At the Tugboat Institute’s most recent exemplar visit, members were able to hear Jack Stack tell the story of how he came up with The Great Game of Business after taking out a massive loan to buy out SRC from a failing International Harvester. With no experience running a company, he had to make up the rules as he went along and trust in his employees.

He quickly realized that the only way the company would thrive was if he taught the employees that the product was now the company. Understanding people hate to lose and love to win, he turned opaque company finances into an open game with rules, scoreboards and rewards. His employees returned his trust with amazing feats of entrepreneurialism that have helped grow SRC into a company with over $550 million in revenues and many successful offshoots.