When it comes to games in business, I’m a stiff. I don’t like games involving some flavor-of-the-month where sales have to reach a certain level over the next quarter. I find such games juvenile and fully disrespectful to what I believe to be true about performance excellence in any organization, including NPOs.

I’m the guy who doesn’t even like sprints, which I find incredibly gimmicky. Unless your name is Joe Gaboury, who is the greatest CEO I’ve ever served, who built a world-class IT team behind a brilliant CTO, then I yield to those kinds of sprints.

Yet, I love Revenue21, especially for retailers regardless of their sales channel. On the one hand, Shewhart, Deming, and Wheeler would scoff at Revenue21. Shewhart and Deming never liked emotional manipulation, motivational pep talks, or artificial emotional highs to inspire workers. If you want to read more, start here with this article from Deming.org.

While I agree with these cognitive and metaphysical mentors, I still understand the desire of the people I serve who love winning and achieving lofty goals.

Is it possible to win Revenue21 (the odds of winning are 1 in 743) while still embracing knowledge, pragmatism, basic statistical facts, and holistic thinking? The answer is absolutely yes, and I’ll show you how.

In this discussion, I will explain the following:

How Revenue21 works, the what and the why of the game (or the one in the 743 challenge).
The simple way to keep score each week.
The pragmatic method of how to win the game while NOT distorting the system and focusing on continual performance excellence as defined by the CEO and her key team members.
Simple playbook ideas that marketing and product development can use to win the game, not just in the short term but to ensure longer-term financial sustainability and stability.
A holistic scorecard that will pass the Stacey Barr test that includes the emotional and raw statistical elements of truth.

As a deeply analytical thinker who values truth and tends to be skeptical in today’s consulting arena, where snake oil is sold by the crate, I’ll share about a half dozen examples of where Revenue21 has been achieved with other retailers, and by a large margin. For clarity, these retailers were not playing my game but their own in the context of business excellence.

On a side note, I’m the creator of Grit Scorecards™, and Revenue21 is one of my favorite tools in my performance excellence treasure chest.