The author gives us a vision of educational reform that transcends standards, curriculum, and instructional strategies. He argues for a paradigm shift-a schoolwide embrace of an "ethic of excellence" and with a passion for quality describes what's possible when teachers, students, and parents commit to nothing less than the best. The author tells exactly how this can be done, from the blackboard to the blacktop to the school boardroom.

A step-by-step guide to designing and implementing an amazing customer service culture In today's competitive business environment, keeping customers happy is the key to long-term success. But some businesses provide much better customer service than others. It's not always clear what works and what doesn't, and implementing new customer service practices midstream can be a difficult, chaotic task. Business leaders who want to transform their business culture into one of customer service excellence need reliable, proven guidance. Unleashing Excellence gives you practical tools and step-by-step guidance tailored to your company's individual customer service needs. It shows you how to navigate your teams through every step of the implementation process to achieve true customer service excellence. The book covers the training and education of your group, how to measure the quality of your service, how to build a culture of personal accountability, and how to recognize excellence and reward it. Fully revised to include updated information on the latest tools and best practices, as well as the stories and lessons learned from those organizations that have used the process described in the book. Offers proven best practices for designing and implementing an excellent customer service culture Simple format divides content into nine "leadership actions" that guide you through a step-by-step process Shows you how to build a common customer service vision for your entire organization Customer service is vital to the survival of your business. If you want to move your organization's customer service practices from good to great, Unleashing Excellence is the key.

"A bible to read for all transformation agents and leaders!" Jérôme Lavancier, Program Director Agile@Scale Transformation Coordination at Société Générale "Rather than offering us yet another series of case studies or a list of best practices that have been covered to death, Olivier Zara offers us a real model for achieving decision-making excellence and thus managing decision-making risks in complex situations." Arnaud Brouxel, ex-Safran & Thales, Risk Management Expert "An indispensable book to understand this complex subject from all perspectives and discover the benefits of new managerial approaches." Olivier Bernard, Deputy Director of Flight Safety at Air France "This book is a treasure trove of explanations on the causes of failure in business transformation projects and programs. The Decision-Making Excellence Manifesto should not be included as an appendix to this book, but on the syllabus of all management schools!" Charles Escoula, Project Manager at AVEM-group "This book proposes a coherent and robust model for managing complexity and crises, but it also invites us to value our human, ethical and altruistic qualities. Are you ready to take a journey into the 21st century enterprise?" Paul-Louis Moreau, Change & Digital Transformation Manager at BNP Paribas Loss of time, meaning, trust and agility? Disengagement? Ready for a Dream-olution? Do you make brilliant decisions very quickly, but the execution of your decisions turns into a nightmare: loss of time, trust and agility? Do you watch the wheel of your transformation turn over and over feeling as if nothing ever changes? Then it's time to start your Dream-olution by implementing decision-making excellence. This will require abandoning the paradigm of the heroic and omniscient chief who thinks and the employees who execute. Thus, you will be able to develop the agility of your decision-making processes. Successfully implemented for more than ten years in large companies, decision-making excellence is a powerful approach to managing decision-making risks in a complex and uncertain environment: numerous stakeholders and expertise to be synergized in shorter and shorter timeframes. Decision-making excellence is at the service of operational excellence. It avoids execution problems by integrating everyone's expertise in the co-construction of a decision that is both flexible and robust. This creates a sustainable collective engagement, because the team runs very fast... in the right direction!

Detailing the role of senior management in achieving a successful transformation to organizational excellence, Simple Excellence: Organizing and Aligning the Management Team in a Lean Transformation charts a course of simplification through the complexity often associated with managing performance improvement initiatives. It spells out the roles of key individuals on the management team—including those from sales and marketing, human resources, purchasing/supply chain, information technology, finance, and engineering. Maintaining a focus on the big picture, this book explains what value streams are and how to use them to structure your business so that all stakeholders are aligned with what matters most. It reduces constraint management to its most practical terms and lays out a sound approach to accounting that enables everyone to spend money where it adds value and stop spending where it doesn’t. Drive your management team with dedicated allegience to the concept of value enhancement Propel your organization to higher performance through the employment of Lean culture and decision-making principles Enact management structures needed to put new ways of thinking into play Focus on the bottom line with the right performance metrics Written by respected authorities with extensive experience helping leading organizations achieve Lean transformation, the text includes case studies from high-profile organizations recognized for operational excellence. Addressing human resources management practices, it explains how to manage the day-to-day operations and pricing factory capabilities for the greatest possible profits. It also discusses the ongoing process of strategic planning to help you move away from annual goal setting, toward a dynamic process of engaging the entire company in the effort to provide your customers with an improved sense of value.

QFINANCE KEY CONCEPTS series is an essential aid to the budding finance professional who requires the distilled and in-depth information for that all-important meeting, interview or daily task. Each book is set to a standard format, which includes real-life case studies, chapter summaries and step-by-step advice plus sources of further information.