economics-times

If you are on the fence, Downshifting will get you to move. Great psychological and spiritual insights to help live a more peace filled life.

Jack Drake has provided an easy to read, road mapped dialogue that is very important in today's work scenario. He recognizes the need to communicate with the thirty somethings and emphasize the importance of personal, as opposed to material, life. Well Done! The self help format should allow everyone to evaluate their individual needs. There is life after work!!

Having accomplished my own downshifting more than ten years ago I can attest that John Drake has developed a solid grasp of the needs and concerns of those thinking about a change/reduction in their work schedule. Very insightful and helpful thinking.

Two thumbs up! Finding an investment book that actually makes sense to me is a rarity. This might actually be the first that actually helps me make money. I would recommend it to any investor, not just the neophytes. It is written in an easy-to-read fashion, but is jam packed with information that anyone can use. In fact, I'm going to give it to everyone I know as a Christmas present. This is the best book I've read all year. Buy it. Read it. Use it.

I read this on a flight overseas. It helped me to understand what I've been doing wrong over the past few years. As a doctor I have very little time to commit to investing however this was without a doubt one of the most useful and practical books I've ever read on investing. I only wish I'd gotten it sooner, it would have stopped me from making a lot of mistakes! Easy to apply and gave me some real peace of mind.

I read this book to see if I could get more out of it than I was getting at my college investments class. It actually helped me to understand the concepts the complicated text books included. As a student I can see this book being very useful to anybody learning about investing. The graphical depictions are awesome. Really interesting and practical, I'm sending this to my Mom to help her out. Now all I need is some money to do it with!

I pastor a church, sit on a management committee for a ranching operation, coach soccer, raise four kids with my wife, and I felt buried underneath the load. Before this, I was president of a bank for nearly eight years. I never got organized. I had become completely unproductive and couldn't get out of the trap. Now, I have established goals and projects with deadlines and I'm meeting the deadlines!! The office is ORGANIZED for the first time in my life. I'm out of the trap!! Thanks Stephanie.

This book is well written, easy to understand and right on target. I am a person who works with computers on a day to day basis, and it is exactly what i have been looking for. If you have no time, no energy, no clean area in your home, have a ton of things to do, and are about overwhelmed by everything that you need to do, and everything that you want to do. GET THIS BOOK!!!!!!! It will definately help. The hardest part is picking it up, after that you will be on your way.. :-)

A common sense down-to-earth, yet comprehensive approach to the headaches, heartbreaks and hassles of the "terminally disorganized."

Written in a very kind, understanding and humorous tone, this book diagnoses the problem, analyzes the consequences and pitfalls of disorder, and suggests marvelous ways to remedy the situation and get one's life back on track.

This book is truly joy to read and provides very useful creative ideas and techniques even if "constantly tidy, always punctual, and completely organized" are characteristics used to describe you! Culp's simple five-step approach could be put to use by anyone seeking a successful, more fulfilling life. The chronic "organizationally challenged" could totally turn their lives around!

This book gives a basic outline of what a person needs to do in order to run a knowledge organization. This outline is called the "Accountability Management System", and it describes a set of seven principles that allow managers to gain visibility into their organization. These principles start off fairly broad and philosophical, the first one is: "Your job exists to make this company a success". These first three principles are quickly detailed, they describe the type of culture that is necessary upon which can be built a successful knowledge organization. The remaining four principles are more tactical, and therein lies the real meat and real value of the book. These last four principles include commonly used management tools, but the authors go into a great amount of detail discussing why and how
they should be applied to the knowledge organization. These four principles are portfolio management, program management, time tracking and knowledge management. Many, many books have been written on each one of these topics, but Just Add Management focuses on how to use these tools in a knowledge organization. They are all described with many examples and succinct descriptions on how to implement these concepts. Using these principles, the book ties them all together, and shows how all of these tools, working together, can bring visibility to management. They reinforce each other, and ensure that the organization is using the knowledge of all of its people.

