General-partnership

From Penny's first encounters with elves and devas (whom she sketches at the back of her book) to her discussions with vines, weeds, and various marauding animal nuisances -- the reader gains a sense of what it feels like to be in communication with the vast variety of intelligent life around us every day. Is it possible to communicate with the plants and animals around us? Absolutely. Is this communication a one-way street? Hopefully not! Kelly's tale inspired me to pay more attention to the way I interact with the intelligent life all around me -- being a bit more conscious to listen instead of just commanding orders of what I expect to occur.

I especially loved reading the comments and questions the elves posed for Penny -- including such deceptively simple queries such as, "How is it ye choose among the activities that come before ye?" The insights Penny gained as she found a way towards achieving balance in her life are valuable to us all, whether or not we are raising organic produce.

As the author goes into detail about the effects of fungicides, herbicides and fertilizer on the land and how it affects the balance in teh soil and the terrain around, one can finally say they've learned more than the catch phrase "pesticides are bad for the earth." In the final chapter she goes into the various maladies caused by the sudden lack of nutrients in our food courtesy of teh green revolution and technology's sudden knowledge on how to do things "better" than nature has. Did you know, for instance, that diabetes was unknown to ancient peoples? This, the author says (and has cited books in the bibliography where one may read for themselves) is due to the lack of nutrition in our "cardboard" fruits and vegetables we have today. After reading this book I swore to never use another fertilizer or pesticide on anything I grew in my yard again. It is almost scary to read about the extent to which our impoverished diet has affected us mentally, emotionally and physically over the past sixty or so years.

This was a most excellent book. I simply couldn't put it down, even at the expense of homework and housecleaning. For anyone who wishes to know more about the nature of balance, and how one would go about working with the subtle energies of the earth to help whatever they grow, I most definitely recommend this book. She also has directions in the back for contacting your own devas and elves, and list of places where you could find the information she herself did.

When considering marriage, we had discused the pros and cons. It offered the commitment we wanted, but with that came patriarchal gender roles, impossible promises, and, as he put it, "a passionless existence until we died". Well, that certainly did not sound like something we wanted to do. I was a women's studies major in college, how could I possibly fill the role of the silent wife? I could never promise to obey, and neither could he. We wanted to keep our individuality, our spirit, our love, and our passion for one another. Still, we kept feeling the pull of marriage. We wanted to create a safe place for one another and we wanted to create a family.

I was at the brink of giving up. I searched my way through book stores and finally found an autographed copy of &qu! ot;Heart Centered Marriage". I knew that this book offered what I needed. My intuition was right!

For the nest few days, I read fervently, only stopping to read the especially wonderful bits to my partner, who was very supportive. We discussed the ways that marrige was suddenly available to us. We could take part in the creation of a new paradigm for marriage. We could find true 'sacred partnership', as Sue called it, through which we could be enriched, rather than stripped of our individuality. We could promise to communicate, live gently, be present, and commit to one another, with out losing our passions or our spirits. Shortly after the discovery of Sue's book, we decided that we really did believe in marriage after all-as long as it was 'heart centered'.

At some point after our decision to marry, I noticed that Sue's P. O. Box was in Boulder, CO, where I lived at the time. Because I was not willing to let just anybody marry us, I wrote to Sue asking her t! o officiate at our wedding. I never expected to hear back ! from Sue. Imagine my surprise when I found her voice on my answering machine!

Sue Patton Thoele proved to be more than just an author. She became our friend, a witness to our private tears, a supportive force, a gentle guide, and she signed our marriage license, 'Spiritual Mentor'. This is a fitting title, but it could never speak to how much she has meant to us. We are forever grateful for her gentle wit and wisdom. She gave us the courage to redefine our marriage and the strength to use our own voices. I am truly amazed at the new things I learn everyday in my own 'heart centered marriage'.

