EP19 – Great Game of Business Interview-Steve Baker

In this episode, the podcast interviews Steve Baker, Vice President of Great Game of Business, Inc. Steve gives insight into the importance of financial literacy in building a company’s value through a culture of accountability, the dignity of equity ownership, and the hope of a financially successful future. To join us at the Great Game of Business Conference in September, please follow the link below! 

Learn more about the Great Game of Business Conference: https://www.greatgame.com/conference-2025

Learn more about Steve Baker: https://www.greatgame.com/about/our-team/steve-baker

Transcript

[0:13] Welcome everyone to the journey to an ESOP and Beyond podcast uh I'm your host Today Jason Miller and we return to All Things ESOP and doing our best to make the information both understandable and accessible I am super happy to cover today's topic which is pairing the great game of business and how that aligns with all things employee ownership and to do that I have with me today Steve Baker and Steve has been a part of the great game of business for how long Steve yeah this is my 20th year uh I don't know where the time went but. Here it is. Happy anniversary uh and and Welcome to our podcast we really appreciate your your time in in coming on and talking about again all all things ESOP and really the the great game of business but before we get started on that uh we have a tradition here on the podcast with new guests uh where we we like to ask, what is your favorite movie and why.

[1:20] Huh well that is a really really great question favorite movie dang.

[1:27] Uh okay so I'm going to answer it this way um.

[1:31] I have found uh Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan are my favorite directors just period uh Interstellar I just I don't know what it is but just such a good movie um Ridley Scott you know all the way back to Blade Runner and everything but uh, uh lately I've been going back to the Martian because Andy Weir writes really good books and really Scott makes really great movies but I'll be honest with you.

[2:01] Coming out I don't know if you ever saw nobody but if you ever just want to have an Escapist if it's like if if John Wick uh had and an alcoholic had a baby I think that's what nobody was about but it was just like an ordinary guy that isn't ordinary and it just popcorn you know what I mean so if I'm going deep I'd go with 1 of those great directors if I'm going for popcorn it's like you can't beat the Bob Odin Kirks of the world. That's fantastic I'm gonna have to check that out I've never seen nobody and then I should get I should get to that before too comes out right I would I mean I guess I don't know but it's uh you know I'm certain willing to spend a few bucks to go to the theater and just have a good time.

[2:41] Awesome well thank you Steve for for some insight into the the mind of Steve Baker and what yeah we'll be carefulmore um andI mentioned. The the great game of business and uh you know I I have to uh I have to confess I am aware of uh the the concept of the the organization of the book. Um and most of that has been through the interaction with a handful of clients um that are adherence uh I guess is is 1 way to say it. But if you wouldn't mind uh helping me learn along with everyone else here here on the podcast.

[3:21] Uh tell tell us a little bit about yourself and then how you got involved with the great game of business and really what what it is sure. Well um for 1 thing I really thought you were going to ask me a question that was going to be a softball like um hey what do you like to do after work or would you go to college for something but. Uh so my job as vice president of the great game of business is I've become the face of the company. And that means I'm out there speaking and keynoting and traveling and you know preaching the gospel if you will but I got an art degree that's this is 1 of my paintings back here. In fact that's my wife I have to keep it at work because she hates it you know she can't stand her face being 5 feet wide but um. Yeah so uh imagine coming out of art school and if you're good with people and uh it's the 80s and you're you're coming out with an art degree you get a job in sales. Right I mean that's just the way it was I I did freelance work every night but I got taken advantage of so much and I was working for a small family-owned manufacturing companies and I wasn't ever family so I would quickly get to the top. Of the organizational chart as far as I could go without marrying someone or someone dying, and they weren't dying fast enough and I was already married so um bottom line is I mean I got to see business uh really good people and everything but uh I got to see business for 20 plus years through the lens of a closed book environment people holding the the ownership very close to their vest which I totally respect.

[4:48] And uh holding the financials very close to themselves but it turns out when I look back and I go back and if I have lunch with 1 of my former um business owners that I worked for it's really funny now that they're saying their 70s uh maybe even close to 80 and they're like going we you know we weren't really that comfortable with the financials ourselves.

