures and social media post right, until we get canceled. And then so we've, and but you're, you're making these value decisions on, you know, living today. You know, and I, I heard somebody shared with me this great post that said, you know, anything that you have, anything, any assets that you have when you die are just wasted because they go unused. You know, one day your house, somebody else is going to live in your house, somebody else is going to have your things, somebody else going to have your. So it's like, you know, now it's like, well, you know, I, I do you live a little bit today. And you know, not everything's about the almighty dollar. You know, it's, it's, what are you doing? But in a company, you know, the business office is looked at as the fun police. And one of the things like why would the business office be in charge of technology? Like, well, that's because they're trying to control the cost there. But are they really close enough to know the needs of the business type thing? So it's, you know, sometimes you have to say no. And, and, but the, the, it's, the power is in the conversation. The power is in the conversation going down. And we just had this, we had a $78,000 budget line item for this year. We have it in Capex. We're in our executive meeting yesterday and the question is, is do we need to spend this now? Do we need to spend it next quarter or do we need to spend it at all? And this particular Capex item in one of our brands was an integration that was going to make the business more transparent, easier to operate for our franchise owners. It was going to integrate these systems so that now we had the seamless view. And, and they were, they didn't have to operate in two systems in one system. And I'm, and I said, well, look, I understand that every, every so, but we, but what we ended up doing was we went all the way down not only to the brand president, the operations people, and ultimately to our franchise advisory council to, to, to validate that the impact that we were thinking we were buying for $78,000 was the impact that we would actually get and when and for us. I mean, if I can have franchisees 3% happier across a brand and 10% more efficient and effective with their time, and I'm buying back their time with more efficiency. And that $78,000 is not even a rounding error. It's like a piece of gum for us, you know, and, but the other side of it is what if I had found out that what we thought was going to be the Impact was not actually going to be the result that we were going to the outcome that we were buying and that we were making a decision. So what, what, what it does is it forces you to have the conversations again with all the stakeholders, all the way down to the operators to make in the people that actually know, like, what would this save you? What would this really save? Tell me through, walk me through your day and tell me what kind of impact this would make having this, knowing where every single one of our products was on every job in a barcoded system so that you could do inventory forecasting and better and all of the things. And it was like it was just a no brainer. But sitting in the executive meeting, I was, I hesitated to make the call without that information.
- [58:16]
A
Well, I think that is because you're a great leader. What you just described, Jeff, is what we call high involvement planning. In other words, you're literally going to the floor.
- [58:26]
B
Yes.
- [58:26]
A
You know, the people that make the money. You're saying, is this a good idea? Is this not a good idea? We're not abdicating leadership, that's just good leadership. By saying, what is it? And what would you do differently? How deep do we go? What investment do we make? That sort of thing. You're quantifying everything and then you're rolling it back up and saying, this is why we're doing it. Well, now I can make a case to anyone and say, here's the impact, et cetera. What if everybody was doing that and everybody was looking at that outcome? I would assume, I don't know all the details of your franchise model, but I'd assume that you get a portion of their revenue as, as part of their fee, if you will. That's coming back up. Yes. So the better your franchisees do, the better the franchisor does.
- [59:12]
B
That's correct.
- [59:12]
A
In other words, why wouldn't we ask them what they want? Of course they're going to ask for more than they can ever have. I want them to. But somewhere in all those things, when you make a financial case and that's the difference, that's what you did, you just go down and say, hey guys, what would be the best thing to do ever? Instead you said, here's something that could make a huge impact and we can quantify it all the way back up to the top and hey, let's do it. You know, this is why that high involvement is so much, because I'll go back to it. People support what they help create. If you asked me as an operator And I was part of it. I'd be your first evangelist. I would call other franchisees for you and say, dude, you got to adopt this. This thing is great. And by the way, there's a shortcut, clickety clack control, XZ tab, up, down, you know, whatever. Because now I'm like, hey, headquarters values me because they asked me. I was part of that decision. Oh, now I can tell. Right? People support what they help create. Yeah.