Recently, there was some research about the benefits of insight oriented therapy over and above "behavior" modifying therapies. As well, Consumer Reports found a similar finding. People who can relate in a depth fashion with emotional solidity fare better in life than those who carry weak personas. This is the foundation for emotional intelligence as outlined by Goleman. So, for couples to experience their lives differently, more intimately, I would highly recommend this book as it does contain the ingredients for deep friendship, sexual relating, healthy interdependence, and most importantly, treasuring one another as gifts. I recommend thi¹|

... which brings me to the subject of the Cunninghams' book. little (236pp) book is really excellent. If you're trying to get a handle on partnership tax law, this is best book you can find. (I ended up reading it because I was in a graduate tax class at Golden Gate University and other students--CPAs and attorneys--kept saying, 'hey, get this book to get the big picture......')

I will issue one caution: This little book isn't the book you'll go to for answering the tough, practical partnership tax questions. Rather, this book is for learning partnership tax law. For the practical questions (once you've learned the basics), you'll go to one of the "standard" partnership tax references or one of the tax library references.

Steve Nelson, CPA, MBA

This is a great follow up to their first book, "Coach: Creating Partnerships for a Competitive Edge".

I would recommend it for people who are looking to greatly improve their management and communication skills. It was good enough that I requested my entire staff team to read through it.

I don't think you can go wrong.

Tim

The synergistic approach to coaching is based on core values of: ME = I am, secure, an optimist, a teacher, just. YOU = are valuable, principled, trustworthy, safe. WE = are allies, vulnerable, learners, reliable. If our needs and success are interdependent, then your success (win) is my success (win).

The authors then go on to outline their research based 8-step coaching process that focuses on gaining cooperation, commitment, synergy and success and back it up with success stories.

Very easy to read and very valuable.

Is time spent strategically a bad thing? Is strategy dead? Was time spent on strategy wasted? Does strategic planning have no place in our time-crazed, execution-obsessed New Economy? In 1983, the uber-executive of our age- General Electric Chairman Jack Welch dismantled the company's once heralded planning department. We have empirical evidence that those spending the most on traditional forms of resource-centric 'strategy consulting' [the cerebrally challenged SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats dance] performed the poorest in the market place. The biggest strategic planner of them all, the Soviet Union appears to have just about finished its pre-Millennial journey from totalitarianism to disintegration. Strategy is not dead, but it had certainly fallen out of favor. Few companies don't have strategic plans. Yet few devote the resources to them they used to. Most disturbing, is that efforts to fix the problem, often had the effect of making things worse - or at least making them bad in a different way. Crusades and reforms intended to reinvent, relaunch and reposition the practice strategy have failed.

Lewis Mumford divided history into epochs characterized by their power sources. Traditional strategy tended to emphasize a focused single line of attack, executed by a single economic enterprise- a clear statement of where, how, and when to compete. Noticeably lacking was the question of 'with whom?' The new power source in the New Economy is the ability to assemble the most resource-rich, market-savvy, technology-gifted, fleet-of-foot, known-and-trusted-by-the-consumer armada of partners. The way you do that is the subject of Digital Deals.

No book can promise infallibility. No book can guarantee that good decisions will be made. This book will help you spend the time you can allocate to strategic thinking more efficaciously. As such, this is not a coffee-table book. This is not a Great-Title-No-Content book. This is not a Good-article-unbelievable-they-stretched-it-into-a-book-book. This most definitely is not a I'll-buy-it-but-I-won't-read-it book. Digital Deals is the new, new thing in strategic thinking. Using the framework in Digital Deals to analyze the ur-protangonists of our evolving New Economy [Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, AOL, AT&T, Amazon] I experienced something akin to the joy that must have accompanied Galileo's use of the telescope to study the heavens or Robert Hooke's (1635-1703) use of the microscope to study bacteria. The tools contained in these pages will let you see new things. It will simplify what heretofore has been an incoherent jumble of pieces parts. This book has helped me understand the players, the deals and the deal rationales of the market I work in - digital security and privacy. As I read the book, I continued to ask myself whether the two Georges were adding words to the existing vocabulary of strategic planning or creating a new grammar into which the old words might be conjugated. There is no doubt that the process of market modeling described within these pages fundamentally changes the types of conversations we will be having as we try to plan our respective futures.