[5:08] Well in between um I ended up figuring out I was really good at at things like you know blending business and art so I started my own little marketing and branding firm. And ended up meeting the folks here at SRC Holdings. Um and Rich Armstrong who ended up being my my co-author on a couple of books including the get in the game is sort of the cookbook of the great game of business. Very good he hired me because he saw something in me and thank goodness he did because. It's been twenty years and I've seen my net worth go from something I can't talk about publicly to you know it's like employee ownership.

[5:46] Come on and financial literacy come on you know why don't we teach this stuff in school. So that's kind of my background and and I ended up starting in you know sales and marketing side of things and then quickly. Uh people seem to take the message from me very well because I am truly passionate about it because it's I've seen it change my life. And every single year I see hundreds of companieschanging the people's lives where where they work and not all of them can be ESOP. Right what I mean is it's not in the cards for them right now so when I see like you mentioned uh adherence I would call them practitioners to the great game of business. These folks see at a different way and I believe that that truly isthe future. Um if not America the world and that is closing the gap between the halves and Have Nots that's at the core of everything we do.

[6:40] 1 of the statistics um that I I've probably shared before here and I I share it often is that the largest contributor to that wealth Gap is those that own equity and those that do not and whether that Equity is in the business that they work for or it's in some other Market uh the stock market within their 401ks or whatever else Equity ownership is what closes the wealth Gap more than anything else that's the real power you want equity in society talk about equity in the workplace and I'm I'm mixing metaphors here or whatever if you want to call it but to me that is indeed. The real thing and I don't even know Jason if if you would have talked to me about employee ownership when I was 20 or 19 I graduated when I was 17 all I wanted to do was go to art school you know it's like money money but by the end of art school I was like I wish there wasn't money because this sucks and you don't have any you know that I I've heard people say uh the money is the root of all evil and then I hear people who are really good Bible scholars and really really pay attention in church who say no no no that's not the quote the quote is uh the love of money is the root of all evil and I'm from Missouri so I have to be well-versed in Mark Twain lore he said. The lack of money is the root of all evil and I think that might be 1 of the biggest cases I mean people get desperate and they have to make choices maybe they didn't have to make.

[8:07] But um I am fascinated by the the whole thing and and of course um I know we're going to talk about what the great game is and everything but I I will I will tell you that. If I could go back in time and talk to Young Steve it would probably be to go let's sit down and just take a dollar and run it through your expenses and see what that looks like and the next thing I do is I'd be like okay money works the same at home as it doesn't work so why don't we apply the thinking both ways we'll be better in both places and. Uh you know hopefully young Steve would have listenedonly we had the option to do that I think about that yeah baby what would I have done differently, Steve you'd mentioned 3 really big topics as you were talking and 1 obviously we're super interested in employee ownership because of how we help companies evaluate the idea of an ESOP then you said closed book I'm assuming that the opposite of that is oh open book managementum and then the other topic that I think uh is equally as important uh was you mentioned financial literacy. And uh just uh where whichever 1 of those you want to start with um it it doesn't matter we'll get to all 3 of them let's talk about the importance of of that and maybe maybe with the what is, the difference between closed book management that all of us have probably experienced and then open book management.

[9:31] I think the way to answer that is to actually talk about open book management so we didn't invent that term although uh Jack Stack our founder and CEO still to this day is known as the father of open book management um. And uh through the years I mean there's just it's kind of an Undisputed you know Champion kind of a thing because you know it is different but John case actually, coined that phrase in a book and this would have been in the late 80s maybe mid 80s uh called uh the open book management the coming Revolution where we talked about SRC and Jack and a few other companies around the country that were doing something different and radical at the time and that was.

[10:11] Teaching their employees how money worked in the business how they made money and generated cash. Now if Jack Stack were on the call with us today what he would tell you is he hates those words open book management because it infers that if I open the books. Something magical is going to happen dubs and Rainbows are going to fly out you know that sort of thing but but let's go back in time in our past you know we we talked about it a little bit.

[10:36] Even if someone would have shared financial information with me when I was young and learning about things I don't know that I ever would have got it I went to art school so they would have had to teach me here's the way we look at it. Open bookis usually related to open book reporting meaning okay every quarter I'm gonna get up there behind a Podium I'm gonna tell everybody. Well it looks like you know Revenue was down earnings were down no bonus you suck get back to work. Well who cares that's all historical information and what can I do about it plus I can't really see my line of sight to your numbers. Um instead think open book management meaning we're actually running the business by the numbers.