- [60:10]
B
Steve, there's not a business owner on the planet that shouldn't be exposed to the Great Game of Business. They're not all going to implement it. There's other systems. There's, there's, you know, okrs and traction and blah, blah, all the things. Right, yes. Scaling up and all of that. But, but the Great Game of Business is a philosoph that fits inside of all of those things. It's the thinking, it's the cadence, it's the, it's really the philosophy of it. So what we didn't do with Jack the other day, what I'd like you to do, is tell us about the great game of business practice. What are the ways that companies, if you're a business owner right now, if you're a franchisee or a franchisor and you wanted to learn more, what's available to me? What can I buy, what can I attend, what can I. How do I get involved?
- [60:52]
A
Well, thank you for asking because I think that's a huge thing you pointed out earlier. Everyone should read the book. And that's where I'll start out. Just being. Because you're listening to the unemployable podcast. What I want you to do is go to greatgame.com steve and you'll be able to listen to the audiobook for free. I actually drugged Jack into the recording studio years ago to do that. It's pretty cool to hear it in his own voice because it's a hell of a story. Greatgame.com Steve and there's also tons of free resources and tools available on the website as well, just@greatgame.com but the key is when you go to greatgame.com Steve is. I've tried to put together a couple of things for you. The audiobook is a must, and you should at least consider doing a mini game in the next 90 days. We're at the beginning of the year right now. If you're listening to it later in the year, you're at the beginning of a month or a quarter. Right. So why don't you go for it and There's a little guide in there that walks you through the 10 steps of creating your own 90 day self funding incentive plan. We call them mini games to drive. If you're an EOS or a scaling up person, those quarterly rocks, if you are an OKR person, you've got KPIs on your own, metrics out the wazoo. This is going to appeal to you because we measure everything. The difference is we flip the funnel on the information, we ask the people doing the job, how can it be better? And then we forecast everything. And I would say since you mentioned them anyway, that the beauty of it is please do read traction and scaling up and four disciplines of execution. What you'll find is these are all awesome systems. There's just nothing older and more time tested and battle proven than the great game of business. The thing that separates it is do you believe your people can learn business and do you believe that having them be business people will make you happier, live longer, make more money, build value. And I'm telling you, you can do it if you want to do it. Yeah.
- [62:57]
B
If they're not, if they're not interested, then you probably have the you then they have, you can find them. You know, they didn't lose their job. It's just when they know where it is. But when, when they show up next week, somebody else is doing it. Right. You help them find a way to their competitors if they're not interested, if they're not interested in playing and being part of the solution. Getting that engaged.
- [63:18]
A
Yeah. It's not a requirement. It's not, not for everybody. And as I mentioned before we started, I didn't actually say you were on the spectrum, but I did say that there was a spectrum.
- [63:28]
B
That's what I heard.
- [63:31]
A
We all hear what we want to hear. Right?
- [63:32]
B
Right.
