Greg Graves - Create Amazing: Turning Your Employees into Owners for Explosive Growth

Contents

Praise for Create Amazing

In Create Amazing, Greg Graves argues persuasively that employee ownershipdone the right way, and for the right reasonscan be a catalytic force for economic prosperity and corporate endurance. Drawing upon deep, practical experience as CEO of an employee-owned company, he lays out the what, the why, and the how of sparking an ownership mindset with an ESOP. Leaders who seek to fill their companies with people passionately engaged in the business for a very long time would do well to consider what Graves has to teach.

Jim Collins, author, Good to Great

As Create Amazing makes clear, employee ownership has a rich history in our countryand a strong future. Greg Graves has given us a how-to manual for combining good politics and economic policy to reduce economic disparity and improve the financial well-being of our nation.

Jerry Moran, United States Senator, Kansas

How should we solve economic inequality? Greg Graves, former CEO of one of the most important employee-owned corporations in the United States suggests we encourage the employees to buy the most successful firms in the country using credit and tax incentives using the ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). This book is the story of how Burns & McDonnell employees did it, of the central role of leadership in employee-owned firms, of the wealth that the middle class can gain from owning corporate assets, and finally, of the central role employee ownership can play in achieving the American dream of economic liberty for all.

Joseph Blasi, director, Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations

Greg Gravess new book is a must-read for any business leader thinking about how to transition the company into an ownership structure that will build productivity, loyalty, profits, and employee financial security. From his thoughtful review of the socioeconomic origins of employee stock ownership plans to the practical, how-to guide offering step-by-step insights on creating the strongest possible employee ownership model, Gravess analysis pays homage to the millions of workers who now reap the benefits of American employee-ownership as well as the millions more who could be employee-owners. Companies need to know from their peersthose who have been as successful under an ESOP model as Burns & McDonnell has beenthat making the leap to employee ownership pays off not only for their employees retirement accounts, but through the cultural shifts that occur, also in shockingly low worker turnover rates, higher productivity per worker, profits that allow for long-term thinking and deep reinvestment, and unmitigated business success. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Stephanie Silverman, CEO, Employee Owned S-Corporations of America

Greg Gravess dynamic leadership of a highly successful large multinational employee-owned company provides him with a unique perspective of wealth building in America.

Doug Girod, chancellor, the University of Kansas

I have known Greg Graves, a respected leader among CEOs, for many years. Through this book, Greg offers a comprehensive blueprint for how to improve businesses through employee ownership. His practical ideas and civic-minded approach will redesign the workplace and reinvigorate the American economy.

Stuart R. Bell, president, the University of Alabama

Greg Graves is not a theoretician sitting in an ivory tower, but a leader who built an incredibly successful company based on a model of shared capitalism: an ESOP. Create Amazing tells you how to bring this competitive advantage to your own company.

Stephen Smith, CEO, Employee Owned Amsted Industries

CREATE
AMAZING

CREATE
AMAZING

Turning Your Employees into Owners
for Explosive Growth

GREG GRAVES

Matt Holt Books
An Imprint of BenBella Books, Inc.
Dallas, TX

This book is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information about ESOPs. Neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services by publishing this book. If any such assistance is required, the services of a qualified financial professional should be sought. The author and publisher will not be responsible for any liability, loss, or risk incurred as a result of the use and application of any information contained in this book.

Create Amazing copyright 2021 by Greg Graves

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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First E-Book Edition: April 2021

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020054064

ISBN 9781953295002 (print)

ISBN 9781953295231 (electronic)

Cowriting and editing by Leeanne Seaver

Editing by Greg Brown

Copyediting by Elizabeth Degenhard

Proofreading by Lisa Story and Michael Fedison

Text design by Publishers Design and Production Services, Inc.

Text composition by PerfecType, Nashville, TN

Cover design by Sarah Avinger

Author photo by Ellie Grace Photography

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CONTENTS

C reate Amazing is a book for this time. Anyone who cares about America should be reading it.

Our country faces an unprecedented group of challenges: an uncontrolled pandemic; a depressed economy; deep political divisions; and many who believe that the system on which much of our national and economic success has been built no longer works for them.

Greg Graves offers an insight into one answer to these challenges: employee ownership.

Greg doesnt offer this answer as an abstract theory. Instead, he shares his experience leading a highly successful company that shared its success and wealth with its employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP. It is an outstanding story.

I, too, have the privilege of leading a company that is 100 percent owned by its workers through an ESOP. I, too, can testify that when employees benefit not only from the fruits of their labor, but also as owners of capital, it changes the entire culture of a company. They have skin in the game.

It also allows workers in tough Rust Belt manufacturing jobsthe kinds of jobs that many American companies have outsourced to Asiato have work careers that allow them to own homes, raise families, and retire with dignity.

Greg doesnt pretend that building a great ESOP-owned company is easy. But whats great about this book is that Greg digs into the nuts and bolts of what needs to be done to build a great ESOP company. There are a lot of logistical and practical details on which Greg shares advice. But, more importantly, Greg delves into what really makes an employee-owned company workselfless and dedicated leadership, the kind he demonstrated for years.