[11:20] Now the other part is we flip the funnel on information and so the way I look at it is um. Uh the people who create the numbers in the business are not in the sea Suite their job is strategy their job is leadership the people who actually create the numbers of people on the on the floor on in the sales force out in the trucks uh writing code in dark rooms turning wrenches in our factories right those are the people that make pluses or minuses. And so what we say is financial transparency or open book totally worthless. Without education so it really leads into what you said before the financial literacy part of it. So the first thing is I can tell you that 20 years ago in Rich Armstrong hired me um there was a 2-page job description imagine the line items on 2 pages, and the last 1 was a keen understanding the financials. Now I will tell you that if I'm nothing else I am honest and so I went to him I said I got all these man I got all these except this 1 and I got to tell you I just I don't even know what that really means because uh you and he did he stopped me mid-sentence he goes no no no we're going to teach you you're going to learn on the job it's okay because every single week we have a weekly forecasting huddle where all of us.

[12:37] Get together meaning the the whole team gets together and we basically Corral all of our forecasts for the end of the month up and we do it every single week and when you do that it is fascinating how the Walls Start to crumble between the silos and the the boundaries come down and people start going oh man you know what can I help you or what can I do for you or could you help me. Totally different I would even say Beyond collaborative and collegial I would say that we have 1 common goal. The critical member of the business is what we call it and is Central to everything else we do the education the accountability and the incentives.

[13:14] That alignment I think is the key part right is that what we're drawing out and that that knowledge or understanding apart from the meaning.

[13:25] Doesn't help me to put anything into action. Exactly what we have to do is is go back to Jack Stack some you know I mean his original book came out in 92, and it's been sighted in 130 best-selling business books if you can believe that continues to be a bestseller even after all these years some 30 odd years later but you know they started in 83. So imagine this you work for International Harvester your 29 years old you got a few kids in diapers a hundred dollar a month mortgage and you see that International is laying off a thousand people a week.

[14:02] And they did it for 2 years100,000 families, lost their livelihood because International is still command and control do what we say nothing more nothing less they didn't respond to Global competition or the economy which was in tatters at the time, Jack was sent to Springfield Missouri to close their smallest Factory it was called SRC and what happened is even though this book came out of 92 it's the story of from 1983 onward toward the end of the 90s where they went from.

[14:32] Just trying to make the bank loan payment right they they ended up buying the place worst corporate buyout in American history and as a a guy with a banking background you know that that's that's hard to do get the worst 1 89 to 1 debt to equity can you imagine so 1 thing I learned from Jack early on is I I was uh you know working here but I I get a chance to see him speak a lot in those early days you know because I was learning and uh he would say something like you know I figured something out after 54 Banks turned me down because this is such a terrible loan they taught me 2 things the financials a language that's been around since 1494 and then secondly he goes if you have a terrible loan you need to seek a terrible Bank, and that's exactly what he did but he saved 119 jobs and then he decided Well what I learned in a year and a half and 54 rejections is.

[15:24] I didn't know their secret language I had all the specifications of a great engine because that's what we do as a remanufacturer engines but he didn't have the specifications of a great company.

[15:35] So that's what he has been focused on for 40 plus years and 40 Years of profitability and 40 years with no layoffs that doesn't happen by accident. Steve I wish I I'd met you at the beginning of my banking career it would have saved me a whole lot of time uh learning that that same statement of uh after after 54 uh 54 rejections right may maybe um behind it would have been helpful um. Soin in that umI I think.

[16:10] Financial literacy personally uh is is different than financial literacy to some extent functionally when I I show up to work and in there's a broad movement of helping individuals understand what does it mean for me to have to have a paycheck what do I do with my paycheck what are taxes how do I get a loan for a home or a car or save for my kids college education and my retirement um and I think that's vital because that's why we all come to work otherwise we would just be having fun right um I think unless it's the same and then but the the other element of that is you know talk talk to me about financial literacy as as a worker, uh and then uh what what you've seen in the companies that are practitioners of the great game of business and how that unfolds over time.

[17:02] So uh first of all I appreciate the question because I feel like this whole conversation is my story on some level or another because financial literacy is a spectrum right I mean there's, I have no clue whatsoever and then I can run a bank uh I can run a hedge fund I can run a business which I think are totally different things right now what we do is we assume nothing. Uh Dave Ramsey big personal finance Guru everybody knows right he says money flows from people who do not understand it to people who do. And I want my kids and my teammates and your viewers I want everybody to get that because that is the gap.

