Ownership without financial literacy doesn't change behavior.
GRITT works with ESOP companies to build the financial clarity, leadership depth, and ownership culture that make ESOPs actually work.
Start with Profit & Cash®
See how ESOPs actually work in practice
You can structure an ESOP correctly and still have employees who don't understand what their shares are worth, how the company builds value, or how their daily decisions affect the scoreboard. The ownership is real. The ownership thinking isn't.
That's not an ownership problem. It's a financial literacy problem. And it's solvable.
Profit & Cash® is a 4-hour simulation that gives every employee-owner - from the plant floor to the leadership team - the financial literacy to understand what their ownership means and how their decisions affect its value.
It's not a training. It's a shift. And most ESOP companies see an immediate change in how people talk about the business after a single session.
One session changes how your employee-owners think about the business.
Learn About Profit & Cash® Schedule a session for your team →Attorneys and bankers close the transaction. GRITT builds what makes it worth having - and what makes it last.
Every employee-owner understands how the business makes money, what drives ESOP value, and how their daily decisions move the numbers. Delivered through Profit & Cash®, open-book management, and KPI scorecards.
Key question answered: "How does what I do today affect the value of my shares?"
A leadership team that can operate without the founder in the room. Trustees, lenders, and boards need to see this. GRITT builds it through coaching, accountability frameworks, and succession planning.
Key question answered: "Does this business run when the owner isn't here?"
A culture where employees act like owners because they understand the connection between their behavior and business value. Built through open-book management, weekly huddles, and execution rhythms tied to shared outcomes.
Key question answered: "Do our people think and act like owners, or just employees with shares?"
Having an ESOP is not the same as having an ownership culture. GRITT builds both sides: the education that makes ownership meaningful, and the committee structure that makes it self-sustaining.
Ownership is only powerful when people understand it. GRITT deploys a structured literacy curriculum at every level of the organization - from the executive team to front-line employee-owners.
The companies that sustain ownership culture over time have internal champions and governance structures - not just leadership commitment. GRITT helps establish the committees that keep the culture alive between engagements.
AlaTrade transitioned to 100% employee ownership and quickly realized the ESOP structure had no effect on behavior. Employees had shares. They didn't understand what drove their value. GRITT deployed financial literacy across all three plants, built weekly huddles that connected every employee to operational metrics, and ran targeted efficiency Sprints on the processing lines.
"GRITT helped us implement efficiency Sprints that saved $1.4 million while significantly increasing employee engagement. The financial literacy work changed how our people think about the business - and the results followed."
What changes when every employee-owner understands how the business actually makes money.
Every member of our ESOP team has direct, firsthand experience building, leading, or transforming employee-owned organizations. That's not a credential - it's context that changes the work.
Built open-book management, financial literacy, and employee ownership from the ground up inside a real business. Everything GRITT teaches was tested and refined at PFSbrands first.
Son of Jill Carpenter, co-author of The Power of Open Book Management and an early ESOP pioneer. Patrick makes financial and business literacy practical, engaging, and actionable for organizations of every size.
Helped shape the nationally recognized culture of innovation and shared ownership at New Belgium. Trained facilitator through UC San Diego's Beyster Institute. Specializes in building the people systems - trust, transparency, accountability - that transform ESOP companies.
Active advocate for employee-owned companies. Speaks regularly at NCEO conferences and webinars. Helps employees at all levels gain line-of-sight to company performance and understand the financial literacy behind their ownership.
Partner at GRITT Business Coaching and ESOP Trustee - a role he pursued because of his deep belief in employee ownership. Spent 15+ years in senior finance at PFSbrands, GRITT's 100% employee-owned parent company. Served as Past President of the Heart of America Chapter of The ESOP Association. Brings deep technical expertise in open-book management, financial literacy, and ESOP culture built from the inside out.
30+ years in HR and organizational leadership. Certified in Predictive Index, Gallup CliftonStrengths, and Kolbe. Uses behavioral data to build ownership cultures and speaks nationally on leadership, employee ownership, and the future of work.
GRITT was developed inside PFSbrands - a company Shawn and Julie Burcham started from their home in 1998 and scaled into a $100M+ 100% employee-owned enterprise operating across 30 states. Every system GRITT brings to clients - financial literacy, open-book management, leadership development, execution rhythms - was tested and refined in a real ESOP business before it ever reached a client.
When GRITT talks about ESOP, we're not describing something we studied. We're describing something we built.
Most ESOP companies have the structure right. Few have the culture performing. The GRITT ESOP Culture Health Check surfaces the three most common gaps - in 5 questions - so you know exactly where to focus. We'll send it with a short interpretation guide at no cost.
Delivered within one business day. No sales call required - unless you want one.
Schedule a confidential call with our ESOP team. We'll listen, ask the right questions, and give you an honest assessment of where the gaps are and what it would take to close them.
Most conversations start with Profit & Cash®. All of them are confidential.