Lifetime Achievement in Business: Jack Stack

Jack Stack

He's a best-selling author as well as the president and chief executive officer of SRC Holding Corp. Inc. magazine named him "Entrepreneur of the Year." Yet Jack Stack said his most significant accomplishment is getting employees involved in The Great Game of Business.

In 1983, Stack and 118 of his fellow employees purchased Springfield Re-manufacturing Corp. from its parent company, International Harvester. The buyout created a staggering 89-to-1 debt ratio, and many people predicted the company, which remanufactures diesel engines, would fail.

Then Stack did the unthinkable. He implemented an unheard of, untested business system at SRC called The Great Game of Business.

The system turned learning about business into a game with both risks and rewards. Employees were given a voice in the decision-making process, as well as a stake in the outcome of the company. The system also incorporated open-book management, and employees learned how to read and understand the company's financial statements.

The business system worked, and by the late 1980s, SRC was thriving. Today, SRC is a multimillion-dollar holding corporation comprising 20 companies and 900 employee-owners.

SRC's success hasn't gone unnoticed. More than 4,000 companies worldwide use the principles and philosophy described in "The Great Game of Business," according to Stack.

"The real success story has nothing to do with me," Stack said. "The real success story is about the system we've set up here, which teaches employees how to think and act like business owners."

Much of Stack's philosophy can be found in his best-selling book "The Great Game of Business," published in 1992. Ever the student of business, Stack's more recent experiences are chronicled in a new book he's co-authored, "A Stake in the Outcome."

"I still consider myself to be a student of business," he said. "Sometimes I think that's my penance. I never paid attention when I was in school, and now I have to go through life as an eternal student."