On Your Owner The argument for giving employees a piece of the pie

Jack Stack and co-author Bo Burlingham helped validate sharinginformation with employees in The Great Game of Business(Currency Doubleday, 1992). In A Stake In The Outcome (CurrencyDoubleday, $24.95), Stack and his co-author aim to do the same foremployee ownership.

Post-Enron, executives who encourage workers toinvest in company shares are likely to be viewed with suspicion.Stack's premise, however, is that letting employees buy stockin a company can do a great deal to help both parties. And thebenefits go far beyond reducing turnover and easing recruitmenthiring. Done right, employee stock ownership can help each andevery employee act like a true owner. But it's not simple. Eachchapter offers an "Ownership Rule." Some are obvious orshopworn, but others are more far-reaching and groundbreaking.Ownership Rule #9 states, "Getting out is harder than gettingin." It addresses the fact that if you let employees buystock, you have to provide the money and method for them to sell itback.

Stack limits the lecturing, however. Most of the text recountsthe early, rugged days of Springfield Remanufacturing Co., theengine-rebuilding plant then-manager Stack and his co-workersbought from International Harvester in the 1980s. It reads like amemoir. Stack could be relating the tale over a tall, cold one at aneighborhood bar. His insights are anything but everyday, however,and the tools he describes for achieving a culture of universalownership are memorable and practical.