Your Playbook to “Unlock Your World-Class Potential”

From learning valuable warehouse skills while working in his father’s carpet business, to enlisting in the Navy where he joined an experienced team receiving, storing and distributing the supplies needed for aircraft maintenance, Tom Stiveson has amassed a wealth of knowledge about supply chain management and logistics. In “Unlock Your World-Class Potential” he passes on his knowledge and tips to enable you to turn your facility into a fully functioning and world-class operation.

What is “Unlock Your World-Class Potential” About

The aim of “Unlock Your World-Class Potential” is to advise managers of the steps and procedures they can put in place to ensure that their facilities operate at optimum efficiency.

The idea of the book is for the manager to create a “playbook” which is built over a period of time. The playbook can then be used and referred to regularly so that nothing ever gets overlooked or forgotten in the running and maintenance of the specific facility.

From the author’s own website, readers are able to download the template for use when assessing their facilities, and determining strategies and checklists to be used to improve the safety and performance of the staff who work within them.

Each chapter, or “play” as the author refers to them, outlines the actions that a manager should undertake to determine how a facility is currently performing and identify any improvements that could be implemented to improve its efficiency. These are not initiatives that you will be able to come up with by just sitting behind your desk. In fact, the author encourages managers, especially those new to a facility, to initially try to limit the time they spend in their offices to no more than an hour a day.

The key to improving a facility is for the manager to be on the floor as much as possible. He needs to get to know all of the workers and processes involved in the operation of the facility, and where there may be bottlenecks in the process so that he can best ascertain where improvements can be made.

Each of the thirty-nine plays contained within the book focus on different areas and the relevant tactics that can be used to improve both the processes and the staff involved in the running of a facility.

Stiveson (@tomstiveson) has had an interesting and varied life. Prior to founding and becoming CEO of World-Class Business Builders International in Colorado, he honed his business operations processes skills working in the military and at a number of other major organizations such as the Lockheed Aerospace Company, Ultimate Electronics (Sound Track), and WinWholesale, Inc. to name just a few.

What Was Best About “Unlock Your World-Class Potential”

There are few businesses which do not depend on teamwork in one form or another to achieve the level of service and success that the business is striving to attain. Yet despite this fact, many businesses fail to provide continual and quality training to their staff.

Throughout his book, Stiveson is keen to remind the reader of the importance of teamwork, developing and training staff. He also  continually provides examples and instances of when and how a manager can go about doing this. Cross training is just one of a variety of forms of training that the author is keen to promote and which can prove extremely valuable to a company. It enables a company to fill any gaps due to unexpected absences so that the operation of a facility or business does not suffer.

What Could Have Been Done Differently

Regrettably, I was unable to access the author’s website and thus view or download and use the material referred to in his book. This is likely to be just one of the downsides of living in Africa — occasionally sites are not available for some inexplicable reason or another. Therefore, for those of us not so fortunate as to have unlimited access to everything we would like to view on the Internet, perhaps the author could have included some of the most important documents in the book, and referred the reader to his website for the remainder.

Why Read “Unlock Your World-Class Potential”

Although “Unlock Your World-Class Potential” is aimed more towards those commencing or already working in facility operations or as a manager in a distribution warehouse, there is much to be gained for managers in other types of businesses or industries.

While the book focuses on the steps that a manager can take to operate a safe and efficient distribution center, much of the book provides guidance to the manager on how to interact, communicate and work with his staff. Staff development, inclusion and training are just some of the areas covered, and which the author believes are paramount to creating a well rounded team, which once in place, will help to create a world-class work place.

This article, "Your Playbook to “Unlock Your World-Class Potential”" was first published on Small Business Trends