[17:41] Right the the the if you want to talk about the 1% 1 thing they know is how money works and what I want to do is share that a little but there's stages right so how do you take someone off the street and I don't mean just, a new hire to come disassembled engines, no that's not what I'm saying I'm saying it could be that or someone who's writing code in a dark room and their mom's basement someone who is an HVAC technician any great technician of any kind an artist would be a good example. How do you teach them about money well you got to start somewhere and in reality I think you nailed it which was you know I get this paycheck uh this is what my bills are this is what's left and what am I going to do with it, and I know that the average person is probably out there going I I don't even think my people would be able to have anything left they're just not good with money well you know gotta tell you.

[18:30] I was definitely 1 of them and I'm not even saying I'm great at it but I'm so much better than I was and uh and my kids oh my gosh they are so much better because I never wanted them to suffer like we did and I don't mean like.

[18:45] Bad but it's like we've made all the wrong decisions and I'll take responsibility for that um but at the same time it was like where are you going to get the information I grew up in a house where you didn't talk about money that subject was forbidden it was keep your nose clean get good grades be a good boy you know and you're when you're 8 going are we rich or poorthey didn't answer the question I said you don't need anything and you know we didn't go out to eat and I'm sure you can relate to all of this so all I'm trying to do is help people understand that let's say you hire someone new and maybe they have a finance degree and maybe they just rolled out of bed who knows maybe both but the the reality is that we have to meet them where they're at and so when I just described to you as our weekly huddle that's the first way we start to teach financial literacy is you live it, and every week you are held accountable but so is everyone else to come in with your best opinion of what you think your job is going to provide your line items that you're touching if you're a customer service rep you have certain metrics uh if you have a a sales line you have certain metrics all of us have line items we do uh I speak teach right right I have line items around that and in reality I got to tell you it is there's nothing more motivating to me than that knowing that by the way ours is at 2 oclock Central, every Monday.

[20:04] So right after we're done here guess where I'm going I've got my numbers ready and if I don't come in ready you know they're they'll tolerate it for a week but they're not going to tolerate it 2 or 3 in a row it's like, hey Steve we need to talk. And so the reality is that when you come to work every day and every week and every month and we're talking about numbers all the time we have reconnected, in great game companies we've reconnected the kpis metrics okrs whatever you call it with the financial outcomes. Of those things meaning if I do this if I hit this number this is what it means to me to the group to the company and if we're doing it right guess what we participate in a stake in the outcome.

[20:44] Short term is going to be maybe a bonus program or what we call a minigame you know a little you know short-term incentive fund but.

[20:52] Long-term that's where your ESOP comes in. Because at first no 1's going to care and I'm 1 of those people I honestly thought Rich Armstrong was talking about some Greek Storyteller when I left the first interview I'm not kidding dude he was just missing 1 letter an a right for we get it all the time that's what that's why I'm laughing um so the wisdom of it is so cool because it's been around since late 70s is that right yeah so um I'm I'm thinking like man if I could just show people and so I wasn't going to do this but since we are recording do you care if I share something that I did recently. Really something powerful.

[21:35] Um I already told you my wife uh like I grew up in a house where they never talked about money and Joanne's house they just never had money and so it was always a conversation usually not a fun 1 you with me, yes now I'm not going to show you specific numbers but I'm going to show you since 1995 this is a graph of our. Uh household income do you see how it kind of just slowly went up but that kind of plateaued and it's a little the black lines are net worth.

[22:04] Now I showed this to Joanne because this doesn't surprise her at all. Right what I did is I had a second sheet that was printed out this way right with the black first 1 was blank just the blue and then I said and this is what we're worth today and I got to tell you 36 years of marriage.

[22:22] And I saw lights come on I've never seen come on before she actually thought that we had a shot.

