Renewal

Levers of Control presents a comprehensive theory illustrating how managers control strategy using 4 basic levers: belief systems, boundary systems, diagnostic systems, and interactive control systems (the whole book is based on these 4 levers). Simons shows how these control levers complement each other when used together and how effective top managers use these levers to stimulate and guide the search for strategies in the futures.

The book is far more interesting than the title suggests. "Levers of control" makes one think of man/woman being reduced to robots directed by the pulling of levers. The book is exactly about the opposite, how one can have his cake and eat it. It provides a practical framework on how to combine opposing forces in managing a company. Opposites like creativity and meeting profit objectives, precise objectives and alertness to the necessasity of changing course, reward and punishment, control and freedom. Some of the insights require reader effort to understand. For example. "Strategic planning is useless to develop strategies. Strategic planning starts once the strategy has been determined." What is meant is this. Long range planning carried out by staff departments trying to involve managers is a waste of time. Real strategies evolve interactively between several layers of managers in the organisation. Once a strategy is determined a plan must be made for implementing it. However the reader has to figure out that strategic planning no longer means strategy development but the development of a plan for strategy implementation, the execution of which has to be monitored. The book covers how to deal with the positive and negative motivations of employees, how it is possible to manage the tension between a budget system (referred to as a diagnostic system) and an action oriented intelligence-gathering system (referred to as an interactive control system). These two "control systems" are combined with two higher level "control systems", the vision and core values on the one hand and clarification of authority, accountability and no-go areas (referred to as boundary systems)on the other. None of these "control systems" are original. The originality of Prof Simons is that he shows how to operate these systems so that they reinforce and complement each other. This book is very useful for persons that have experienced how hard it is to implement strategies and to reconcile freedom with the requirement of delivering predictable financial results.

Mark Olson wrote this book after 20 years of pastoral ministry in various states and while serving as pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His book joins the ranks of several books calling for the escape from the CEO approach of the predominate school of Church Growth.

His book passionately calls pastors to a systemic approach to Church Health and Growth through relationships and radical dependence upon God instead of through programs and man centered self-confidence.

While Olson does not write academically, his stories and content demonstrate an accurate application of the family systems theory to the church. I see this shine through the best in Chapter 8. Here, he illustrates very well how conflict often arises in a church when the pastor and pastoral family fuse with a church.

I agree with him that the pastor must maintain some critical distance while also staying in contact with the congregation. This is the healthiest approach for the pastor, and for the congregation. We must always remember that we are their pastor, not their overly familiar friend. I think every seminary student, new pastor, and experienced pastor who is inclined to over-function would benefit from reading this one chapter.

The focus of this book is pastoral theology. It does not claim to be a book on the sin problem of humanity nor on the primacy of Scripture. Nor is it about the ordination of women clergy which my Methodist heritage is not at issue with. Neither does it offer any pat answers for moving beyond church growth. His main objective is to get the reader to think differently about a more biblical vision of being and doing church. His creative use of stories accomplishes that goal.

I only see one main flaw in Olson's book. I would prefer a stronger use of biblical teaching on the church in each of his chapters. It is not only time to move beyond Church Growth, it is also time to move beyond a family systems only approach to church health.

What specific things ought a post-systems approach to healthy churches incorporate? It would help unpack the systems view already contained in the NT so that people focus more on God's grace & wisdom via scripture than human insight and technique via systems with just a dash of Christian language. If we are not careful family systems can become a new theology regardless of what view you take of the Christian faith.

I appreciate Olson writing this thought provoking book! It?s too bad that he passed away in November of 2002. I?m sure others will work on the seminal thoughts found in his book.

I so wanted to give this the five-star treatment, but couldn't.

Pr. Olson has so much good to say: that Church Growth is not working and more importantly that it is not God's way of growing the church, as is modernity's approach not that either.

What he presents is return to being a traditional pastor with a twist. The twist being trusting completely in being a means of grace pastor and then letting God build the church.

How well put. Except, he doesn't really ever come clean about the inerrancy of God's Word and repeatedly seems to back female ordiation as Servants of this Word.

Nor, does he come right out and speak of sin and its defestation, nor the pure gospel as the only remedy. Unless these means of grace put forward this pure healing balm, there is nothing.

Well serving as this book is by making pastors reflect on what their "God-given"task is and who they are accoutable to (and there is much good stuff on this), this book falls ultimately short in not clearly declaring a confession of faith that this reviewer can Amen.

Much to commend one's reading of this book. Much to support what confessional Lutherans have always and still are saying with the above corrections noted.

I'm still fairly new to Buddhism and wanted to learn more about Mahayana. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong book to learn about Mahayana. It's not a large book so I was able to get through it but I didn't find it to be helpful at all. If you're really interested in learning more about Buddhism, either read the Dalai Lama's books or go to [a website].

