Topves - Succes in Safety and Other Matters

Management System Success is Management Success

Looking for SUCCESS? In safety, or in any other area?

To find out more, go to the Succes in Safety page to find out more.

[1] Risk Management, Safety and Control of Loss - Protecting Your Organization

[2] Making Your Future - In Business and in Other Parts of Life

My books Success in Safety Improvement Model Management System Success Improvement Process 17-Step Process Improvement Process Rating Management System Structure Management System Content Improving the Management System The Audit Management System Rating International Safety Rating System Accidents and Incidents Accident Investigation Protocol Safety Opinion Survey

My books

To communicate about success (in safety) you need:

to be able to place safety in the context of organizational leadership (and management) and in relation to other business interests such as risk management, cost control, insurance, quality
to know the process that is the pathway leading to success

Knowing the detailed safety techniques will not give you success. That technical detail may be important after you have gotten the attention and support of others. First you need to get the attention and support from the top of the organization, from management but first of all from the leadership.

The two books that I wrote relate to these two main success issues:

Risk Management, Safety and Control of Loss – Protecting Your Organization
Making Your Future in Business (formerly: Building a Management System that Works)

It is not the detailed techniques that will give you that. That detail is important but only after you have gotten the attention and support of others, from the top of the organization, from management but first of all from the leadership.

Based on my experience in the industry related areas of safety and risk management between 1968 and 2015, I wrote two books:

Risk Management, Safety and Control of Loss: Protecting Your Organization - an Introduction (2014)
Making Your Future - in Business and in Other Parts of Life (2015)

I wrote my books with the non-expert in (safety and risk) management in mind but, at the same time, these books would also serve the (safety) expert to communicate the importance of their work areas as part of shared interests and objectives.

Both books are based on principles, concepts and ideas related to the main function of leadership and management function: to control problems and their consequences, preferably before they materialize.

To be successful in any organization and whatever you do or want, you need to agree on purpose and objectives. In other words, you need to speak the same language. This is where the first book below comes in. Not just regarding safety; risk is universal and knows no boundaries other than what is inside your head and inside those of your colleagues, bosses, managers, leaders, employees. All people - needed to make changes, control risks, improve and do what they need to do - have to be on the same wavelength!

1. Risk Management, Safety and Control of Loss - Protecting Your Organization

This book conveys the message that the three business areas mentioned in the title are really one and the same when it comes to a very essential part of the management function: solving problems before and after the unwanted event that could lead to loss, small or catastrophic.

The 314-page book contains an introduction to Risk management, Safety and Loss Control and puts these subjects in the proper business perspective showing their relation to control unwanted events that downgrade business efficiency, profitability, image and continuation.

Understanding how these areas contribute to business results is essential to managing any business or organization and crucial to those who work as consultants - either internally or externally - assisting their management or client on their way to lasting profitability and success.

Priced at $ 20 (excluding shipping, taxes), Risk Management, Safety and Control of Loss can be ordered here.

2. Making Your Future in Business - and in Other Parts of Life

Parallel to getting agreement on the purpose and need of problem solving and setting up related objectives - such as "no risk above a certain level" - you need to know the process to make the plan to meet objectives. As this may require the help and involvement of all in the organization, that plan has to be made by involving all people.

This is the book describing the more generic process to make a plan or management system to make your future. The 346-page book is actually the successor of a book that I published in 2013 with the title “How to Build a Management System that Works – Guide to Management Success”. Since the 2015 book came out, I withdrew the 2013 book from publication.

Based on sound principles of management, this book uses the Platform Improvement Model as the basis for the 17-step process for management success to build a plan (or management system) to make the future, in business and in other parts of life.

"Willem delivers an easy to read, practical and rather unpretentious view on how a management system can be built with the help of a number of basic elements/principles. The proposed elements for the management system sound sensible. Sure, I would have made a slightly different cluster than Top’s 17 steps, but that’s quibbling over details in definitions. He does propose an alternative rating for his 17 step approach as a measure for implementation. And whether you use the rating or not, it is a fine (check)list of points to consider when building and implementing your management system."

C.B. - Norway

This process includes the subsequent steps allowing a top-down / bottom-up approach to involve all levels of the organization while providing the emotional ownership needed to obtain desired behavior leading to success.

Using and adapting this 17-step process when helping organizations to improve, the consultant – internal or external - will be able to create his or her own approach based on the successes of his or her clients. How much better can the basis of your marketing efforts be?

In the box below is an unsolicited reaction from a friend and business relation who was involved in ILCI (International Loss Control Institute in Loganville, Ga.) activities before ILCI was taken over by DNV in 1991.

"Thank you for the book which was received a few weeks ago. You did a great job pulling it all together into something that has been missing in the development and implementation of management systems, and I can see how it could easily fit into a course for general business majors."

S.B. - USA

Priced at $ 20 (excluding shipping, taxes), Making Your Future can be ordered here.