The authors discuss their ideas about knowledge management. It is a field that I have been interested in for over 10 years. How can you encode and re-use knowledge in an organization? Can you package knowledge? Can you catalog it? Or does the act of writing down knowledge succeed only in capturing a shadow of its true worth? The authors describe the type of organization that is most likely to be able to foster the creation and re-use of knowledge. They argue that knowledge can be stored for re-use, but this is only possible if there is a predefined context for that knowledge. Like a Library?s Dewey Decimal system, the authors describe a system that gives everyone in an organization the context for storing and re-using knowledge. This system, which they coin the Accountability Management System, can give everyone a common reference for knowledge work. They include portfolio management to provide everyone with a prioritized framework for important activities, process management to provide everyone with a set of suggested guidelines for common activities and how to report progress, time tracking (which the authors call progress tracking) to measure progress, and finally, knowledge management to determine how to treat the bits of knowledge that are encountered. Here the authors go into a bit a detail, since this is the centerpiece of the book. They note the two types of knowledge, tacit and explicit, and they emphasize that they must be handled differently. Explicit knowledge can be stored, and so you should do so in process descriptions or guidelines or work templates. Tacit knowledge is much more valuable but it cannot be stored, and so you must work to spark its creation. This, the authors say, you can only do through getting people together to share and collaborate.
They give many examples and case studies to show how to do this. This book clearly shows how to use an organization?s most precious asset: its knowledge. It describes what knowledge is, how to use it and how to create more of it.

This is a great book. It talks about how to really manage people. The authors seem to know what they are talking about; they talk about their backgrounds and experiences with managing difficult people. Some of these experiences weren't so good, so you can tell they speak from experience.

With this book, Marquardt has created the most exciting and practical model for executive development I have ever seen. Warren Bennis recently asked, poignantly, "Is there a future for leadership?" Marquardt is leading all management educators into the future of leadership. As director of an executive Master's program at American University, I am astonished at how powerful Marquardt's model is for developing "leaderly learners," in the magical phrase coined by Peter Vaill. Action learning is perfect for leaders who want to learn and learners who want to lead. Marquardt's chapter on the role of "action learning coach" is, by itself, worth a shelf of books of leadership. My executive participants are raving about how action learning has transformed their individual mindsets, allowing them to surface take-for-granted assumptions, as well as helped them begin to transform the culture or collective mindsets of their organizations.

Overall, this book is invaluable in that it provides readers with great insight into the ¡°what,¡± ¡°why,¡± and ¡°how¡± of action learning. It explains key components and principles of action learning in great detail. In addition, the author explains how to apply the components and principles covered in this book by giving specific examples and procedures. The usefulness of this book is illustrated by the questions and checklists, which are very practical. I believe this book will surely serve as an action learning manual for HRD practitioners for years to come.

Mike Marquadt has done it again! This book is an especially useful in that it lays out the process of Action Learning in easy to follow how-to steps. It makes an outstanding handbook for anyone looking to harness the power of Action Learning.

What an eye-opener! I would hate for my competitors to read this. If I can implement half of the ideas in this book, I'll be on easy street. It was short, sweet, and full of solid information.

I had not heard of the authors before this book came out. However, I expect that to change. These guys have their fingers on the pulse of what is going on out there. They don't pull any punches and they tell it like it is. Their ideas are a mixture of common sense and genius.

When I read a book on how to improve my business, I want information I can use. "Sales Utopia" wasn't a bunch of theoretical, mumbo-jumbo. It had straight forward sales and marketing strategies that I look forward to implementing. It was very interesting.

Paul Letourneau will definately save you money. Read his book, it works. Without his book you are throwing away money at the grocery store.

This is what every household in America needs. I couldn't believe how much money I could save by using Mr. Letourneau's tips. And the book was so easy to read, so well-written! Go get yourself a copy now!

