KIYOSHI SUZAKI

Results from the Heart introduces a new and helpful approach to improving job performance, improving job satisfaction, and helping organizations better respond to the rapid changes that are an inherent part of todays business environment. Mr. Suzaki recognizes that a motivated and engaged workforce should be part of any strategy to obtain and maintain competitive advantage. --Carl Stern, CEO, The Boston Consulting Group Since the publication of Frederick Taylors The Principles of Scientific Management, managers have relied on logic to compel action. Now Kiyoshi Suzaki, one of the worlds leading experts on enlarging the talents, self-esteem, and growth of the individual employee, argues that logic alone cannot move people to act. Productivity problems are inextricably linked to self-esteem, he argues, and worst of all to a prodigious waste of individual talent. But each solution is personal, Suzaki concludes, and found only within ourselves. "To find meaning and purpose at work we must use our brain," Suzaki says, "but listen to our heart." In Zenlike fashion he proposes that each of us ask ourselves a series of questions to determine the degree to which our brain is engaged with our heart. The framework around which this selfquestioning takes place is a groundbreaking concept that Suzaki calls "the mini-company." The author demonstrates how, within the larger workplace, each job is endowed with an almost spiritual meaning when each person -- at every level -- becomes president of his or her own area of responsibility. With simple diagrams, Suzaki shows how your boss becomes your banker or venture capitalist and your peers become your immediate suppliers or customers. The results are nothing short of astonishing. In Results from the Heart, Suzaki describes thousands of mini-companies he has "founded" during his worldwide consulting assignments. In most cases in which unhappy employees had previously "followed instructions like robots," there have been spectacular increases in both morale and productivity. If it is true that work is a journey, this manifesto for a more humane definition of the way we work is the roadmap.

Kiyoshi Suzaki es un reconocido experto en dirección y desarrollo de las organizaciones que, en su trayectoria de treinta años como consultor, ha asesorado a más de trescientas empresas de veinte paí

In this first comprehensive departure from the time-and-motion dictums of Frederick Taylors Shop Management that have influenced management practices for most of this century, Kiyoshi Suzaki offers a framework for successfully conducting business at its most crucial point-the shop floor. Drawing on the principles of holistic management, where organizational boundaries are smashed and co-destiny is created, Suzaki demonstrates how modern shop floor management techniques -- focusing maximum energy on the front line -- can lead to dramatic improvements in productivity and valueadded-to-services. The role of management today, Suzaki argues, is to eliminate its own responsibilities by thinking of the organization from the genba, or shop floor, point of view. In this challenge, Suzaki claims, organizations need to collect the wisdom of people by practicing "Glass Wall Management," where organizations become transparent, enabling employees to contribute maximum creativity as opposed to blocking their potential with what he calls "Brick Wall Management." Further, to empower individuals to selfmanage their work and satisfy their customers, Suzaki asserts that they all should learn to manage their own "mini-company," where everybody is considered president of his or her area of responsibility. Front-line supervisors, Suzaki shows, must develop a mission and goals and share them both up and downstream. He cites examples of the "shop floor point of view" -- McDonalds Corporations legal staff learning how to sell hamburgers and fix milkshake machines; Hondas human resource staff training on the assembly line -- that narrow the gap between top management and the shop floor. By upgrading peoples skills, focusing on empowerment, and streamlining processes, Suzaki illustrates that an organization will realize concrete improvements in quality, cost, delivery, safety, morale, and ultimately, its competitive position.