A Company Of Owners

Lack of employee engagement is the biggest challenge facing business owners and leaders today. Daren Martin delivers proven insights and solutions he uses to create ownership cultures in some of the biggest companies in the world. This quick reading, hard hitting, solution oriented book will soon be a staple in top business leaders’ libraries. Using insights gleaned from years helping companies and coaching leaders, Dr. Martin teaches company leaders how to turn team members into owners. The visually appealing graphic layout easily engages readers and leads them through a dynamic learning process. This book is intense, humorous, challenging, thought provoking and extremely engaging.

What is the difference between the duties of a business owner and the duties of a senior executive in a company? If you are a business owner, you probably have already asked yourself this question. But at the same time you may have never seen a complete, detailed, step-by-step description of all the basic duties of a business owner of a typical company. The author of this book is an entrepreneur and a practical man who has established a few successful companies. His description of each individual duty of a business owner is amazingly simple and systematic. It is astonishing how easy and applicable these descriptions are in real life. Each duty is described in a separate chapter with many examples from different business areas. Undoubtedly this book can be called the first professional manual for a business owner of any company. “The book, which you have in your hands, is written for those who started their business, encountered some difficulties and is searching for a way to succeed. The author of this book, Alexander Visoltsky, is not a theoretic who is talking about business at the desk. He is practician, who generalized the extensive experience of running his own business. His observations and recommendations are very useful for those who start this exciting game called “Business.” Small business is not simple at all! It is difficult to run a small business because it creates a lot of problems an owner has to solve. It has a lack of resources and possibilities and big staff turnover. The only solution is skillful and modern management. One needs to create a successful company. But how? At the beginning of his activity the author did not have an idea of how to manage. How to restore order in "your home", organize work and beat competitors. He decided to figure it out and help others. The author proposes solutions based on his experience. These solutions are results of his efforts of solving problems he encountered in his business. They turned out to be typical for all small companies. If you want your business to be successful, use solutions this book gives you!”—A.V Doctor of Economics, Professor “Dear Alexandr! I had read “A Job Description For The Business Owner” book and decided to write down my opinion. This book is not just relevant. I consider that any business owner, despite his achievements, needs this book like air. It is written in simple language. Today not many business companies have “personal face” and your book will help a lot of people to make up their mind and change their viewpoint on the world of “money”. I think it will become a handbook for those who had read it thoughtfully – this is the highest mark for a book and an author. I wish you prosperity, continue creating!”—A.K Owner

The string of business scandals that recently engulfed America painted a picture of corporate chieftains lining their pockets by cutting corners, cooking the books, and duping gullible investors. In doing so, greedy CEOs have hijacked what could be one of the most important business innovations in decades: stock options for all employees.Joseph Blasi, Douglas Kruse, and Aaron Bernstein-all leading experts on employee ownership-show how American companies would perform much better if they followed the lead of many high-tech firms and granted options to their entire workforce, rather than to just a tiny corporate elite. Using SEC data in a way never done before, they document the vast wealth executives have accumulated for themselves. It shows how the abuse of options has taken place not just at scandal-ridden companies such as Enron and WorldCom, but across the entire reach of corporate America. In the Company of Owners argues that there's a better way. Broad-employee ownership through stock options offers a new model for U.S. corporations and American capitalism. The authors explain how employees and shareholders alike would benefit if most large companies adopted what they call the partnership capitalism approach-using options to encourage employees to think and act like owners.A searing critique of business as usual in America's executive suites, this book offers a comprehensive vision for how stock options can enrich companies, employees, investors, and the U.S. economy as a whole. With its remarkable new evidence and astute synthesis, In the Company of Owners will change the way America thinks about stock options.Joseph R. Blasi, a sociologist, and Douglas L. Kruse, an economist, are professors at Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations. Aaron Bernstein is a senior writer at Business Week magazine.

