Reommended by: WiseSuit Staff 

While nothing new in its concept today, A Stake in the Outcome is still a refreshingly sensitive and sensible guide to motivating employees, and this new volume is a standout in its crowded genre.

In 1983, when it looked like SRC's parent company, International Harvester, might shut down its southwestern Missouri "remanufacturing" plant, Stack and 12 other employees bought the place and fashioned a system of employee ownership that turned SRC into a corporation of 22 companies with more than $100 million in sales.

Using the experiences of SRC as well as other companies with "ownership cultures" as examples, Jack Stack shares his ides on how to keep employees energized, creative and acting like true owners of their company (beyond offering stock options). In today's economy with massive layoffs, this management style gives hope. Jack Stack says this about SRC:

"There's a level of mutual trust and respect at SRC that doesn't exist in a lot of companies. It comes from everything we've done to build our culture. It comes from being honest with people, from telling them about the realities of business, from having principles and sticking by them, from trying to be fair, I suppose it's also important that we've avoided mass layoffs, but it's more important that we've done it together. We've treated people like the capable, intelligent, people we know they are. We haven't protected them like children."

SRC was designed as a community where employees have a real stake in the business. While telling the SRC story, the author delves into the core issues of ownership, such as:

• The trouble with equity and why it can be a problem when your stock rises
• Why you don't really find out what problems are until you're successful
• Why businesses get bought and sold
• The stages of growth beyond mere survival

One word of caution: the advice is tailored to senior executives who are in the position of founding or leading young companies because personal experience in leading a company is the only real way to learn, and not from the comfort of a book. Nonetheless, this book does give the reader plenty of areas to think more about, and tells a great story in the process.

Reviews:

"At a time when doubt shrouds the U.S. economy, Jack Stack's book is a beacon of hope. It is a little bit about technique and a lot about unleashing the good sense of the American worker." -Tom Peters

"[Jack Stack's] open-book approach is generating intense interest among businesses large and small. . . . About 1,500 companies, including many Fortune 500 concerns, have toured [SRC] to learn about the merits of disclosing everything to rank-and-file workers."
-The Wall Street Journal

"The results at SRC are nothing short of breathtaking. The Great Game has resulted in one of the most competitive companies I've come across in all my years at Inc." -George Gendron, Editor in Chief, Inc.

About the Author:

Jack Stack is the founder and CEO of SRC Holdings, a company comprised of more than 35 separate companies. He is also a national and world judge for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Institute and has served as an advisor for the group since 1998. INC. Magazine has called him the "smartest strategist in America" and named him one of twenty-five entrepreneurs selected to represent the 25 years INC. has been published. Inc. Magazine dubbed him "The Father of Open-Book Management", a business practice of sharing financial and decision-making duties among all employees. Stack was also listed among the "top 10 minds in small business" in Fortune Small Business Magazine.

Categories:  Leadership ,  Biography