Every business I have worked in since being a young apprentice, (and yes there have been many over the 30 plus years) has had considerable amounts of wastage... haemorrhaging time and money everywhere. Time was wasted through repeat work, blockages and bottlenecks, unnecessary meetings, lack of direction, procrastination...the list goes on. Then there is the hard cost of wasted materials, excess stocks, unsold product, money left on the table...and again the list goes on. The hidden costs of recruitment - or re-recruitment when someone leaves, re-training, low moral, distractions and more again. Are you thinking "Ouch!" to each of these points? Most businesses have money flowing in, but flowing out just as rapidly through all these leaks, but typically the main aim is to keep tipping more in the top.... which of course needs to happen so the bank doesn't dry up. The flow is choked causing pressures at other areas in the business finding weak points in which energy is expended unnecessarily. So in your business life, what would be the outcome if we started fixing those weak points, and then were continuing to fill up the "bucket"... of course it would start to fill up and eventually overflow - maybe into another bucket, or two, or three! So why do we all have these leaky buckets? In most cases I have found that the leaks have not been the focus...maybe an irritation, but the sums have not been done to realise how much is leaking each day, and then how much that adds up to. Perhaps sometimes the realisation is there, except there is no-one to plug them, or the knowledge of how to fix them is missing. I have read many books and learned from a lot of people... a whole atlas full of roadmaps to achieve a wide range of different things that we all need to learn in business, and realise that to many, it is simply a case of so much to do and so little time.... so where do I start? Being a bit of a logical kind of guy, I have always set out to find the easy and most reliable way for things to happen. This book is my attempt to help you through this challenge in a logical process... a system or framework to follow if you like. For most, they have poor or no systems in place to make the business run efficiently in the first place so are often at the ransom of expensive employees helping them to hold things together. With systems in place we have less reliance on employee intelligence and can have more accountability to ensure tasks are completed properly. I come from a family of business owners, manufacturers, engineers, and service professionals and my background from leaving school has been in business management.... theory and practical experience combined. I've run my own businesses since 1993 and prior to that had a knack of making my jobs run independently of me. Let's think about that for a moment... how would it be for you to make yourself redundant in the daily functions of working IN your own business or department.... so that you can actually spend time developing the future and helping your team fine tune it further every week. That's not to say of course as the CEO, Director, Manager or Proprietor, that you can't go and play in it and do the routine things you like to do... but you do then have the choices. You might be a department manager like I was, and want to enjoy your work, and have the opportunity to work more strategically, running the best operation rather than constantly fighting fires and going home stressed every day. Leader's roles are to ensure their teams follow appropriate systems, and to step up when the system is inadequate, such as when exceptions to the rule crop up. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results". Here's the book to help you make that difference - I hope you take action. Clive