[22:29] Does that make sense it does and that's a hope. That from our earlier conversation that a lot of people don't have exactly thank you, a lot of people believe that there's something like physically in their wayof becoming something else, so there is a lot of learning that has to happen what I think I've noticed most we talked about financial literacy a little bit 1 is first of all the informal financial literacy right that's learning about how it works at work and then we offer personal financial literacy in all of our companies and all we recommend it to everyone because we feel like again if you're better 1 place you're better at the other place but then you know we also have formal. Like off the shelf solutions for financial literacy from entry level to managerial all the way to see stuff and we developed it over that 40 years because we had to internally. And that's why people love great game of business I think is because there's still a living lab here with 2,000 people in 4 and a half million square feet you know what I mean it's like.

[23:30] There's a lot going on but we still learn more from you guys in the community than we do from our own living lab because there's so many different folks in different industries that are telling us hey we tried this we tried. 1 of my favorites is um unlimited vacation what a cool idea we don't do that here but I love the idea of it and then in a couple of years I've had 2 of them come back and say yeah we don't do that anymore unless you have jobs that have very specific you know metrics that you go you get it done you get it done um but, I know I'm getting off topic a little bit I just wanted to to share with you like mymy belief is that. If we can teach people financial literacy meet them where they're at teach them what they need to know and then a little more what happens is it opens up. I I'm gonna probably go out of my league here and say neural Pathways that didn't exist before it's like oh wait a minute.

[24:25] Okay if I do that like I see people reading more learning more uh attending more you know in other words they're learning that learning is cool. And they say learning is the way I move myself up the ladder the chain whatever we have so many people that have left SRC to start their own companies because they get smart and they go I can do this. And so someone asked us a while back and I I learned this, uh because of a series of them happening somebody goes well what what if I train my people up and they leave and I'm like well what if they stay and they're dumb, it you you gotta you gotta train them as if they will never leave and treat them so that they don't ever leave that's our belief and you know what the fact is we've had a lot of boomerangs a lot of people go out there and they get started or they go they jump for 5 bucks an hour or something and then they end up in a closed book company or somewhere that's not really what they thought it was and they'll come back. So we're always building what we like to call a culture of ownership. And anyone can do that not just esops but it's do we act like we own the place around here and and a culture of winning too Jason because man.

[25:37] I know I'm talking a lot about it probably sounds like I'm just talking about blue collar people I'm not. There are so many folks even upper middle class shoot you and I both know wealthy people that don't know how to manage money at all. All I'm saying is everybody's got their own story meet them where they're at find out how you can help and how you can engage them and Frankly Speaking I think the smarter you get the smarter you get. It's sort of like wealth. You know wealth begets wealth and and so the Richer Rich get richer the poor get poorer but in fact I think it's the smart get smarter.

[26:11] That that educational component I I I completely agree with you Steve um and it's so so subtle in tying it to the how. It's if I know how not not just whatand when you mentioned ownership culture it's it sounds as though everything through the Greek game of business and that you're you're open book management style um is getting to engage people on the how and keeping them accountable to what they can do and that's going to get them not just to where they are today but it ties it to what's next for them internally I think um if I'm reading that right uh I think so Jason I would even start with with something before. Uh the how and the what and it's it's the whyyou know we're trying to build a great company. In fact this is the way we frame it is it isn't the stuff you make and it's not the stuff the service you provide the company is actually the product. And so when we say uh in 1983 Jack Stack and 12 other dudes you know in Springfield Missouri bought a dying division of International Harvester just to save their jobs.

[27:20] What they didn't expect is that they would learn oh. Well this is the secret to the whole thing is if we build a great company then then everything else will take care of itself because a great company won't have.

[27:31] Huge 89 to1 debt to equity they won't have your late on on payments you you know they won't have all the stuff a good companies going to have on-time delivery and great quality and great customer service and. Great safety record but they're also going to make pay their bills they're going to watch their cash flow Etc so over time people start to learn they go oh okay well this is different. And so the why is really important because in the early days the critical number was make the bank loan payment or you don't have a job that's a pretty motivating why. But within a year they figured out, they go wait a minute now remember weekly Financial huddles and financial literacy happening all the time and everybody's talking about because it was so urgent make the bank loan payment here's why because it's 17% unemployment out there right now that's is why we got to do it. Can you imagine the stress that you must have felt working there but over time what they figured out is they go wait a minute we paid 9 million bucks to International for this place and we just did inventory we have 2 million dollars of debt and obsolete inventory, if we liquidate it we're not paying 18% interest on $2 million and we havea piece of that, in other words if they could liquidate it it was a self-funding bonus program right now to me that shows you the transition between just like basic okay I know how dollar works too thinking and acting and feeling like an owner which is that's when you see a cultured ownership really blossom.

