Vibrant New Publishing Business

Today, we launched our new Publishing venture with our first book.  As writers on Organisational Change we often design and write White papers, Research Reports and Articles for our clients that are published ‘in house’ publications or in the Press and Management Journals.

Today, marks a historical day for Philip Atkinson who has launched the Publications Division of his business,  Learning Strategies Ltd which has published Len Smith’s text “How to be a copywriter & earn money from home” which is a fore-runner of Len’s next book ‘SEO Excellence’.   This can be downloaded from www.amazon.co.uk  through their Kindle store.

New Book - 'How to Master the Mind....'

In the coming weeks Learning Strategies is also publishing Philip’s text ‘How to Master the Mind & Your Potential’ and ‘The Power to Influence: Change Management'. 

Philip together with Alan Steel will to publish ‘How to Invest: Self Defence for Investors & Savers’ in January 2012. Alan Steel www.alansteel.com  is a long term colleague and friend who is the winner on many prestigious IFA awards and also a Financial Journalist for the Telegraph, the Scotsman, The Herald, the Daily Mail and many industry specific Journals.

New 'How To' Series....

This is the beginning of a long line of books which Philip has commissioned from leading experts in bringing about Change in Business and Personal life.  There will be a new series available in 2012 ranging from ‘Coaching Excellence’ to ‘Presentation Mastery’.

Philip has decided to branch out on this new venture because he firmly believes the future for publication requires a speedy response to market delivery of core texts.  The traditional publishing industry is too slow, and anachronistic to adapt quickly enough to provide books on demand.

All the texts are in Kindle format which can also be downloaded to a Kindle, iphone, ipad, PC or Apple.

Rejection of Traditional Publication

Philip has so far only 'self-published' only one of his book 'Shaping Customer Focus' – relying instead on the traditional route to print.  His other texts were printed and distributed by acknowledged publishing houses such as Pitman, the Industrial Society and Rushmere Wynne.  It seems the world is changing and the traditional publisher route is in terminal decline.

Meeting Client Needs

He has decided reject the traditional publishing route with his text ‘Shaping Customer Focus’ in 1999.  He had to meet the demand from clients in the USA who wanted a text to support major change initiatives.  Philip wrote and co-authored the book with his long term client, Ian Millar, VP of Strategic Manufacturing at CNH Global in the USA. 

‘Shaping Customer Focus’ was the foundation for a major Change Programme on Continuous Improvement which was percolating through the management layers of this 20,000 employee company situated in all continents.

Philip will be writing more about this new venture.  If you are keen to read any of his published 300 Journal Articles they are freely available on his various websites.

If you require a specific article email Philip and he will do what he can to point you in the right direction.

Shaping Customer Focus

Speed of decision making slows down and in many businesses decision making actually grinds to a halt. It is a strange organizational phenomenon. Paradoxically, the demands for change and improvement urgently require solutions to promote organizational effectiveness. But what typically happens?

Incapacity to Make Strategic Decisions

The capacity of the organization to arrive at and implement decisions freezes completely. We have found that organizational changes put many people into a 'hold' pattern of activity struggling for several months. This freezing or slowing down in the 'change process' exists because of a high degree of perceived uncertainty in how the organization manages ambiguity in its environment.

Fundamentally, this is a reflection on the business in terms of its ability to delight the customer and is particularly a problem when managing the expectations of customers. If companies fail to prove to their customers that they are responsive to change, the customer will go elsewhere. Customers are fickle and desire perfection.

Failing to Deal with the Rapidity of Change

Organizations in both the private and public sector, need to respond rapidly to meet customers' changing expectations if they hope to survive. Companies that fail to commit to delighting their customer and using any complaint as a business opportunity to enhance customer loyalty will soon lose their customers.

Organizations that have failed to master 'customer relationships' (internal and external) usually have major difficulty mastering human relations inside the business. Businesses that have not yet captured fully the skills and abilities of their most able employees are failing to master their potential. A tremendous opportunity is wasted.

Passion & People make the Difference

We believe the dual challenge to any organization is the ability to nurture and develop its people, to drive, align and meet and eventually exceed customer expectations.

This challenge is sadly lacking in the average enterprise. If an organization is not investing and striving to get better at using its people to delight the customer then it is probably standing still. If you're standing still, chances are that you're slipping backwards and the competition will have overtaken you.

Powerful Organisational Model of Continuous Improvement

This book has been written to push the average organization forward. The focus of the book is to outline a powerful change model, not just to give a business an advantage but to develop the capability of a strategic trajectory and powerful propulsion system for continuous improvement - totally focused upon aligning with the customer.

The book focuses upon three Strategic Imperatives for change

• Achieve 100% alignment with the customer
• Develop as a core competency the internal capability to create change agents to drive change within the organization
• Create and refine a process of continual organizational renewal and improvement

It is a fact of life that business is becoming far more complex and those organizations that are going to survive will have to learn to master and drive change rather than be a victim of it.

Change in business in the past 30 years has been slow in comparison to that which will have to be mastered in the future. In the new Century, more organizations will have to give special attention to rapidly implementing changes.

Change is Accelerating

Change itself is accelerating at an accelerating rate. We recognize that probably 90% of organizations are failing to maintain their ability to adapt and change at the rate at which they should. Their future is not rosy. Consider the top 100 of the Fortune 500 companies in the US in 1988.

Today less than 50% register in that same list. Some no longer exist.

This is not a temporary trend. For organizations to prosper and change it is imperative that they learn to master rather than merely adapt to their environment.

This book addresses the need to fully understand the dynamics of customer focused change in order to develop and practise change itself. It also deals with a variety of diagnostic and change tools, which will help internal change agents analyze the situations and respond swiftly and accordingly.

A combination of these cultural tools and methodologies can be used to 'triangulate' the causes of such problems and then quickly act to implement any necessary improvement.

We focus on the difficult side of the change process - namely the dynamics inherent within the business culture.

Fundamentally, we have four Sections each with specific Chapters focused upon those areas for installing Customer Focused Continuous Improvement.

Philip Atkinson  and Ian Millar

Price £15 plus Postage £3

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