For nearly three decades, in good times and bad, Jack Stack has run his company, SRC, as though disaster could strike at any moment. Now, with the economy cratering, he’s glad he did.
If you think times are tough now, consider that in the early '80s, the prime interest rate topped 21 percent, and unemployment was just shy of 11 percent. That was the economic environment confronting Jack Stack and 12 other managers of a small engine-remanufacturing plant in Springfield, Missouri, as they prepared to buy the factory from International Harvester in a desperate attempt to save their own jobs and those of the people they worked with. Their new company, Springfield ReManufacturing Corporation, survived that recession and went on to prosper for the next 26 years.
Today, Stack, the company's CEO, and his colleagues are weathering a recession of similar magnitude. But they find themselves in a far different situation. The enterprise, now called SRC Holdings, is a mini conglomerate of seven holding companies with 26 businesses whose 1,200 employees make automobile engines, irrigation pumps, home furnishings, and more. Its current health is no accident. Having launched the company to save jobs, Stack was determined never to be forced to lay people off. He spoke with editor-at-large Bo Burlingham (with whom he has co-authored two books) about how he has worked to keep that promise to his employees -- and build a company that is bucking nearly every current economic trend.
Most American manufacturers are in terrible shape right now. And yet you seem to be doing well. What do you attribute that to?
