Books

A CHANGE MANAGEMENT BOOK
About the People Side of Improvement:

"Building An Opportunity Culture - Addressing The Barriers That Steal Profits and Prevent Sustainable Change"

This book gets personal with improvement by honestly examining every company's challenge with sustaining change. Nearly 40 case studies about success and failure with improvement are combined with the author's anecdotes and perspectives on behaviors and paradigms to raise awareness about cultures that sustain intentional change in large and small organizations.

CHAPTER TITLES:

Welcome to the "People Side of Improvement"
The Link Between Improvement and Culture
Perception is 9/10 of Reality
Fear in the Workplace – A “Deal-Breaker” for Improving Processes and Changing Culture
Your Definition of Opportunity Determines What You Fix, Measure and Talk About
The Management System – An Overlooked Link to Opportunity
Execution: “...the act of following to the end”
The Role of the Individual
Other Elements of Success
Getting Personal with Failure and Opportunity
The “WOW Factors” of Awareness
Designing A New Beginning For Change

Why do so many improvement initiatives fail to deliver the expected benefits to the bottom line and the culture? Why are companies replacing their existing improvement program with a new program every 2-3 years? What was missing from the last implementation? What can executives do to increase their credibility when recommending/supporting initiatives or promising results to shareholders and employees? The information and incites in this book will help answer these questions, recognize hidden improvement barriers and create a comfort zone for addressing the issues that prevent you from achieving your improvement goals. You will learn how to build an “Opportunity Culture” that works holistically to create value and sustain improvement for years to come.

A Personal Note from the author: "I wrote this book to raise awareness about the organizational challenges faced in many workplaces and am anxious to learn how it will help you solve problems and remove barriers where you work. Please send me an email telling me how it changed the way you think and work. Thanks." Kay Sever

TWO EDITIONS - Purchase Here

1) The EDITION FOR ALL INDUSTRIES addresses barriers to improvement that challenge people in all career paths in large and small companies. Includes an improvement supplement that provides additional insights into improvement, opportunity and culture. 296 pages. AVAILABLE ON-LINE NOW!

BUY NOW For shipments outside the USA, click here.

2) The MINING EDITION discusses the same improvement barriers that occur in mines and downstream plants and includes an improvement supplement specific to the mining industry. 255 pages. AVAILABLE ON-LINE NOW!

BUY NOW For shipments outside the USA, click here.

BOOK REVIEW - Jack Caldwell's Blog "I Think Mining" on 09/25/08:

Kay Sever on mining and financial failure

by Jack Caldwell

Kay Sever’s new book Building an Opportunity Culture is about process improvement in mining. If you want to make your mine operate more efficiently, I recommend that you read the book. Or better still engage her to consult to you; get her to evaluate your mine’s processes; and get her to work with you to remove those bottlenecks to efficiency and profit. In the current times the money may be well spent and a necessary route to profit or even survival.

I have been reading the book in the echo of TV filled with reports of failed and failing companies. Much of what I read in her book helps explain some of the mess that the financial markets now seem to be in. Take for example, the chapter The Management System. This chapter helps us understand why the management system at many financial organizations was not sufficient to see the wreck a-coming.

She tells the story of her son, and I quote (and edit for brevity):

My son is very knowledgeable about performance cars (Viper, Lamborghinin, Porche, Ferrari, etc.) and their stats (horsepower, torque, zero to 60, turbo power, psi, paddle-shift transmissions, tire size, brake type, etc.) He drives an “Evo8,” a Mitsubishi performance car that requires his full attention. His car displays real-time engine and turbo stats. He can hook his laptop up to it and download the operating manual and historical data on component performance. It takes a skilled driver who is intimately familiar with the engine/drive train features unique to the Evo to safely maximize its performance.

An analogy can be drawn between my son and his car and management teams and their companies. Like my son, management teams need good information and the right skills to maximize the performance of their companies. They need to see data that reflects improvements over time and reveals new improvement opportunities. They need to know when they have exhausted the capacity of the current infrastructure and where capabilities could be hidden by poor work practices. They need to be able to manage improvements like they manage operations. How else can they optimize performance and sustain improvements year after year?

Here's the link to the full text: http://ithink.mining.com/2008/09/25/kay-sever-on-mining-and-financial-failure

NEW BOOK ON THE WAY!

October 21, 2009 - PRESS RELEASE
Today Kay Sever, improvement coach and consultant, speaker and author, announced that work on the second book in the People Side of Improvement Series is underway. It will be titled "Patterns for Profits - Behaving Your Way To Improved Performance". Watch for future announcements about its release, currently anticipated in 2011.

TM
OPPORTUNITY: An odorless invisible element defined as a favorable set of circumstances in business. The only element with an infinite atomic number and weight. When discovered and captured, it reacts with improvement programs and corporate cultures to produce a desirable green substance found in financial institutions.