The First Management Classic of the New Millennium! A bold experiment is taking place these days, as leading-edge companies turn upside down the management paradigm that has dominated corporate thinking for more than one hundred years. Southwest Airlines is perhaps the most visible practitioner, soaring through economic downturns while its competitors slash their budgets and order massive layoffs, but you can find other pioneers of the new approach in almost every industry and market niche. Their secret: a culture of ownership that allows them to tap into the most underutilized resource in business today–namely, the enthusiasm, intelligence, and creativity of working people everywhere. No one knows more about building a culture of ownership than CEO Jack Stack, who’s been working on one for the past twenty years with his colleagues at SRC Holdings Corporation (formerly Springfield ReManufacturing Corporation). Along the way, they’ve turned their company into what Business Week has called a “management Mecca,” attracting thousands of people representing hundreds of businesses to SRC’s home in Springfield, Missouri. There the visitors learn how to incorporate the ideals and values of SRC’s remarkable corporate culture into their own organizations–and then they go back and do it. Now, in A Stake in the Outcome, Stack offers a master class on creating a culture of ownership, presenting the hard-won lessons of his own twenty-year journey and explaining what it really takes to build for long-term success. The pioneer of “open-book management” (described in the best-selling classic The Great Game of Business), Stack and twelve other managers began their journey in 1982, when they purchased their factory from its struggling parent company. SRC grew 15 percent a year, while adding almost a thousand new jobs, and the company’s stock price rocketed from 10 cents to $81.60 per share. In the process, Stack discovered that long-term success required constant innovation–and that building a culture of ownership involved much more than paying bonuses, handing out stock options, or setting up an employee stock ownership plan. In a successful ownership culture, every employee had to take the fate of the company as personally as an individual owner would. Achieving that level of commitment was extraordinarily difficult, but Stack realized that the payoff would be enormous: a company that was consistently able to outperform the market. A Stake in the Outcome isn’t about theory–it’s about practice. Stack draws from his own successes and failures at SRC to show how any company can teach its employees to think and act like owners, including how to implement an effective equity-sharing program, how to promote continuous learning at every level of the organization, how to fire up employees’ competitive juices, how to broaden the concept of leadership and delegate responsibility for the business, and how to build a workforce that is fast on its feet and ready to take advantage of every opportunity. You’ll also learn about other companies that have succeeded in building cultures of ownership–and the lessons they can teach the rest of us. Written in Jack Stack’s straightforward, witty, no-beating-around-the-bush style, A Stake in the Outcome is like having a one-on-one session with a master entrepreneur and business innovator. It shows managers and executives of companies both large and small how to build a ferociously motivated workforce that is energized and committed to meeting and overcoming the most daunting challenges a company can face.

Most workers are conditioned to view themselves as one-dimensional in relation to their company—as a salesperson, or an engineer, or a manager. But imagine the possibilities if everyone in your organization started thinking and acting like entrepreneurs—like owners of the business. Imagine if your employees shared the same beliefs, both in their abilities and in the purpose of your business, and focused all their energies on making that business successful—knowing that they, in turn, would become successful as well. That is the power of an ownership culture, and this book will show you how to mobilize human intellect and ingenuity for competitive advantage. Act Like an Owner is an action guide to building a culture of employee ownership within an organization. Authors Blonchek and O’Neill present their business model, “Act Like an Owner,” which grew out of their experience building information technology service businesses. This model is a roadmap for applying today’s most important management practices in a competitive, rapidly changing environment. The authors use this approach as part of their consulting practice, and are the first to detail how to implement such a program company-wide. Act Like an Owner introduces the internal franchise framework that can be used for unlocking the entrepreneurial spirit in your organization. From this book, you’ll learn how to define your company’s operating model—the way you choose to do business—and then extend the model to your employees. The authors then explain how to link employee behaviors to each element of business performance. They demonstrate how to focus your entire organization on a business goal while addressing employees’ individual needs for opportunity and growth. You’ll learn how to attract and hire people with a positive, entrepreneurial attitude who can create an environment that establishes the values and behaviors you need. At the heart of the internal franchise is the ownership culture, a corporate culture built on principles and values that compel everyone in your organization to think and act like an owner of the business. The authors describe the impact of an ownership culture on an organization, illustrating how you can build equity in that culture and make it part of your company’s brand identity. They explore the power of such a culture to create an environment of shared values and goals. You’ll learn the formula for creating an ownership culture and putting it to work in your organization, and you’ll hear the perspectives of senior executives at companies currently adopting the “Act Like an Owner” program, including those at Aspen Systems, CACI, STAC, PSINet, and ConSonics. In addition, the authors apply the ownership culture model to one of the most pressing problems facing business today: attracting and retaining skilled workers. Filled with examples, anecdotes, and techniques, Act Like an Owner will motivate anyone trying to build a successful business that starts with people.

"Rejecting the myth that short-term profits are the only indicator of business health and wealth, John Abrams shows how building a company to serve the needs of people (employees and owners), community, and the environment can be a successful business plan as well. Part entrepreneurial business plan, part guide to democratizing the workplace, and part prescription for strong local economies, The Company We Keep marks the debut of an important new voice in the literature of American business."--Publisher's description

