Aussie contender wins great game

An Australian chartered accountancy firm has competed against forward-thinking companies from around the world playing the 'Great Game Of Business' - and won.

On Thursday, September 4th in St Louis Missouri, at the annual Gathering of the Games, Brisbane-based O’Connells OBM took out an ‘All Star Award’ being recognised as a champion of the Game. Director Adam Dierselhuis was in St Louis to accept the award on behalf of the firm. 

The Great Game Of Business is a widely-acclaimed open-book management methodology developed in the US by entrepreneur Jack Stack.  Basically, the Game is about creating a high performance culture to drive business results, through the principles of transparency and ownership. 

O’Connells OBM implemented the Great Game Of Business methodology in their own practice in 2010 to give them a competitive edge.  After seeing how successful it had proven to lift performance and employee engagement, they have since started to introduce the program to other Australian businesses. 

When accepting the award, Mr Dierselhuis placed special emphasis on the fact that it was the team who had won. “The whole principle of the Great Game means that the outstanding success at O’Connells OBM is due to every one of our team members. They should all be here to share the excitement, but if we’d had a company vote they’d probably all have decided it wouldn't be a sound use of company resources!"