Quick Wins


Book Description

With a combined 30+ years of experience in behavior, leadership, and organizational improvement, authors Paul Gavoni and Manuel Rodriguez have created an efficient yet comprehensive guide for launching and accelerating school transformation. The first book of its kind in education, Quick Wins! Accelerating School Transformation through Science, Engagement, and Leadership is not a flavor of the month program. It is an approach rooted in science. Specifically, the science of human behavior in the workplace, also known as Organizational Behavior Management (OBM). By reading Quick Wins!, school leaders or any stakeholder will learn techniques for immediately engaging people in major turnarounds. These simple proven strategies will rapidly strengthen trust in leadership, drastically improve morale, and advance student achievement.




Quick Wins in Sales and Marketing


Book Description

This book is an indispensable guide for those who don't have the time to wade through the theory, but want ideas which can be readily put in practice. 50 'Quick Wins' is packed with no-nonsense advice and proven examples from business owners who have made their sales and marketing work for them. It is set out in 7 easy access chapters with the emphasis on simplicity, practicality and effectiveness - it does exactly what it says on the cover. This book is like having your own pocket business mentor motivating you to take the action to obtain the results your business deserves.




Achieve Lasting Process Improvement


Book Description

Methods of improving business processes are developed on an ongoing basis, but few are successful. Common problems encountered include the failure of processes to meet expectations and the inability to sustain or replicate these business processes. Involvement of personnel at grassroots level, as well as at management level, is essential in implementing effective process improvement methods. The authors present a step-by-step approach to the issue of effective process improvement, offering more than 200 tips and guidelines as well as addressing specific common problems and issues. The strategy presented is to take a broad and intuitive, but learned view of process improvement methods, and the tactics expounded are based on guidelines, common faults, and lessons learned. The authors disparage process improvement operations that depend on jargon and the support of just upper management, and promote grassroots involvement and self-sustaining measurement, making this an essential guide for all with involvement in process improvement.




The Progress Principle


Book Description

What really sets the best managers above the rest? It’s their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives—consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly. As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain in The Progress Principle, seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees’ inner work lives. But it’s forward momentum in meaningful work—progress—that creates the best inner work lives. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees in 7 companies, the authors explain how managers can foster progress and enhance inner work life every day. The book shows how to remove obstacles to progress, including meaningless tasks and toxic relationships. It also explains how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts—events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy—and (2) nourishers—interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect and collegiality. Brimming with honest examples from the companies studied, The Progress Principle equips aspiring and seasoned leaders alike with the insights they need to maximize their people’s performance.




The Lean Enterprise


Book Description

Lean culture should be developed so that the goal to improve a process or business condition on a continuous basis can be achieved. Organizations with a lean culture have reaped many successful experiences in implementing lean, so it is seen as a legitimate methodology for organizations. New employees coming into an organization that has a lean culture will be taught to see, think, and feel from a lean perspective in dealing with problems in their job. Lean needs to be a cultural mindset for all for an organization to remain successful. The effort to build a lean culture relies on the support and active participation of leaders as the agents of change. Research shows that the success of a lean implementation is around 50% depending on leadership, while the remaining 30% is on finance, 10% on organization and culture, and 10% on skills and expert human resources. In general, leaders play a role in developing subordinates, problem-solving skills, and producing various continuous improvement efforts. In addition, leaders are responsible for encouraging subordinates to continuously use problem-solving tools as part of their efforts to improve their skills and deal with bigger problems. This book focuses on leadership and the tools required to support a lean initiative. Understanding the basic and valuable tools of lean provides the foundation for leaders in support of their organization initiative. Topics in the book include a description of the eight wastes, organizational level process mapping, lean metrics, and developing a future position. The author includes a discussion and samples of basic lean tools such as Kanban, standard work, and visual management. The author also describes the tools each leader needs to be successful with in creating a culture of lean thinking, including the leader task board, the process performance board, and process walk.




