A Culture of Rapid Improvement: Creating and Sustaining an Engaged Workforce

Become a corporate change agent

Learn to implement and cultivate a culture of improvement with the assistance of one of the world’s most respected experts

Managing a business so that it achieves a supreme pace of improvement requires that all members of an organization can and do make their best contributions to the success of the enterprise. Management must provide employees with a shared set of values and beliefs so that they can decide for themselves how to behave in accordance with the expectations of a nurturing and empowering culture.

A Culture of Rapid Improvement is intended for those leaders seeking to encourage dramatic improvement within their organizations. It shows these change agents how they can―

· Develop the shared values and beliefs that serve as the foundation for a dynamic culture

· Engage all employees to join the new culture and provide opportunities for these stakeholders to initiate and participate in improvement

· Measure, evaluate, and manage the performance of the new culture

Filled with lessons garnered from practical examples, this text is based on Raymond C. Floyd's 40 years of industrial management experience, including his more than 20 years at Exxon Mobil. He is the winner of a Shingo Prize and also holds the unique distinction of having led businesses from two different industries that were both recognized by IndustryWeek magazine as being among the Best Plants in America.

If you approach the task of improvement with proper action and full participation, improvement is not just possible, but inevitable. At six months, you will notice a difference in your organizational culture; at the end of two years, you will be operating with near–world-class performance.

Raymond C. Floyd began his career as a production foreman with Inland Division of General Motors, a manufacturer of more than 30 families of automotive components. Following 10 years of increasingly responsible roles in manufacturing and engineering with General Motors, Ray joined Exxon as an affiliate vice president in Exxon Enterprises, an aggregate of more than 40 small and medium-size companies, each operating in a different industry segment. As a result, although Ray is best known for his work with Exxon Chemical, he has spent nearly half his career working broadly in discrete manufacturing. Ray is generally recognized as among the first people in the world to practice lean manufacturing within the liquid industries. The ability to adapt the technology and examples from prior experience to new business and social cultures was critical to his success. Using exactly the theory and practices described in this book, Ray led Exxon Chemical’s giant Baytown, Texas, site to international recognition for operational excellence. Later, as Global Manager of Manufacturing Services, Ray spread these practices to every plant in Exxon Chemical and used these practices to facilitate integration of operations when Exxon and Mobil joined in the world’s largest merger. Ray is the only person leading organizations in both discrete and liquid manufacturing to receive the “America’s Best” designation from Industry Week magazine. Organizations that Ray has led have also received the Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence and the “Best in Large Industry” designation from Maintenance Technology magazine. Ray received the Andersen Consulting Award for Excellence in Managing the Human Side of Change. Ray was appointed by President Reagan to participate in the Japan Business Study Program as a guest of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade. Raymond C. Floyd has degrees in chemical engineering (BS, Case Western Reserve University), law (JD, Capital University), and business administration (EMBA, University of Houston). He has also completed senior executive programs at the Institute for International Studies in Fuji City, Japan, and the Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is licensed as a registered professional engineer, attorney-at-law, and patent attorney. His wife, Marsha, is also an attorney-at-law. Ray and Marsha have two daughters who are both physicians.