- [63:33]
A
That's why we never stopped teaching. But that spectrum is, you know, from full command and control. Nobody gets any of the numbers. That's it. Just do your job. Nothing more, nothing less. All the way to we're all hippies and there's doves and rainbows everywhere and everything's omokimono. No, we don't share salary information. We're somewhere in between. Right. Of we're saying they need to understand how to make money and generate cash. So I guess where I'm at is we're all on that spectrum somewhere. It's not for everybody, but I would encourage you to challenge yourself and say, well maybe I do care about my people in a different way. And you will find out it is the most freeing leadership development program there is. And how do you scale? You've got to build from underneath. You can't just. I mean, yes, you could acquire, acquire, acquire. But everybody talks to me about, well, what about culture? What about culture? Are you kidding me? The best culture in the world is a culture of ownership, of people who think and act and feel like an owner does. And they don't have to be equity owners. They just need to own what they do, share their awesomeness and see the results. You've done a great job of outlining this against all these great systems, but also against Tony Hsieh's book and that sort of thing. Jack will never tell you this, but there's two things you need to know. One is that book that was published in 92, the Great Game of Business, has been cited in over 150 other best selling business books, including the ones that the Netflix people put out. And I mean, it just keeps coming in, right? It's been around, it's proven, it's out there. The second thing is value creation. Jack's not doing this only to save the world. He knows that the bigger and better we become, the more impact we have on people. Which is the world in 83. If you put a thousand bucks in your 401k, the S&P 500 will give you somewhere around 3, $400,000 return today. 1,000 bucks with Berkshire Hathaway, 4.4 million. But if you were crazy enough like Jack was to believe that people could learn business, they want to learn business. And they will make a difference if they understand what you're trying to accomplish. That same thousand dollars in 83. Today at SRC, every thousand dollars is worth 14 million. Wow. I don't know how you can argue with it. I just think you need to explore it, check it out, see if it's right for you and your people. Because I want you to get the very best out of life. I really do. And that's why I wrote my other book. Quality Time Remaining was like, I've seen people struggle and fight and punch through and win business. And to wake up one day and go, what was it for? Did we have the experiences you described? Did we make sure that we paid attention to the. The true meaning of life? Which I kind of think is to. Well, maybe not the meaning of life, but an objective that I think is really related. There is to have experiences that someday I will experience nostalgia for. That's a good life, baby.
- [66:40]
B
That is. That is. Steve, this has been incredible. Is There anything else that you want to share for business owners or franchisees out there that you think would be meaningful? And when we're done, you've already told us how to get in touch with you atthegreatgame.com backslash. Steve, I'm going to ask you for anywhere else people can get in touch with you. Anywhere else you want to direct people, then I'm going to ask you to play. I'm going to shoot you a curveball and a fastball right down the middle. But is there anything, is there anything else you want to cover before we. Before we tug gently on the reins of this nag and move it towards the barn?
- [67:12]
A
Well, for what it's worth, I would highly recommend that you. It's. It is great game.com and it is a forward slash, regular old slash, Steve. But the. Yeah, I think we covered most of it. I'm just telling you, if a guy like me, an art guy, since, I mean, since I was a kid, I always thought I'd be designing, you know, theme parks. Right. You know what I mean? Well, I probably could now because I would know how to run a business. It is the most freeing thing I've ever experienced in my life. I wish I would have found it when I was 20. So my, my last ask is at least go check it out, talk to some people, call us. We'll introduce you to someone in your business somewhere else that's not competing with you to tell their story and just check out all the great case studies and tools. That's what I would ask.
- [68:02]
B
Awesome. Yeah. And I highly recommend and highly endorse everything at the Great Game of Business. And oh, I had something else I was going to share real quick, but I can't remember what it is right now.
- [68:17]
A
No problem.
- [68:17]
B
It was, ah, that's why I write things down as I'm going here. But I write, I write little because they're fleeting thoughts or they're fleeting thoughts. And that one, that one fleeted away from me. Maybe I'll remember it.
- [68:30]
A
Okay.
- [68:31]
B
Here. Yeah. Okay. So that's how everybody can get in touch with you. Get in touch with a great game of business. Highly, highly, highly recommend it. And here's the curveball. Steve, gun to your head. You've got to start. Oh, let's go back. I know what it was. AI it is time for the rise of the creatives. You are a creative. Are you using AI? Have you incorporated it into the great game? It just. And look, every podcast is. Hey, what are you doing with AI? How's it, you know, it's all. It's everybody talking about AI. We didn't talk about it at all. But from your perspective, having a view of so many companies that are. And that are engaged with, with your consultancy and engaged with the product and the practice and the tools. What? Well, how are you seeing AI in the great game of business? And how are you personally expanding your productivity using it as a creative.
