About the Authors
Harry Paul
For over thirty years, Harry Paul’s career has been about helping people and organizations to be their best. His writing, speaking, and training showcase common threads throughout his work: having fun at what you are doing at work, no matter what it is you do; helping people to be their best at work and at home; and showing organizations how to keep their employees fully engaged. Harry’s latest book, Who Kidnapped Excellence?, expertly weaves these threads together to help people and organizations strive for excellence.
Harry developed the first thread of having fun at work while he was a senior vice president at the Ken Blanchard Companies. That’s where he coauthored his first book, FISH! A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results. FISH! was on various best-seller lists for over six years straight and is one of the best-selling business books of all time. As a result of this success, Harry travels the world sharing the philosophy with audiences.
The second thread is helping people to be their best; it led to several more best-selling books, including REVVED!, coauthored with Dr. Ross Reck, which helps managers and leaders to understand the importance of recognizing and appreciating people when they go the extra mile—building an Army of Advocates who can’t wait to work hard for you.
The third thread keeps people engaged—a challenge faced by many companies worldwide, especially in these tough economic times, because full employee engagement can be as low as 30 percent. When managers focus on their people and manage with trust, engagement happens, followed by increased performance and profits.
Harry has taken what he’s learned from his previous work and teamed up with John Britt, coauthor of Who Killed Change?, and Ed Jent to write the definitive book about achieving excellence in all that you do, Who Kidnapped Excellence?
Harry has coauthored six books that have been translated into thirty-five languages and sold well over seven million copies worldwide. His articles on customer service, employee engagement, and workplace culture have been published internationally, and he has been a featured speaker at conferences and corporate meetings in the United States and in places around the world, including Singapore, Bahrain, India, Sri Lanka, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia.
Harry lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, and they have two grown children.
Harry Paul travels the world presenting his ideas and concepts through energized and upbeat keynotes and seminars. He delivers programs based on his mega-best-seller FISH! A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results and other books, such as Instant Turnaround, and now Who Kidnapped Excellence? What Stops Us from Giving and Being Our Best. For more information on having Harry present to your company or organization, visit his website, www.harrythefishguy.com; e-mail him at [email protected]; or call him on his cell phone, (760) 212-8993.
John began his career as a registered nurse and worked in a hospital emergency room. It was there that John began to understand that the organization’s management and their frontline employees did not share the same perspective. Management seemed interested in discussing staffing, scheduling, productivity, and efficiencies while the frontline personnel discussed the delivery of patient care and quality for their patients.
© Nick Bonura Photography
After he transitioned to a management position, John began to realize that the leadership, management, and frontline people all ultimately wanted the same thing. They just did not have the same frame of reference, nor did they have the ability to use a common language. This interest in people and the interaction between the various levels of positions led John to go back to get a bachelor’s degree in management of human resources and then a master’s degree in organizational management.
John eventually began a consulting career in which he had the opportunity to observe and positively influence people in their organizational settings. He became intrigued by the fact that some projects were successful and some were not, and he began a quest to understand this. The quest led him to the topics of change management and change leadership. He began to write down his thoughts and ideas, and it was this path that led to his first book, Who Killed Change?, which was coauthored by Ken Blanchard and published in fifteen languages. This book gave John his first major platform to help leadership, management, and frontline personnel to better understand one another’s viewpoints.
John was also interested in understanding the impetus for the various levels of customer service he was receiving. Why was it excellent in one establishment and so poor in another? After his father-in-law, whom John was very close to, was killed in a car accident, John became introspective and arrived at his hypothesis: Excellence is inside out. Whether it is customer-service excellence or personal excellence, it begins with a choice and a first step forward. It was this chain of events that led to the writing of Who Kidnapped Excellence? John knew that his friends Ed Jent and Harry Paul also had a passion for excellence. Two phone calls later, the collaboration began. John believes that many of the solutions to companies’ problems, issues, and challenges can come from their people at the front lines. Who Kidnapped Excellence? gives John another platform from which to encourage leadership and management to reach out to their employees.
John is the director of health-care solutions at Kforce, a company that has a history of excellence (see the following section). He speaks nationally and internationally on topics related to organizational behavior. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife, Cynthia; three dogs (Dooley, Ellie, and Mollie); and three cats (Dora, Mushu, and Miss Kitty). John’s daughter, Katherine, and son, Jonathan, also live in Louisville.
John Britt loves speaking with audiences about change, accountability, customer-service excellence, and other organizational behavior topics. He delivers programs around his best-seller Who Killed Change?, Who Pardoned Accountability?, and now Who Kidnapped Excellence? John can be reached at [email protected] or at (270) 791-2496.
KFORCE
BY JOHN BRITT
Kforce Inc. (NASDAQ: KFRC) is a professional staffing and solutions provider serving the health-care industry since 1998. Kforce’s dedicated health-care industry practice offers consulting and project solutions in health information technology, health information management, and revenue life cycle to over five hundred health-care-provider clients nationwide, including 75 percent of the nation’s top Honor Roll Hospitals, major health-care insurers, and a large segment of national consulting firms focused on the health-care community (“Best Hospitals 2011–12: The Honor Roll” is an annual list published by U.S. News & World Report).
When I first encountered Kforce, I did not know exactly what attracted me to them. Now that I have been associated with them—in fact, become part of the company—I have realized that it is their quest for excellence that drew me in.
Kforce’s slogan is “Great People = Great Results,” and that is where they put their passion—in recruiting and developing people. Kforce understands that developing their people means promoting competency, allowing for flexibility, facilitating communication, and encouraging ownership.
Ed graduated from Western Kentucky University (1986) with a bachelor’s degree in communication. He also holds a master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1988). In addition, he graduated from Walt Disney World’s Disney University. It was at Disney that Ed began to understand what was “behind the curtain” to produce excellence in customer service. He played baseball at Western Kentucky, where he was a cocaptain his senior year. He also traveled with AIA Baseball throughout the Pacific. He has served in Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, and Kentucky as a minister of education for several church organizations. Traveling throughout the world has enabled him to gather a unique cultural perspective on life and people. Some of the best lessons he has learned came from candid conversations with people whom he had nothing in common with.
Ed has committed himself to being a lifelong learner. Change implementation and conflict management are areas he enjoys, in addition to teaching and writing. He is comfortable in front of an audience and loves his work. He is never happier than when he is asked to figure out why something is not working. Counseling and helping others to find their passion is another area he enjoys. Challenging someone to look at something from a different perspective or helping him or her to develop goals inspires Ed.
Working with volunteers in a nonprofit organization offers him an opportunity to be flexible, communicate, instill ownership, develop competency, and be passionate. Leading volunteers for over twenty-five years has been a joy and a privilege. However, leading people who do what they do apart from a salary creates a unique set of opportunities. These five competencies have been the central focus of his work. People excel when they grow in these competencies, and Ed has spent his life helping people to excel.
Family is very important to him, and he enjoys spending time with his wife, Patricia, and his two boys, Hunter and Spencer. Ed lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Contact Ed
Ed Jent would love to speak to your group about excellence! Who Kidnapped Excellence? offers a fun way to engage and challenge any audience. What stops us from giving and being our best is a question everyone should answer. His fun, energetic storytelling style will leave you energized and challenged. Ed can be contacted at [email protected].
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