[28:59] Steve help um our our audience uh those that are that are going to be curious behind this what where they are today how how how do they get started what's the best place for them to go this this resonates with me, whether or not we're ready to be an ESOP today I mean we're obviously listening to an ESOP podcast so we're we're curious but in the meantime what what what do we what do we do this sounds like it helps us build the culture uh before an event um but where where do we start.

[29:29] So may I first Jason say I've got a comment to make and then I'll talk about the how does it work how do you get started of course um I think anyone that's that's listening today should remember that um if you're even considering an ESOP journey I hope to God your red blooded American person that says I want the highest value possible.

[29:52] So

[29:53] I can throw Equity at people all day long but it doesn't change business it just doesn't I've seen it for 20 years I'm telling you and I even just saw it before that before I even understood what Equity meant.

[30:03] Why wouldn't we make our people business people create the most value and get the highest value at the transaction now that being said how do you get started well first of all we got to start with what we would call kind of your design team or your leadership team whoever's going to be responsible for driving this ownership culture and the great game of business so typically you see that as a smaller group and we say we're going to take it upon ourselves to uh nail our critical number what's the 1 thing that defines winning not for all time but just for this year. Secondly we're going to have to create an education program around that right so imagine a Venn diagram with critical number in the center and 3 intervals.

[30:44] So 1 of will be you got to know what game you're in if you intend to win so no 1 teach the rules. So that is where we teach financial literacy we have the transparency that goes along with it and we involve people in what we call High involvement culture right we're going to be teaching all the time, um secondly we have our critical number now we've been teaching well we also need to have accountability so that's follow the action it keeps score in other words we behave differently when we keep score we all know this but the reality is there is the numbers don't come down on you, they come from the players on up right we literally forecast everything so we are in control of our own destiny I know that sounds lofty but believe me there's no way when we go to a forecasting huddle and and if I have a new person they'll immediately turn to me and they go how am I what am I a fortune teller how do I predict the future I say you're not your job is not to predict the future at all it's to create it it's to influence it. And so all I want to do is if we meet on this every week and we're talking about the end of the month and when you get good at it you'll be doing it a quarter out well by golly now we can have an adult conversation about dude I don't think I can make that number or you know what we sold way more than I thought how are we going to ship you know that sort of thing, um and then finally so there's your 2 top circles interconnecting the critical number the bottom 1 is a stake in the outcome.

[32:04] What what's in it for me so I'm going to learn all this stuff and you're going to hold me accountable and I'm going to hold my peers accountable what's in it for me and that's the thing that every other business operating system misses. They don't integrate the stake in the outcome you know why in my opinion it's because now that's where it gets real, I don't just you know here's your number Jason that's what everybody does they go everybody's got a number everybody's got a well same with great game except it's my number not yours in other words I'm going to come to you Jason and say you're the guy that knows the most about investment banking so could you tell me what do you think will happen by the end of the month what will happen by the end of the quarter who should we be talking to what regulations are out there why would I try to figure all that out myself when I got an expert right here Nobody Knows the job better than the person doing the job so. Let's lead them and then let's give them purpose so we're trying to build this great company now you have those 3 inter circles around a critical number my education my accountability and my rewards.

[33:05] I'm unstoppable and what about those years where things just suck I mean let's be honest, what if your critical number is just cash flow you've got to make sure you can pay the bills make payroll everything you don't think people are going to be interested it's just because you never gave them a chance and they didn't have the information and the education. And what about when times are great you know it's very easy to let off the gas, well that's when you should be saying our clinical number is appropriate growth or maybe it's maybe it's still cash flow because you could certainly burn through all your cash as you're investing in all new technology and erps and Machinery whatever. Am I getting too emotional because I I may have to not at all you knowSteve what what it sounds to me like you're you're describing in that is that everyone who shows up is going to be held accountable to their number because they own it.

[33:59] Yeah right and they're going to be equipped with the tools required for them to be their best. And for them to show up every day to do that and Leadership is going to give them another reason to show up for another day.