The Visual Imperative


Book Description

Data is powerful. It separates leaders from laggards and it drives business disruption, transformation, and reinvention. Today's most progressive companies are using the power of data to propel their industries into new areas of innovation, specialization, and optimization. The horsepower of new tools and technologies have provided more opportunities than ever to harness, integrate, and interact with massive amounts of disparate data for business insights and value – something that will only continue in the era of the Internet of Things. And, as a new breed of tech-savvy and digitally native knowledge workers rise to the ranks of data scientist and visual analyst, the needs and demands of the people working with data are changing, too. The world of data is changing fast. And, it's becoming more visual. Visual insights are becoming increasingly dominant in information management, and with the reinvigorated role of data visualization, this imperative is a driving force to creating a visual culture of data discovery. The traditional standards of data visualizations are making way for richer, more robust and more advanced visualizations and new ways of seeing and interacting with data. However, while data visualization is a critical tool to exploring and understanding bigger and more diverse and dynamic data, by understanding and embracing our human hardwiring for visual communication and storytelling and properly incorporating key design principles and evolving best practices, we take the next step forward to transform data visualizations from tools into unique visual information assets. - Discusses several years of in-depth industry research and presents vendor tools, approaches, and methodologies in discovery, visualization, and visual analytics - Provides practicable and use case-based experience from advisory work with Fortune 100 and 500 companies across multiple verticals - Presents the next-generation of visual discovery, data storytelling, and the Five Steps to Data Storytelling with Visualization - Explains the Convergence of Visual Analytics and Visual discovery, including how to use tools such as R in statistical and analytic modeling - Covers emerging technologies such as streaming visualization in the IOT (Internet of Things) and streaming animation




Energy Management in Business


Book Description

The business benefits of lower energy consumption are clear: lower energy costs, energy tax avoidance, selling excess CO2 credits, immediately adding savings to the bottom line and improved competitiveness. However, with a need to focus on day to day business management activities, implementing energy reduction programmes stretches the capabilities and know-how of responsible managers. Kit Oung’s Energy Management in Business is an expert's guide to energy reduction. It covers four important aspects of managing energy: strategy for successful implementation, available tools and techniques, generating sustainable quick wins and active management involvement. This book offers distilled practical concepts with real life case studies chosen to build insight, and illustrate how managers and engineers can relate to a broad range of energy reduction opportunities. We take energy for granted, like the air we breathe. We need to engage employees with energy management in two ways. In a more general sense, for those using energy for normal working practices, awareness and behaviour change are key. For those with more direct influence over energy using systems, engagement is also fundamental. Energy Management in Business places the process firmly in the context of commercial and industrial business practice. The book is an excellent companion for any organisation seeking ISO 50001 certification and a reduced energy consumption, as well as those that simply wish to better understand the options, strategies and risks that every business now faces.




All About Dyslexia: A Practical Guide for Primary Teachers


Book Description

All About Dyslexia is an accessible and informative guide for primary school teachers, designed to increase their understanding of dyslexia and enhance their toolkit with practical, adaptable strategies to support learners with dyslexia and specific learning difficulties in their setting. The book debunks myths and misconceptions and clearly defines dyslexia, shining a light on a different way of thinking and learning. It then looks at metacognition and dyslexia across the curriculum, with a focus on grounding literacy skills and supporting the foundations of reading. Drawing on the experience of the learners themselves, the book equips teachers with strategies for high-quality teaching that will benefit all learners, not just those with dyslexia. All About Dyslexia includes: Chapters that are easy to dip in and out of, with top tips and signposting to further resources and research. A wealth of up-to-date, evidence-based, practical strategies for everyday practice at the coalface, including ‘quick wins’ which provide easy, prep-free ideas for planning that can be implemented straight away. The voices of learners with dyslexia, parents and practitioners woven throughout, offering an important insight into ‘how I do things differently’. An overview of different interventions, assistive technology and dyslexia-friendly environments with printable resources for use in the classroom. Ways to collaborate effectively with parents and carers to best support dyslexic learners’ progress. This easy-to-read book focuses on difference rather than deficit and is a valuable resource to empower primary educators, demystifying dyslexia and providing the strategies needed to feel confident meeting learners’ needs. It will be essential reading for all primary school educators, SENCOs and parents who are supporting children with specific learning difficulties. This title has been printed on dyslexia-friendly paper.




Building for the future


Book Description

This report examines the extent to which government departments and executive agencies are meeting targets to make their new buildings and major refurbishments more sustainable. Each year departments and agencies spend in the region of £3 billion on these projects, and if sustainability is handled well, it can and should provide better value for money in the long term. Key findings include: i) government is failing to meet the sustainability standards it has set for the construction and refurbishment of buildings on the government estate, as well as for sustainable operations targets set for carbon emissions, energy and water consumption; and ii) various barriers are hindering progress towards more sustainable buildings, including the fragmentation of policy responsibility among government bodies for improving sustainable construction and refurbishment, the absence of a coherent approach to monitoring progress and ensuring compliance, and the widespread perception of a conflict between sustainability and value for money.




Next Level Supply Management Excellence


Book Description

Presents roadmap to implementing next level supply management practices and strategies. This title outlines the critical success factors for leading your company to the next level in procurement practices and performance and provides a transformation model to improve bottom-line results.