- [69:25]
A
So I'll answer the first part about how I use it. Because I'm still a fledgling user, I use it as a partner, a thought partner. In other words, I might say, look, because I can draw or design anything you want. That's one thing that I just was born with. I guess I don't. And maybe developed over the years. But what I have found is it allows me to go through a lot of iterations quicker because it'll come up with crazy stuff and I could ask it questions. And when I'm writing, I can use it to say, how would you say this differently? Half the time I'm going back to my own thoughts. Anyway, it just helped me see, okay, this is the equivalent of having a little mastermind group or something. But I want to probably answer it better for you in a couple of ways with my kids. So my oldest, Colin, uses AI every single day and has since before it turns out I even knew what the hell AI was really going to look like because he's constantly doing an animation, a video edit. He's developing a new package for Starbucks. He's doing this, he's doing that. It's a combination, right? It's a tool for him that he knows how to use. My daughter, who's a fine illustrator. Oh, God. You mentioned AI. This happened at. Here at the beach house. Holy crap. I mean, she's. Oh, they're scraping the Internet and. And I'm like, honey, I don't think you're thinking about this right? It's not trying to take your job. How are you going to use it? The best thing is, though, all three of them, as we were talking about AI, they said one thing for sure. They said, look at this. And I'll tell you what, it happened right here. There was a puzzle already in this house. They put it together, then they ripped it apart verbally by saying, that's AI. Look, this. Let's Animals, right? And there was a moose with a tongue, you know, in its nose, and there was six toes on some other beast. And they were going, that's AI. That's AI. That's AI. What I love is they are young and smart enough to see what AI can and cannot do well. And I think that's the magic for me as an older guy. It's tough. And I know Jack uses AI a ton as a thought partner. But I will remind you, your audience of this we had at our annual conference that we've been doing for 33 years. We had Annie Duke, a big poker champion, come in and talk about probability and luck and controlling your future and all that sort of thing. And when the audience imagine 600 people asking the question of, what about AI? What about AI? She goes, Just remember, AI is a liar. It is designed to keep you using it, and it'll tell you whatever you want to hear. So my big thing is, how am I using it? I use it as a thought partner, and then I say, forget everything you know about me. How would you answer it now? Because that stuck with me. It's like, oh, it's going to tell me whatever I want to hear. That's confirmation bias, the enemy of creativity. So I hope that answered your question, Jeff.
- [72:19]
B
Yeah, we did a podcast with a guy named Jeff Woods. G E O F F Woods, the AI he wrote the AI Driven Leader. I read that. Yes. This thing has been shared. He. He gave it to us, Jeff, if you're listening out there, he gave it to us, man. In the first 15 minutes of that podcast, and everybody. I had all 70 of our employees listen to it and respond to me how they were going to use that method to improve their jobs. And all of them used it and sent something to me. All of our franchise owners said it changed their life. I highly recommend it. I don't remember what episode, but if you. If you go to the unemployable podcast, you go to Jeff Woods. You've even listened the first 15 or 30 minutes of it. He tells you exactly. And. And you will never use AI the same after you hear how his method in doing it. And it basically makes AI a thought partner and an interviewer of you. Yes. So it basically.
- [73:11]
A
Great prompts in that book and in the PDF that accompanies the audiobook. That helped me a lot, and I use a lot of Jeff's prompts.
- [73:19]
B
Awesome, awesome. That's great. Highly recommend anybody out there. If they haven't checked it out yet, check it out on the unemployable podcast. All right, Steve, sounds great.
- [73:27]
A
Here we go.
- [73:28]
B
Curveball to you. Gun to your head. You've got to start a business in the next 30 days. It can't be something you're Currently doing. Where do you see the opportunity in the marketplace. You had to start a new business.
- [73:39]
A
For me, it would have to be something niche. And the reason I'm saying that is because I think that's where, like Verne Harnish says, the riches are in the niches. What is not being addressed right now. What is that need? I mean, you're immediately made me think of, oh, hell, there's a huge, huge group of people called baby boomers who really don't want to learn about AI but they're going to have to. What if you created something around that? But I would look at the market first, right? So gun to my head, it would be find a niche that I can go after and then apply my. My general business knowledge to build an organization where as soon as possible, I could get other people doing it so I can Tom Sawyer that thing.