[34:11] Yeah and Leadership should be this just invert the the Pyramid of organizational design for a minute because shouldn't CEOs CFOs I mean all the seae and all the leadership and all of the managers shouldn't they be the trunk of the tree supporting all of the leaves and then the leaves capture the sunlight and turn it into nutrients and I know that's a little bit of a weird thing but and we're mixing metaphors great game and now arborists I don't know but what I'm saying is it's art Steve that's squarely in your wheelhouse.

[34:42] Jason you're a great host because I don't know if I would have made the connection but see that's how I see it is we should be there to not have the answers but as Leaders we should have the right questions well why do we do it that way well we've done it that way for 30 years. Oh well goodness sakes um could we do it a different way is there something else we can do I I am fascinated by how darn smart people really are when we give them a chance. And you know there's another group of people that I'm fascinated with because I'm related to some of these people you know the kind type that are on the back wall with their arms folded well I don't know what's going on but this sucks. Oftentimes there are best. Technicians and when I say tested again it could be any kind of technician not just an h-back Tech or someone in our factories I'm talking about people in technology talking about people in sales in other words.

[35:32] A doctor a surgeon would be a great technician and they're notoriously bad with money because they're really great at what they do and they're like I'll let the bean counters handle that stuff. And if they do dip their toe in it's probably because of something emotional or what you know what I'm saying I'm not beating up anyone um disciplined what I'm trying to say is. I know this for a fact becauseI am a darn good artist. Um but you know what my kids who I forbade to go to Art School 2 of them are professional artists now and they are amazing both technically and financially because. We didn't we want to do equip them with the stuff we didn't have before and.

[36:14] All I can say is I mean I hope it sticks and I hope they keep going and going crazy but we have to teach people that every single person on the planet. Somehow is answering to the financial statements that a guy named Luca pacioli gave us in 1494 I mentioned it before a Franciscan frier gave us the income statement of the balance sheet that's used by every organization for-profit not for profit government Healthcare Tech. Democracies socialist governments. Communist China uses the same financials why is it that only this many people have access or understanding of I don't. Get it and I'm so angry at someoneSteve I I can I can relate to that um and for for my career through banking I always said banking is fundamental credit is fundamental and there are always seasons and cycles and news and you know this is the next best thing but at the end of the day like Jack found out from how many again was it 50 54 54 54 different institutions that said no first uh that their their analysis on those fundamentals was consistent, uh across all of those organizations for a reason and if you know the 1 universal.

[37:30] If you know the rules then you can play the game better. Uh and I I think that comes back to understanding where where those those come from and it makes perfect sense to me hearing it from you like more more and more people should examine those fundamentals for themselves and understand those those partsum it sounds like there would be a really great community, around the great game of business and I know um in in our conversation and from a little research that I did that you were on the board of the the national Center for employee ownership, at 1 Point yeah as a matter of fact I did serve on the board and uh I speak at I think every conference I think I totaled it up I think I've been to.

[38:16] 3 And CEO meetings and I don't know how many ESOP Association meetings but yeah I mean I am passionate because I am the case study in my opinion and uh. If it can change my life uh someone who ran from numbers their whole life until I didn't it's like oh well this is cool and believe me my daughter especially who is really a she's a fine artist my my oldest son is a uh a creative director so they're both artists but she is definitely more of what I would call a fine artist meaning she's more of a technician around the the actual making of the art and she's well paid for that. Um but there are times where I have to remind her that she is a charging enough, um she's not taking in consideration the the human component of someone who gives you a commission you know they're going to want extra and so she's be she has to go from very literal like this many hours and de to. Let's sell value.

[39:10] Because people don't even pay for Value they pay for perceived value so I'm like you need to probably think differently and then I remind her about the the money side it'll always be there and uh and when she does it it helps calm her down because she still believes like I might a little bit in my heart that somewhere somewhere like it should be like the Renaissance and there should be a patron who pays my bills and buys my equipment and all that guess what I don't know if that really still exists maybe it does but man I don't want to be beholden to someone else to me financial literacy is freedom.

[39:46] Absolutely um. Steve where where can uh our listeners engage with you uh and with the great game of business and I'm leading a little bit into an event that that's going to be coming up very shortly um that I'd like you to talk about.

