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Jack Stack’s new book is scheduled to be released in January 2020. He’s pictured above speaking earlier this month for an SBJ Economic Growth Survey forum.
SBJ file photo
Jack Stack’s new book is scheduled to be released in January 2020. He’s pictured above speaking earlier this month for an SBJ Economic Growth Survey forum.

SRC CEO pens new book

Posted online

Jack Stack is back in the book-writing game for the third time in just over a quarter-century.

“Change the Game,” the latest book from the president and CEO of SRC Holdings Corp., is scheduled for release in January 2020. That’s a delay from a previously announced Oct. 1 release date. However, preorders, which include the hardback and audiobook, are being accepted via GreatGame.com, the website for SRC subsidiary The Great Game of Business Inc. Retailers such as Amazon and Target also are taking preorders of the print book.

The book, which has a subtitle of “Saving the American Dream by Closing the Gap Between the Haves and Have-Nots,” contains stories of users that have implemented open-book management concepts Stack first introduced to the general public in 1993 with the publishing of “The Great Game of Business.” He co-authored that book with Bo Burlingham, an editor-at-large at Inc. magazine, as well as a second release, “A Stake in the Outcome,” in 2002.

Stack noted “Change the Game” serves as a reflection on “how good the bright side of capitalism can really be if everybody is involved and participate in the big picture of the company.”

He said open-book management has success stories in many different industries, including health care, nonprofit, government, manufacturing and retail. The book’s intent was to share stories of people in all walks of life who were implementing it.

“We wrote the book about the process,” Stack said. “But we don’t thump our chest to do it. We try to do it in a very subtle style.”

Stack said success stories in the book includes a passage about Beth Domann, Springfield Little Theatre executive director. He shares how Domann and her team quickly adopted the management system and have grown the nonprofit theater’s budget over a 15-year period to around $2 million from a starting point of $450,000.

Open-book management success is something Stack has firsthand experience with in his own company, as he and other employees borrowed $9 million to buy Springfield ReManufacturing Corp. from parent company International Harvester in 1983 to keep the facility open. The management system, dubbed The Great Game of Business, was instituted at SRC that same year with the company reaching $640 million in revenue and 1,800 employees companywide among its 10 subsidiaries in 2018, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

“It’s not rocket science; it’s not cutting edge,” he said of the management system. “A lot of people feel this is the right way to run a company. We came along at the right time and the right place and said, ‘It’s OK to do it and it actually works.’”

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