- [74:19]
B
Yeah.
- [74:19]
A
Now, I. Did I answer your question? Because I have a little something to add about that.
- [74:23]
B
No, go for it.
- [74:24]
A
Okay. You know Howard Partridge. In fact, I met you with him. This is one of his beach houses I'm in right now. We work together a lot. His. His pitch to people is, stop being a slave to your business, right? Because if you're doing the job, you. You probably aren't running the business, right? Goes back to e myth and everything else, right? Work on the business, not in the business. The reason I love it is I'm from Missouri. Tom Sawyer, if you remember that story, he was supposed to whitewash the fence. That was his chore. He hated it. But he said, man, I got to do something. So he started acting like it was so fun. And kids would come up and say, tom, let's go fishing. He goes, no, no, no. I am white. Oh, man, I'm doing this right. And as the story continues, he ends up, kids are giving him an apple, a rat on a string, jacks, you know, like their currency. And the way Tom. Mark Twain described it was, had given enough time, he would have bankrupted the entire village. Right. He ended up sitting under a shade tree having a glass of tea or something while all the kids in the neighborhood are whitewashing the fence. This is the fun way to do that and the equitable way, because you're going to share in the rewards. But I don't think we all need to get hung up in doing every detail. So small business tomorrow, gun to my head, find a niche. And the thing is, man, in Springfield, Missouri, where I live, there are tons of niche businesses that go in and out within six months every year. And even my wife can identify them now. Oh, go burrito. It's not going to last there, you know, and that same spot keeps getting filled with the same people. And the reason is because I believe that the average person trying to start that dream business forgot one thing. They had the passion, they have the idea. They've got to understand how money works in business and how to get other people involved in it or you're going to end up emptying your 401k and wondering why, why didn't this work? Yeah, sorry, had to go there.
- [76:21]
B
No, I read something about Mark Twain that he actually went bankrupt.
- [76:25]
A
Oh, many times. Yes.
- [76:27]
B
Yeah, he went, he, he invested $300,000 which was like millions and millions of dollars. Like think about how much, 300 grand was he, his life savings in creating some machine invention.
- [76:38]
A
Yeah.
- [76:39]
B
And he went bankrupt. And then he had to, then he had to go all over the type typesetter.
- [76:43]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [76:44]
B
And then he had to go all over the world and do speaking and comedy gigs like in Australia to like survive and make his money back.
- [76:49]
A
But yes, and that's a tremendous book too, Ron Chernow's Twain. But it's, it, it's one of those things where you go, be careful because you're going to learn about your heroes. You know, he went bankrupt a number of times and he kept having to borrow money and all that, but he made so much money. That was the crazy part. But he, he wasn't good at, you know, building the right organization and trusted some of the wrong people.
- [77:14]
B
Hey, there's lots of, lots of statues of him outside of libraries. So, you know, we're, he's done fine.
- [77:20]
A
He's done fine.
- [77:21]
B
We're still speaking about him. You know, how many of us will be spoken about the, this far in the future? Not many. Not many. All right, last question. Fastball straight down the middle. You've got one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life. What is it?
- [77:40]
A
Well, that is, that's tough because I've got a million things that go on in my head. I think what it would be is just the biggest impact would be go learn about money. And I mean that it's not just because my full time job is the great game of business, but that one thing learned younger would have changed the entire trajectory of my life because it's the one thing we all share around the world. The one thing learn those financials, understand money and that will allow you to build a life that you really want.
- [78:15]
B
Perfectly said. Steve. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on.
- [78:19]
A
It's my pleasure, Jeff. Thank you.
- [78:21]
B
I'm Jeff Duden. We've been here with Steve Baker of the Great Game of Business on the Unemployable Podcast. Thanks for listening.