Jack Kornfield truly speaks and writes from the heart. He is both wise and self-effacing in his presentation of modern life and struggles. I highly recommend this book and tape set to anyone seeking the spiritual path. He illuminates Buddhist psychology with such clarity that anyone can understand his important message.

Dr. Platt in this book offers a balanced mix of academic and practical examples. This book is an excellant first read on many subjects in the turnaround field.

The book offers a good base of data to understand the statistics of companies trouble. It also offers for the academically oriented a wealth of references to explore individual subjects in more depth.

Some topics are so vast (Accounting, Bankruptcy Law, Financial Analysis) that several individual books are written on each subject. However this books hits the major hiighlights of the most important topics.

Dr Platt is also close to the industry and is a leader in the Association of Certified Turnaround Professionals and has personal relationships with many leaders in the industry. He has drawn on the experince to write a book that is also a very useful reference for the turnaround manager to use as a guide and refresher on engagements.

Up to now the literature of turnaround management has consisted mainly of case studies and the personal experiences of practitioners. Some of the material is widely accepted as good. "Taking Charge" by John Whitney comes to mind. Some is a matter of personal taste. "Mean Business" by Al Dunlap is a recent example.

Harlan Platt has written what may be the first academic textbook for this little understood management genre. It is a considered analysis of the development of Corporate Renewal, which encompasses a set of management disciplines ranging from strategic change management, through problem solving techniques needed to turnaround a distressed company, to the triage of crisis management.

In Platt's book you won't find 'slash and burn" turnaround stories like those popularized in the mainstream media. Most turnaround managers will acknowledge that often layoffs and staff reductions are required in a turnaround, but only after very careful analysis of the distressed operation's remaining value proposition. And as Platt notes, insufficient attention is given to the number of jobs saved when a layoff is necessary.

The book opens with an interesting history of turnaround management research with helpful statistics on the main causes of corporate distress. Following is a comprehensive section on bankruptcy and failure prediction, which clearly plays to Platt's strength as a finance professor. I found the chapters on turnaround analysis and employee downsizing very helpful.

Platt also incorporates overviews of re-engineering, activity based accounting, quality and a very useful chapter on tax considerations in turnarounds.

The Principles of Corporate Renewal seems positioned as a text for the Certified Turnaround Professional exams administered by the Turnaround Management Association. And indeed, Platt has been instrumental in the curriculum development of the program. But the book is just as useful for those who are simply interested in learning more about the dynamic of turnaround management.

My only complaint is that I wish there was a bibliography, or better yet a bibliographic essay, on the current literature surrounding turnaround management. Yes, there is a reference section and the chapters are footnoted. However, it seems to me that at least two published turnaround accounts written by practitioners are missing. But perhaps I missed these in the footnotes.

I do international turnarounds for the telecommunications industry. The highest accolade I can give to Platt's book is that it's on my desk, ready to slip into my bag as an indispensable tool for my next turnaround assignment in China, Russia or wherever the opportunity presents itself

This book was first written in 1946 but has been reprinted several times and revised by the author. However, it is as apt today as when it was first written almost half a century ago. As its title suggests, the book is about the renewal of civilisation and it is about the renewal of religion --the two go hand in hand. It is also a book about the Baha'i Faith whose purpose is none other than the creation of a new world civilisation.

It is easy to read (138 pages of text). The reader first learns a little of the origins and history of the Baha'i Faith in mid 19th century Persia. At that time there was an expectation, both amongst the followers of Christianity and Islam, of a time when there would be a spiritual rebirth of religion.

The author describes the conditions whereby civilisations have risen and fallen at different times in different parts of the world. Great Souls (Messengers of God) have inspired the onward movement of mankind and determined phases of human progress and enlightenment. They are the Revealers of Religion and the Founders of Civilisation.

Christendom was built on the spiritual teachings of Christ, Islam was the civilisation impelled by Muhammad. The great Israelitish culture arose from the revelation of Moses. Through Zoroaster came the spiritual force which founded the Persian era of Cyrus and Darius. Krishna and Buddha were the inspiration uniting millions in the Orient under common codes of morals and behaviour. The founder of every world religion has also been a founder of a past civilisation.

So it appears that Civilisation has arisen upon the spiritual impulse imparted by the revealer of a religion - a divine messenger or manifestation of God. The author goes on to tell of how the founder of the Baha'i Faith, Baha'u'llah, is one and the same as these former founders of religion. The specific mission of Baha'u'llah is to create civilisation anew. He is the focal point from which emanates a new spirit for the times in which we live. His message is for the whole world, based on the oneness of religion and the love and unity of the human race.

