THE OPEN-BOOK LEADERSHIP STORY BEHIND ONE OF AMERICA'S GREAT EMPLOYEE-OWNED COMPANIES
FOUNDATIONAL LEADERSHIP
BY ROBERT L. GRIGGS
They said he was crazy. Some offered to buy his pipe mill when the company went under. Instead, Robert Griggs built one of America's leading steel manufacturers, opened the books to every employee, and then handed the whole company to the people who built it with him.
Foundational Leadership is the record of how it happened: profit sharing, scoreboards on the shop floor, and a workforce that stopped acting like hired hands and started thinking like owners, until one day they legally became owners. It's a proven playbook for any leader who suspects that trust, transparency, and shared rewards would work on their floor but has never seen the proof.
Here is the proof. Growth doesn't start at the top. It never did.
“Upon completion of reading this book, I was glad I did. there were takeaways after every chapter that are applicable right now. There were golden nuggets spread across each chapter. They were about the real growth of a person, associates, customers, and of a company. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn through the lives of others. This is a journey of growth.”
Jack Stack, CEO, SRC Holdings Corporation, Author of The Great Game of Business, Change The Game, and Stake in the Outcome
“Twenty years ago, I first met Robert given his interest in Open-Book Management. His passion for improving his business and the lives of his employees was obvious. He was the first person I have seen to incorporate both OBM principles and continuous improvement principles. His company’s results speak for themselves. His employees and customers make it clear he is doing this the right way. You can learn a lot from this book.”
Bill Fotsch, President, Economic Engagement, 90+ Forbes articles, including: Engage Your Employees in Making Money; 30+ Inc articles, including: How to Do Well in a Capitalist Economy; 5 Harvard Business Review articles, including: More than a Paycheck; and articles in Fortune, including: Employee Ownership Could Be the Future of Capitalism
“Foundational Leadership should be required reading for growth-oriented founders. while founders often pride themselves on what they ‘created’ they should keep in mind that success is a team-effort. Make sure the team IS brought along on the journey.”
Gregory L. Bier, Ph.D., Entrepreneur and Educator, Executive Director of Entrepreneurship Programs, University of Missouri
“I’ve known and worked with Robert for 14 years. He was one of the founding members of my first Vistage group and a great member. It’s been exciting to watch his journey with Trinity from Inception to ESOP. We met when he had just finished the pipe mill. Robert is very thoughtful in his approach to business. He is very ‘out of the box.’ A true entrepreneur! He truly cares about his people and put together a very strong leadership team. This is why the company has been able to scale so quickly and do so extremely profitably. Selling to an ESOP was also a big win both for the employees and Robert as well... I remember Robert talking about ‘Only hire Finishers.’ I’ve always loved this concept. It’s so true and important. That’s a trait that you can’t teach. You have it or you don’t. This book is a great tribute to the opportunity we have in this country. You can achieve anything if you work hard enough and have the ‘gut’ to persevere. Robert has done just that.”
Jeff Hindman, Vistage – St. Louis, Vistage Chair for 14 years
“I am truly looking forward toward Robert’s book! Working with Robert and Trinity was an exceptionally gratifying experience. It was great to see a company hit on all cylinders by reaching out to all employees to find, solve and implement solutions to improvement opportunities. I am pleased that he has embraced our process for team-based delegation and project management!”
Greg Huebner, Vice President / Region President, COSi (Since 2008) and President, Forte' Growth
“As an avid reader and learner, I found Robert’s book hard to put down. I was engrossed in learning about his management philosophy and principles and also about the steel industry in the USA along the way. Robert is open and transparent about his successes, his failures, and his challenges, and he presents a wonderfully humanistic logic for why his company has created and embedded the culture it now has. Griggs Law, ‘The universe only gives you opportunities when you are least prepared to take them,’ is just one of the unique perspectives Robert imparts that will no doubt lead readers of all generations to epiphanies of their own.”
Dr. Annette Kendall, Research, Innovation & Impact University of Missouri
About Robert
A lifelong Missourian, Robert L. Griggs founded Trinity Products in 1979 after a boss cheated him out of a paycheck and he resolved to do business the right way. He grew Trinity from a small fab shop into one of the nation's leading structural pipe manufacturers, its sales multiplying more than a hundredfold.
In 2001, inspired by Jack Stack's The Great Game of Business, Griggs opened Trinity's financials to every employee. In 2021 he declined a conventional sale and handed ownership to the people who built the company. Today Trinity is 100% employee-owned, with roughly 245 employee owners.
Griggs is a Missouri Manufacturers Hall of Fame inductee, a Vistage certified speaker, and co-founder, with his wife Shelly, of the Griggs Innovators Nexus at the University of Missouri. His proudest title: grandfather of six.