Crankset Group

About the Book

IMAGINE A COMPANY OF
ANY SIZE:

• With
  no titles, no departments, no corporate ladder, no office hours, unlimited vacation time,
  and
  profit sharing for everyone.
• That invites the whole person to work,
  not just the part tied to the machine.
• Where
  leaders hire people they will never have to manage.
  In fact, where there are
  no employees or managers
  at all,
  just StakeHolders.
• With
  no written policies or HR department,
  because rules destroy creativity.
• Where the driving force is
  Making Meaning, not just money,
  and as a result,
  everyone makes a lot more of both.

"Why Employees" shares the stories of companies in every industry that have already made this leap from the Industrial age to the Participation Age.

In the traditional office, employees are told when to show up, what time recess and lunch are, and exactly what they should do while they are there.  Pretty much the same way we would treat a five-year-old.  But we have entered a new era called The Participation Age, and the hallmark of the Participation Age is "sharing".  It demands that we encourage people to move from being employees to self-managed Stakeholders, and that they share in the creative process of building the company together.

You’re too busy making money. No business can survive that.

There is no turning back.  The Industrial Age is behind us and the Participation Age is fully upon us.  People today want to Make Meaning, not just money.  To get there, we have to recognize and confront the seven core business diseases of the Industrial Age that were developed for the Factory system.  Those management practices will not serve us in the Participation Age.  The cure has become the disease.

Come join us in the Participation Age!

About Chuck

Chuck Blakeman has built eight businessess in seven industries on four continents.  As an internationally acclaimed business speaker averaging more than 100 speaking engagements and workshops per year, he has been quoted and featured in Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur Magazine, CNNMoney.com, NYTimes.com, Stephen Covey's last book, The 3rd Alternative, and other media throughout the U.S., South America, Africa, China, Australia, and New Zealand.

His Colorado-based company, Crankset Group, works with founders and CEOs to help them build Participation Age companies and get back to the passion that brought them into business in the first place.

Chuck’s vision is to live well by doing good

Success Toolkit

DOWNLOAD THE

STAKEHOLDERS TOOLKIT

• Perfect companion to the book
• Tools, templates and step-by-step instructions for hiring people you'll never have to manage

If you want self-managed, self-motivated Stakeholders,
you have to change your traditional hiring practices.  If you continue reading resumes and doing hiring interviews, you will continue finding employees who need to be managed. Stakeholders respond to a whole different process.

• Sample advertising templates for hiring Stakeholders that will discourage traditional employees from even applying.
• Ad templates included for sales person, operations person and administrative or office manager.
• Automated scoring templates in spreadsheets for all three positions. Decide what attributes are the most impotant, give them the highest rating (or just use our defaults), and begin the hiring process.
• Instructions for how to run the Stakeholder hiring process. Our traditional hiring processes were developed to find the Industrial Age employees who have been discouraged to be creative or innovative, want to be managed and told what to do, and do not take ownership of their results. This process will weed them out, and will only encourage Stakeholders to apply.

• Advertise in places that everyone says you shouldn't.
• Hire for culture first, then inborn talents, then learned skills, experience, and intangibles.
• Never take referrals from friends or staff directly.
• Grade and assess Stakeholders very differently than employees(see our scoring templates).
• Don't meet any applicants until very late in the process.
• Don't look at resumes until your are down to a very few candidates.
• Do VERY short initial interviews.
• In the interview process, require that people do the work you are hiring them for.
• The last two to three candidates will have multiple final interviews (only one with you).