A Stake in the Outcome: Building a Culture of Ownership for the Long-Term Success of Your Business (Hardcover)

by Jack Stack (Author), Bo Burlingham (Author) "There's a great experiment going on in business today that involves literally thousands of companies and millions of people, but it's one of the best-kept..." (more)
Key Phrases: weekly huddles, psychic ownership, ownership culture, Engines Plus, Great Game of Business, International Harvester (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A refreshingly sensitive and sensible guide to motivating employees, this new volume by Stack and Burlingham (The Great Game of Business) is a standout in its crowded genre. Stack is the president and CEO of SRC Holdings Corporation, an employee-owned supplier of renovated engines to auto companies and a celebrated business success story. 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, Stack and Burlingham, an editor at Inc. magazine, give the lowdown on how to keep employees energized, creative and acting like true owners of their company (beyond offering stock options). Their strategy, which is especially resonant after the Enron debacle, hinges largely on opening up the books to all employees and keeping the staff posted on financial matters. Also fascinating is the authors' idea of spinning workers off into an entirely new company as a way of stirring up new ideas from entrenched employees. This is an invigorating and surprisingly helpful text for those who want a humane but profitable way to manage their company.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In The Great Game of Business (1992), Stack and Burlingham showed how Stack's experience with open management at the Springfield ReManufacturing Corporation (SRC) brought the concept of employee ownership to new levels. Here they extend the concept to show how the company was designed as a community where employees have a real stake in the business. While telling the SRC story, they delve 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; and the stages of growth beyond mere survival. The authors emphasize how the culture of ownership brings meaning to the lives of all employees, but that the model is fluid; and when companies grow beyond a certain size, outside interest may become inevitable. The SRC model may be the ultimate goal, but because no two companies are alike, some may use the SRC model as a reference rather than as a blueprint. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Business; 1 edition (March 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385505078
• ISBN-13: 978-0385505079
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #200,923 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Compelling Stuff From Jack Stack, May 22, 2002

By	Steve Sheppard (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

What could Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham come up with to match the excitement of The Great Game of Business? Perhaps nothing, but they've come pretty close with A Stake in the Outcome, a continuation of the remarkable story of SRC and its traiblazing initiatives in Open Book Management, employee ownership and organization-wide involvement. The first portion of the book is a recounting of the earliest days of SRC, a story that will be very familiar to readers of the earlier Stack book. But the reading quickly becomes compelling as he continues the story and builds the irrefutable case for equity ownership throughout an organization. Jack Stack is a consummate teacher: experienced, entertaining, inspiring and entirely logical. In this work, he demonstrates once again that "he knows his numbers." For fans and pratitioners of Open Book Management, or those intrigued by the potential behind employee ownership, this is an important new book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great story, but with limited take-aways, March 25, 2004

By	Eric Kassan (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Stake in the Outcome: Building a Culture of Ownership for the Long-Term Success of Your Business (Paperback)

While this book does go into details about the author's amazing success with his company, SRC, the advice is tailored to senior executives who are in the position of founding or leading young companies. The author candidly admits that personal experience in leading a company is the only real way to learn, because each company has its own unique challenges, and because situations look quite different in the heat of a tense moment, rather than in 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.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good story, instructive, June 16, 2002

By	Roger E. Herman (Greensboro, NC USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Jack Stack has become well-known in some circles as the poster boy of open book management. He and his colleagues at SRC (Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation) have built a company and set of business practices (Great Game of Business) around the concept of sharing numbers with your employees. Yes, it's more than just sharing numbers, it's empowering the employees to be true team members, enabling them to take personal and collective actions to influence the numbers and to share in the profits.

Open book management is a great concept that has made a significant difference for a lot of companies, and even the U. S. Coast Guard. Stack presented the concept in his 1992 book, "The Great Game of Business" (Currency Doubleday). That book was a valuable how-to package.

"A Stake in the Outcome" is more of the story of the transformation of a remanufacturing plant owned by a large corporation into a thriving independent business. In the midst of the text, the reader will find some advice, some brief case studies of other companies, and some experience descriptions that may be instructive. But, when it all shakes out, this is the story of the growth of a business. It's an historical review with plenty of detail. It's Jack Stack's story.

If you're looking for an instruction book of how to build an employee-centered open book management company, this isn't it. If you're looking for an instructive report of what one company went through, from the leader's perspective, this book fits that description. It's Jack Stack's book, even though Bo Burlingham, an editor-at-large of Inc. Magazine, is shown as co-author. Burlingham's photo doesn't appear on the dust jacket, just Stack's.

Reading the book is like listening to Stack telling his story, with the emotion, the ego, the pride, and the rough-and-tumble. It would be interesting to hear this story shared by others. You can gain that experience by visiting SRC in Springfield, Missouri, but you can't get it from this book.