All housewifes should have this book! We might think we know it all, but Paul Letourneau's informative booklet will double your savings with his "insider knowledge". With 3 children I need all the help I can get. It's a MUST READ!

Though it looks quite old fashioned to-day, it is full of sound advice that ar untemporal and international ... Hints are so well related to our human nature that you will appreciate this book whether you are chinese or from Albion (Michigan), the most beautiful small college in the world!

This is the first time management book I read. This book contains sections of practical advice to help you get things done. I consider it almost as good as "Working Smart" by Michael Leboeuf.

It's truly a shame that this book is no longer stocked. Since I first read it, back in 1990, I have recycled over 8 hours, per week, back into my personal life. This is the gift of this book. I learned that time management isn't simply a bunch of random techniques that allow you to spend more time at work. Instead, it's a set of a few effective principles that allow you to spend more time in your life. To play more. Visit more. Enjoy more. It's easy-to-read and easy-to-do. Within 7 days you'll see and "feel" the difference in your life!

Chapter Four of this book gives particularly meaningful ways to create positive change in one's outlook and attitude towards one's work life. This chapter has helped me step back and see the larger issues which truly affect the day to day detail of the workplace. One reading of this book is not enough as each chapter is packed with so many ideas and detailed suggestions for improving one workplace environment. I need to reread this book several times to take it all in. I plan to keep this book handy as a reference and motivator to put as many of the suggestions into practice as possible. Improving the quality of one's work-life and consequently home-life is a goal that I believe this book can help with.

This book was worth so much more than money. It has taken pressure off of everyone in our office, not to mention our family members. The techniques for speed reading were worth there weight in gold, considering the ever increasing need to read faster with the flood of information we get everyday. I am personally grateful that I bought this book. I have decreased my stress level ten-fold. Thank you Patricia! for your dedication to writing such a fantastic book!

My company loves this book. the management bought each of us a copy and we read it at lunchtime. we are applying many of the interruption techniques and have proposed a new work flow strategy to the management as a result of what we are learning. a must for all working people today.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech was voted the most electrifying public address of the twentieth century. It takes some kind of a leader to give that kind of a speech. Donald T. Phillips presents the ideals of leadership that Martin Luther King Jr. followed in an overview of the history of the civil rights struggle. Phillips describes the techniques King used at various stages of the civil rights battle. He also shares King's comments on leadership. Many of the principles will be quite familiar: listen to learn, lead by being led, awaken direct action, encourage creativity and involve the people. However, the book is especially interesting when it demonstrates how King put these principles into practice. This well-organized, well-written book is clear, direct, and easy to read. While it is written for the general public (especially for African-Americans and those interested in civil rights), we [...] find this book interesting for all managers and executives, particularly those who like to learn the lessons of history.

Donald Phillips did a wonderful job of telling the story of Martin Luther King Jr. from his childhood to his death, and connecting it all to a marvelous leadership style. Being a student of leadership studies and a fan of Martin Luther King Jr., I chose this book as a study of both subjects. Having read it, I have to say I learned more about leadership from this book than any other I have read. However, I am no longer a fan of MLK......... he is now a hero of mine.

As Donald Phillips points out, for every major turning point in American history, creative leaders - right for the times and uniquely suited to the task - assume the mantle of leadership. Donald Phillips not only describes how MLK ended up at the mantle, but how and why he was the right person for the job.

MLK's movement is not the same civil rights movement being pushed by the self-serving, so-called, activists today. Read this book, you will learn about a true leader and what a true leader is. It is easy reading and inspiring. Highly recommended.

I am a student and a teacher of leadership skills, and I have found no better example than Martin Luther King Jr. This book combines the history of King's movement, but also chronicles the qualities which made King great. The text is easy to read, and fascinating. Martin Luther King, Jr. On Leadership should be required reading for anyone who hopes to impact their world. The famed Harvard psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, who studied moral development, named King as one of the greatest moral thinkers in history. Read this book, and you will understand why.