Books by Michael Vallez
Mike Vallez
The Ultimate Power of Team Leadership
Across the world, hundreds of billions of dollars are lost every year on programs, projects and other initiatives that run over budget and take too long. Projects in construction, information technology, product development, healthcare, manufacturing, services, mergers and acquisitions and more. In the USA alone, IT project cost overruns cost the economy a staggering $55 billion per year. Worldwide, large building projects run over budget by over 80%.
The good news is that you don’t have to keep losing sleep over this, because Mike Vallez has spent over forty years perfecting a toolkit to solve this problem. It is all contained in this book that will save you time, money and headaches.
This book contains information that you cannot find anywhere else, and it will guide you on how to plan, organize, lead and execute any program or project within a fixed schedule and budget. If you work in a group or on team, this book is for you. So don’t miss it. More information about this book can be found at: http://www.ontimeandunderbudget.us/
Mike Vallez
Work Smart Work Safe
This groundbreaking book by Mike Vallez is an easy-to-read primer on the leadership principles crucial for achieving operational excellence in any size work group or organization. In clear, concise language, Vallez shows how to achieve high levels of safety, motivation, and productivity by focusing on the needs of employees and clients. Recent insights from the fields of physiology, psychology and neuroscience demonstrate that the objectives of safety and productivity, contrary to common belief, do not conflict. In fact, Vallez shows how a safety initiative can be a key driver of improving productivity and other metrics of organizational performance.
The concepts and methods revealed in Work Smart, Work Safe! stand at the crossroads of leading best practices of safety and productivity management. For the first time, the measures for eliminating root causes of poor safety performance are shown to be the same principles of leadership that produce high levels of motivation and productivity. Rushing, fatigue, frustration and complacency are the root causes of accidents and the enemies of operational excellence. Based on a foundation of academic research and a 35-year career spent putting his principles into action, Vallez offers valuable insight into eliminating the root cause of all root causes of accidents—poor leadership—and gives a step-by-step prescription for achieving operational excellence. This book offers valuable insights for anyone who serves in a leadership role—from front line supervisor to CEO.
Operational Excellence is a philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving resulting in continuous improvement throughout the organization by focusing on the needs of the customer, empowering employees and optimizing existing activities in the process.
Operational Excellence stresses the need to continually improve by promoting a stronger teamwork atmosphere. Safety and quality improvements for employees and customers lead towards becoming a better enterprise.
Mike Vallez
Mining 2030
This book provides examples of some of the game changing innovations that are occurring in the mining industry today and lays out a vision of where the industry is heading in the year 2030. Mining is a capital-intensive industry with long range capital project planning cycles. More often than not, because of this long time horizon, the professionals who plan and conceive projects are seldom the same ones who develop and operate them. For mining organizations to succeed in this environment, they need people in their ranks who are imbued with a high sense of integrity, commitment, creativity and vision, tempered with clear eyed practicality.
Humanity’s need for the “stuff” of mining is increasing, yet the supply of our natural resources is finite. One might say that all the easily mineable commodities are gone, and it is getting more difficult and costly to extract what is needed to support life for seven billion of inhabitants on the planet. There are other challenges to the mining industry. Gaining the “public license” to mine has never been more difficult because of common perceptions of mining as a dirty business. Unfortunately, the press and Hollywood are not helping the matter. James Cameron’s movie, Avatar, depicted a mining company as the evilest antagonist, bent on destruction. Mining 2030 provides a unique counterbalance to the “miner as evil antagonist” theme which runs through popular culture. Without mining, it will become more difficult for the seven billion inhabitants of the earth to feed themselves. Energy is a very large input to our highly productive industrialized food system. And the envisioned renewable energy infrastructure will require large amounts of basic minerals to build. So, if we want a sustainable planet for our descendants to inhabit, we need mining.
Mike Vallez
People Business
This book is an inside look into McDevitt and Street Company, the most successful general contractor of the 20th Century. Most baby boomers entered the workforce during the 1980’s, and the commercial building boom that accompanied this offered an unprecedented opportunity for the building industry. McDevitt and Street Company jumped from a small regional contactor to become the third largest general building contractor in the United States during this decade. This book provides a very rare inside look at this remarkable Company and its leader, Bob Street. The author gives credit to Bob Street on the cover of this book, because the book contains Bob’s well known internal memorandum simply titled: People Business. This was Bob Streets leadership manifesto, and every manager was expected to understand and adopt his precepts.
Bob Street
The late E.R. “Bob” Street, was the chairman of McDevitt & Street Co. He started his career at the age of 14 when he performed various summer jobs. A graduate of Davidson College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, he joined McDevitt & Street as a field engineer in 1962. Street succeeded his father, the late C.P. Street, as president and chief executive officer in 1972 and became chairman and sole owner when his father died in 1984.
Mike Vallez
Mike Vallez is a construction industry executive and consultant. He is an engineering graduate of Michigan Technological University and an MBA graduate of the University of Utah. Vallez started working for McDevitt and Street in 1984 as a project manager and was assigned some of the Company’s toughest and largest projects before becoming a group manager, and business developer with the firm. He later rose in the industry to Vice President and President.
For additional copies of this book, contact Mike Vallez.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the late Bob Street, President, CEO, and Chairman of McDevitt and Street Company. During his life, his leadership inspired legions of others who became construction leaders throughout the country. He served in his role until shortly before his death from Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Mike Vallez
The Oil Addiction Cure
If I wanted an explanation of what is really happening to us, I would grab this book, I would teach classes on this book, I can’t imagine that any basically intelligent person would be unable to not only understand, but easily visualize what you are saying. . . It is balanced with wisdom and practicality that reinforce the belief that we can understand our deficiencies and we can do something about our oil addiction.
Diane Irene Meyer Simon. Founder, President Emerita and Past Chair of Global Green USA
Mike Vallez
Electric Power 2040
If I wanted an explanation of what is really happening to us, I would grab this book, I would teach classes on this book, I can’t imagine that any basically intelligent person would be unable to not only understand, but easily visualize what you are saying. . . It is balanced with wisdom and practicality that reinforce the belief that we can understand our deficiencies and we can do something about our oil addiction.
Diane Irene Meyer Simon. Founder, President Emerita and Past Chair of Global Green USA