Are you considering starting an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) or converting your company to an ESOP? Or maybe making the big leap to a 100% employee-owned company? If you want your company to perform at its absolute peak and you want the people who make that happen (you included) to receive the ultimate financial return—that of an owner—Create Amazing is your practical field guide to creating an amazing company and leaving a great legacy. There are more than 10,000,000 employee owners in America today. The results of employees owning a piece of the pie has been proven throughout American history, even before ESOPs became IRS law in 1974. Employees with even a small capital interest in their firms' successes are more likely to stay, have greater loyalty and pride, are willing to work hard, and make more suggestions for improvement. Economic injustice caused by wealth disparity is quickly becoming the hottest debated topic in America especially in combination with the most regressive recession in America's history and the nation's hopeful new commitment to equalizing opportunities across all people. Employee ownership is not the only answer for economic justice but it can be a critical puzzle piece for tens of millions of Americans where the current inherent disadvantage of circumstance stands in their way. Create Amazing demonstrates how ownership can provide the ultimate competitive advantage to a growing company—and the nation. The vast majority of what's been published about employee ownership comes from academe—compelling research from Rutgers, the feds, and several national ESOP associations. Create Amazing puts ESOPs feet-on-the-ground, written by Greg Graves, a CEO who has walked the talk. Graves operated one of the most successful ESOPs in American history. Graves shares: • The history of employee ownership in America and the principles of its purpose • Why employee ownership is a viable solution fiscally and futuristically • What an ESOP is, what it does, and what's happening in Washington, DC, to promote this model • How ESOPs work, and how they're structured legally, fiduciarily, and financially • A deep dive into the impact of ESOPs on America and on employee owners personally If you're a business owner considering an ESOP start-up or transition to employee ownership, if you are a current employee owner who believes your firm can do more, or if you simply believe that our nation needs a shot of steroids to be both more productive and more just, this is the book that speaks from a real-world, executive-to-executive perspective about the process, the problems (and how to avoid them), and the deliverables. Create Amazing explores how employee ownership—done the right way—sparks an ownership mindset among employees and can be a catalytic force for economic prosperity and corporate endurance.

The epidemic is running rampant. How do you tackle the ever growing spread of low engagement inside companies? How do you build a company, let alone a successful company, with employees that just don't really care? With employees who seem to only care about paycheck? Has your company's journey been worth it all this time? Architecting A Company of Owners provides wisdom-filled instruction on how business owners and corporate leaders can rebuild the foundation of their company in evolutionary, powerful, and easy-to-follow steps, creating a company no longer made up of employees, but of fellow owners. Daren Martin reveals the steps it takes to build a company and workplace culture where everyone at the company acts like an owner. When your entire team acts like owners, incredible growth can occur at your company resulting in high employee satisfaction and engagement, the ability to attract and retain top talent, increase productivity and profitability, resulting in a true enterprise company and so much more. Architecting a Company of Owners is Daren Martin's follow up to his Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling book, A Company of Owners: Maximizing Employee Engagement. Walking you through the four C's of crafting an epic culture including, Call it by the Right Name, Craft it, Caste it, and Cultivate it. This enthralling strategic business management manual will be the elite ingredient for all businesses who no longer settle to just survive, but decide to thrive. Elaborating on years of practical experience with companies ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to small business enterprise "mom-and-pop" establishments, Dr. Martin shows once again with a delicate and impressive balance of sting and composure that he is The Culture Architect-- capable of introducing changes to your organization's design that will ripple throughout your company's profit margin. This book will wake you up to some uncomfortable truths about your organization's behavior while providing the essential blueprints on how to rectify your organization's culture and thus solidify your company's foundation to the very core. The visual layout drives the message home with power and punch, making the counsel easy to grasp and implement for seasoned culture advocates as well as novices who want to transform their company culture from the ground up. This lightning quick read and visually appealing format make it easy to digest in a short amount of time while providing a lifetime of insights on crafting the right company culture for your organization. This book is full of edge, impact, humor, and lessons in and beyond the business world, guaranteed to jumpstart you and your company's success. By the end of the read, you'll wonder what you've been doing all this time and realize it's time to level up and be an architect. An architect of a company of owners.

A study of business owners who use their firms as laboratories for social innovation. After introducing this phenomenon in historical perspective, Jack Quarter provides 11 case studies of contemporary innovators from six countries, including the UK, the USA, Germany and Canada.

WARNING: This book is NOT for BossBabes who want to build an empire. This book will NOT teach you how to get rich, especially not quickly. This is a book of SPECIFIC tips for SMALL business owners! This book is not going to motivate you. If you need SAVY, who's likely a stranger you met on the internet, to tell you that "you can do it," then you might not be ready to start a business. This is more than a self-help book targeted at entrepreneurial women. In this book, SAVY tells the full story behind the award-winning book and toy business The Furever Home Friends: from raising the money to start it, to registering and LLC, and more. You'll learn how to craft a sales pitch, how to generate startup capital, and more, all while SAVY gushes about cute dogs. If you hated Girl, Stop Apologizing, you'll love #SavvyBusinessOwner.