In this context, the authors, in Chapter 8, first put forward the following ten reasons why organizations might want to become more global: competitive survival, cost spreading, trailblazing, rule of three, domino effect, evolutionary forces, technological revolution, search for innovation, ripple effect, and benchmarking against other companies. Then, they discuss seven challenges companies face in making the global leap: (1)Establishing a workable global structure, (2)Hiring global supermanagers, (3)Managing people for a global environment, (4)Learning to love cultural differences, (5)Avoiding parochialism and arrogance, (6)Designing unifying mechanisms and a global mindset, (7)Overcoming complexity.

In Chapter 9, to overcome these challenges, they show action plans, and suggest ways of moving forward, from learner to launcher and from launcher to leader into the global arena as summarized as below:

I- From Global Learner to Global Launcher

1. Human Resources Practices

* Supply language/cultural sensitivity training.

* Standardize forms and procedures.

* Set up an overseas presence via joint venture, modest acquisition, or establishment of a headquarters.

* Engage in extensive cross-border relationship building.

2. Organizational Structures

* Arrange short-term visits and international assignments.

* Staff for more diversity in management and board of directors.

* Use e-mail and videoconferencing to maintain day-to-day contact.

3. Organizational Processes and Systems

* Establish worldwide shared values, language, and operating principles.

* Conduct fact-finding missions.

* Design ad hoc transnational teams.

* Hold global town meetings and best-practice exchanges of information.

II- From Global Launcher to Global Leader

1. Human Resources Practices

* Seek complete liquidity of human resources: recruit outside the domestic base; place foreign recruits within the domestic base; promote the best people to global assignments; rotate people internationally; use twinning.

* Aim for a global structure.

* Map global processes.

2. Organizational Structure

* Provide continuing global leadership trining and regular transnational training to reinforce the global mindset.

* Remove/minimize country managers and replace with global managers and focus on global customers.

* Routinize real-time global communications.

3. Organizational Processes and Systems

* Use global reward systems.

* Multiply ongoing transnational project teams.

* Work for global integration (for example, total global sourcing, global design, global engineering, and global purchasing).

Finally, they write that "Many tools are available to organizations, and we have described a good number of them here (as summarized above). But senior management must have the skill and foresight to use the right tools in the right way, at the right time, and in the right sequence...Each stage requires structures that enable the crossing of boundaries, systems and procedures that drive global behavior, and people who can learn to extend their thinking beyond their present outlook."

Highly recommended.

"In living organisms, membranes exist to give the organization shape and definition. They have sufficient structural strength to prevent the organism from dissolving into an amorphous mess....Like a living organism, the boundaryless organization also evolves and grows, and the placement of boundaries may shift....Because the boundaryless organization is a living continuum, not a fixed state, the ongoing management challenge is to find the right balance of boundaryless behavior, to determine how permeable to make boundaries, and where to place them."

This brief excerpt from the first chapter correctly suggests the purpose of this remarkable book: To explain HOW to meet that challenge.

The material is presented within four parts plus a conclusion. The first explains how to achieve "free movement up and down" by crossing vertical boundaries; the second explains how to achieve "free movement side to side" by crossing horizontal boundaries; the third explains how to achieve "free movement along the value chain" by crossing external boundaries; and in the fourth part, they explain how to achieve "free global movement" by crossing geographic boundaries." Then in the Conclusion, the authors discuss "Making It Happen: Leading Toward the Boundaryless Organization."

The authors also include a series of six questionnaires. By completing each in sequence, the reader is able to determine (a) where her or his organization is now located relative to "the boundaryless paradigm", and (b), what is needed to eliminate the "gap" between where it is now and where it should be. Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read The Boundaryless Organization Field Guide. It contains a a hands-on set of diagnostic instruments as well as exercises and tools, and a disk with presentation slides in Powerpoint format.

I agree with the authors: The most restrictive organizational boundaries are in the minds of those within an organization. Organizational as well as personal wounds are usually self-inflicted.

Cudos to the author for putting forth a recipe for a more hopeful future for the world.