A most valuable book and one which I have read more than once.

This is the book that changed my life! Although some of the information in it is now in need of updating, it remains a singularly readable and concise introduction to the basic tenets of the Bahá'í Faith, and also provides an outline of its history and development. I would especially recommend it to new Bahá'ís as an excellent book to give to friends and relatives. It explains clearly the teachings of the faith, and its small size makes it less intimidating than some other introductory texts. All in all, a great way to introduce someone to the Mission of Bahá'u'lláh.

Translating is always, as they say, a labor of love, and yet the eyes of lovers are famous for falsifying their beloved. While we cannot accuse Britt's long awaited and long needed translation of Warburg into English of neglect, unfortunately the very care and attentiveness that he lavishes on the text, and his often overwrought attempt to get at its original meaning, results in almost grotesque distortions, as if, worried about how his beloved might appear under the gaze of his contemporaries, he feels the need to mask his beloved's true virtues with invented conceits. Two examples will suffice: the translation of "ideal" as "ideological," --- as if he were ashamed of Warburg's somewhat naive reference to the transcendental tendencies of the Italian renaissance --- and of "pathos" as "pagan histrionics," as if an American readership would necessarily stumble over this technical term from Aristotle's Poetics.

Thanks to the Getty Research Institute, Kurt W. Forster, and David Britt for bringing this extremely important volume to us in English. The arrival of this book--a new edition of the 1932 work--has been much anticipated. Finally the bulk of Warburg's essays on the relationships between antique and Renaissance imagery are now readily available. The original book is not widely available even to those who can read the German or Italian texts of these early essays. This book will now allow much greater possibilites for research into Warburg, the Warburg Tradition, and his important contributions to the history of art and its intellectual history. A generation of scholars will be thankful to the editors of the Getty Texts & Documents series: Julia Bloomfield, Kurt Forster, Harry Mallgrave, Michael Roth, and Salvatore Settis.

An autobiography of a woman's survival during the Holocaust of the Second World War. As the owner of a middle class fashion boutique, Alice Dunn lived the good life until the currents of nazism came into her life. Born Jewish, she found that her "friends" became cold towards her as the Holocaust was approaching. Arrested and sent to Auschwitz, Alice survived a brutal weeding out of the weak to find herself a slave of the nazi regime. Sent to work in an industrial plant, she endured starvation as she watched the Germans being well feed. While being transfered, Alice escaped from a train and with much difficult made it to the American lines. In Paris, Alice found herself unable to transition back to the normal life after the war. The nightmares contined even when she moved to New York City. In time she was able to return to the good life she had known before the war. Hers is a powerful story of survival.

The current dean of Boston historians, Thomas O'Connor writes with a definite passion for his subject matter. O'Connnor deftly navigates the various personalities and political administrations that brought about the redevelopment of "The Athens of America." O'Connor adds touches that only a local with his experience could. Highly recommended

Hull makes the case for renewal in the evangelical church with such clarity and passion that I read it in just three sittings. Renewal is a painful and difficult process not to be attempted by the timid or the faint of heart. Mr. Hull identifies the cultural forces which have ingrained themselves in the church and which will doom it to insignificance unless radical changes are made. He then lays out step-by-step the path that pastors must follow if renewal is to take place.

It's greatest strength is not the prescription for renewal it lays out; rather, it lies in the passion of the argument and the clarity of thinking. I was convinced by reading this book that unless renewal takes place, most evangelical churches will fade into meaningless insignificance. His observation that all congregations regardless of their polity are congregational needs to remembered by every pastor seeking to bring renewal to the church. If people stop giving, attending or serving; the pastor's leadership is meaningless.

As far as it's weaknesses, I found only one problem that I will take issue with. In his attempt to clear the church of life-chocking bureaucracy he argues for ad hoc committees to replace standing committees. Although I understand his revulsion to the committee system, there is a third alternative he does not mention, namely ministry teams. Unlike committees, ministry teams function autonomously with perimeters set by the elders or board. The function of a ministry team is not to present proposals to the board, but to do the work of ministry. This concept fits hand in glove with Hull's argument for small discipleship groups. This book has been a great help to my ministry by reminding me that discipleship doesn't happen by default, it must be planned.

For those familiar with gentrification literature, Caulfield's book comes as a welcome addition in many respects. The recent discourse has been dominated by Marxist structuralism which leaves little room for the choices that people make and the attachments that they have to community. Caulfield's book takes up these latter issues mixing traditional methods of urban studies with more recent ideas from criticial theory. A most enjoyable and interesting portion of the book centers around the interviews that the author does with residents of the areas that he is investigating. Caulfield's book is a valuable resource for anyone trying to develop a well-rounded understanding of gentrification, as well as an engaging read.