[40:04] Jason thank you um you mentioned a great community and boy that's the place to see it we've been having this annual conference the great game of business conference for 33 years and uh so this is where people from all around the world and all Industries uh come to uh to to learn to share and to celebrate the best practices of what we're talking about open book management what I love is that it's a practitioner driven conference meaning uh we have uh 54 breakout sessions. Uh 90 some odd speakers uh most of which are people uh just like who are watching this they run a business they're they're working in a business they've just gone ESOP they're thinking about it or maybe not.

[40:47] But the beauty of it is it's all different sizes all different Industries our demographics are so bizarre because it's it's very spread out we don't have a concentration and say manufacturing or something even though that's our our history. Uh that's not necessarily the thing they're just not that many manufacturers left. So um what we see there it says it's going to be in Dallas this year it's um September 9th through 11th. Um and you can go to Great game.com uh to check that out look at some of the speakers our keynote this year we've got uh re weinsweig from Zingerman's I don't know if you're familiar with them they they pursue a different type of ownership where it's more of a partnership level and they've built a community of food-based businesses up in Ann Arbor uh he'll be talking about his um uh latest book and then Annie Duke now I gotta be honest I'm not a gambler but um I have watched like the World Poker championships before they're very interesting to me I don't understand it and I I'm terrible at gambling that's why I say you know.

[41:47] But I'll tell you what Annie Duke She's Like A 3-time Champion world champion in poker. And the reason that we have her coming is because and she wrote a really fantastic book called thinking in bets making decisions when you don't have all the facts and so it's about really fast-paced decision making in uncertain circumstances sound familiar right it's so perfect because it comes down to probability. And uh 1 thing that I'm really I'm finding a lot of passion around right now is um I used to want to know what the future was what is going to be different. And nowadays with AI dude I can't tell you how many times I'm I'm in the middle of the night scrolling through the the Doom scroll or whatever they call it you know the news feed and it's like ai ai ai.

[42:31] And instead 1 morning I woke up and I go you know what I really want to know is what's not going to change in the 10 years coming wouldn't that be powerful. Absolutely it would be really cool so that's why I love going to our conferences I get to hear people's opinions about what they think is going to happen and we have some great economists coming and uh the head of research for vistage will be there Andy Duke and of course Jack will speak um but my favorite part is listening to other people and how they're navigating all of the craziness that's out there with the understanding that they have the same filter I do. They care about people they want to grow something special and they want it to last it's not a quick uh flip of a company it's it's build something special.

[43:13] Change lives and and I look at it this way this is how we're going to create a more Equitable Society is by creating more owners. And it's going to be an uphill slog it has been for years as you know but um the best part about it is I've accidentally surrounded myself with really cool people like you and I'm sure you're uh client base and and folks that are in the in CEO and ESOP so I mean I haven't met too many jerks no it's a great Community to be a part of and Steve thanks for for sharing about the conference I'm going to see you there uh so I'm really excited to be able to to participate uh and and get to experience that that what I would call brother or sister Community to the ESOP Community uh and then I'm really really looking forward to that well it'll be fun to introduce you to some really cool folks that'd be great that'd be great before we sign off for the day any parting thoughts or last thoughts for for our audience.

[44:12] I'll share a quote that has it just haunts me this is something that Jack has said I mean I don't even know when he said it but let's just pretend it's somewhere between zero and 40 years. But I've heard it my whole career here at SRCand that is that umyou know he's not trying to trivialize business. By making a game of it he's like why can't we make money and have fun there's just no reason not to come into work and be happy um.

[44:39] Knowing that it's not all dose and rainbows but here's his quote he says you know I wasn't trying to trivialize business I was trying to demystify it knock it off its pedestal because why. Here's the key part why does business get to be an Elite Sport for the select few that keeps everybody else in the dark and out of the money.

[44:57] Now that is not an ordinary business leader in America so all I say is my parting thought to everyone here is. What kind of a leader are you is that the kind of change that you want to make umif so there's a community for you, um if not I hope that you'll do everything you can to help as many people as you can and we'll still be friends but uh man for those folks that are ready to to step in and see if it's right for them uh you'll be welcome with the Open Arms. Steve thank you such a powerful statement and quote uh really appreciate you sharing that I'm gonna have to go back and revisit that a number of times until I can internalize it uh but I well aware of how that that can play out but thank you so much for your time today and for sharing about yourself and the great game of business again really looking forward to seeing you in person uh in just a few short weeks to our audience thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you next time on the journey to an ESOP and Beyond podcast.

[45:59] Thanks so much.