Strategy

"This book", writes W.Rothwell in his Introduction, "is a primer that serves a three-fold purpose. The first purpose is to show how Action Learning can be used as a real-time strategy for problem finding or problem solving. It can be valuable tool by which to tackle business problems and meet business needs. The second purpose is to show how Action Learning can be applied to training design. It is intended to stimulate the thinking of instructional designers about a new way to analyze needs, design and develop training, deliver training, and evaluate results. The third purpose is to show how Action Learning can be maximized to build intellectual capital and enhance human talent. In this sense, the book shows how team or group work can be become a means for developing people in its own right."

In this context, W.Rothwell :

* defines Action Learning, lists barriers that may prevent its application, and introduces a model of the Action Learning process.

* reviews occasions when applying Action Learning is and is not appropriate.

* focuses on who decides when Action Learning is appropriate, how decision makers recognize situations suitable for the use of Action Learning, and when a problem or improvement opportunity should be handed over to an Action Learning team.

* focuses on issues associated with recruiting, selecting, and orienting members of an Action Learning team.

* examines the team facilitator's role.

* focuses on the application of Action Learning as a means for identifying and solving problems or addressing other organizational issues.

* describes the application of Action Learning to training design.

* explains advantages and disadvantages of using an Action Learning team to design training.

* focuses on evaluating Action Learning efforts and on debriefing Action Learning teams and individuals who participated on those teams.

I highly recommend this invaluable study to all line managers, trainers and HR professionals.

(Reviewed by FreeImage HR Consulting / a division of T.B. FreeImage HR Group, Istanbul, Turkey)

*

This is the best book I can even imagine if you're looking for guidance for re-positioning, expanding or diversifying your small business. After working with one high-priced but useless consultant then a free one at the SBA's Small Business Development Center (neither of which had a clue about what I needed to know), this book showed me exactly what I needed to consider, provided useful, not hokey, exercises to narrow my options, then walked me through planning and implementing the strategy, step by step. It covers pros and cons of four options:
1. Sticking with what you're already doing and your current customer base
2. Developing new products or services for your existing customers or clents
3. Finding new customers for your existing products or services
4. Developing new products or services for new customers or clients

It's clearly and concisely written, too. In sum: Excellent and invaluable.

Barry Barnes is among the few "insiders" in the world of chess problems, having spent his "second career" promoting chess problems and international organizations devoted to them. Since his first career was advertising, he knows how to write to his audience. The back cover description of this book doesn't do it justice. This is about art, not practical, over-the-board play. Barnes is not only a top-ranked composer of chess problems, but the interpreter of perhaps the greatest composer of the twentieth century, Comins Mansfield. Dip in here at your peril: you will be captivated, then enslaved, by the magic of chess art.

It provides a flow diagram for formulating marketing strategies, and offers case studies developed to provide practice with the book's concepts, applying both managerial judgement and higher-level analytical approaches to complex marketing strategy problems. This book can slove a specific marketing problem in a problem solving manner.

This book tells you the styles, tactics and different ways of selling, it shows the way marketers react to sales and how they make their sales as well. After reading this book, i was changed for better.

This books includes alot of great, sound information, and is detailed enough to allow a person to discuss the options with their attorney/CPA. It does not provide enough info to allow the nonprofessional to draft any documents. A little disappointed that nearly all of the wealth transfer techniques deal with CRTs. However, they are described in the context of their application in different scenarios, which provides a clear illustration of their benefits (which are significant). In summary, this book provided a number (about a dozen) great ideas for using ones assets to generate income while alive and transferring the assets to children with reduced estate taxes.

This book is a complete handbook that will find itself on the bookshelves of advertising/ communication practitioners and researchers alike. It is unique in the way it approaches the study of advertising and sales promotions, combining strategic and tactical issues with real-world examples of creative advertising campaigns. The book is excellently researched and rich in providing insight and original ideas to the reader about the world's oldest profession!

Being a text of the Modern War Studies by the University Press of Kansas already indicates this is a great book. Actually, I bought it for that reason and because the subject attracts my attention. After reading it, I can only say this book is fantastic. After Prussian defeat at Jena in 1806 on the hands of Napoleon, it took several years for the German peoples to again have a respectfull army. This books deals with this process. This book reveals why the Germans succeded on creating a new and powerfull army, while its neighbors (France and Russia, although Great Britain is also treated) decreased in power. The creation of a High Command and a General Staff are decisive factors on such evolution. Wargaming, modernization (this means, using all technological advantages on railroads, rifle making, artillery and machine guns, while demobilizing or transforming cavalry units) and professionalization (with always increasing quality levels of the reserve units) are the keys of German capability shown against Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870). One thing I really liked of this book is the extraordinary quantity and quality of the research sources (actually, thanks to this book I've been able to get some other texts on the subject), many of which are not in English. An extraordinary work.

I have had an opportunity to review the book's manuscript, as it was being written. The book provides a very practical and visionary approach to recover from a Y2K disaster -- what it calls "Fireworks" -- using technology (object, distributed computing), methodology (adding method/sanity to madness, what a disaster tends to be) and sociology (people aspects). Using this vision, an organisation can position itself for the future, while recovering from a circumstance that may put it back in time.

Overall, a must read for IT planners, managers and architects -- confronting what management guru Peter Drucker would have called "Managing in Turbulent Times".

Bryan Perrett is not only an impeccable researcher, but also a writer skilled enough to bring you right into the action. This happy facility is displayed again in this work, encompassing thirteen "last stand" actions from Wellington's Foot Guards at Hougoumont to the U.S. Army on Pork Chop Hill (Korea).
These dramatic stories of outnumbered defenders are brought to life not only with clear and fast-moving narrative but also with the accurate details of units and equipment which are so important to the reader of military history.
With photos, bibliography, excellent maps, and thorough index, this work is highly recommended, as are all Perrett's other works.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting within Amazon's format. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings.)