Organizations Books

I encourage anyone, everyone to read about these theories and apply them as best as they can to students, their own children, other children they may encounter, if you are stuck in that must-sit-still-and-listen traditional-mindset, you owe it to yourself and others to open up your mind to how kids learn differently. Would love to have this be enforced reading for certain teachers my children and I have encountered in the past.

If you ever thought your child might have ADHD, or any other learning disability, you must read this. If you are a pediatrician, it's likely you've been pressured by schools into diagnosing patients with ADHD. Please read this before you do. Teachers/educational specialists can really learn from the masterpiece:"In Their Own Way". The brilliant author, Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., inspires us to "respect the garden of childhood" and not slap a "flawed label" such "attention deficit hyperactivity" on kids. Many kids have been branded as "underachievers", "learning disabled", simply have a nontraditional style of learning, Armstrong says. Each child has his own unique combination of multiple intelligences in learning, which must be honored and nurtured." We should not be putting these kids in remedial groups or writing them off as underachievers. Instead, he suggests: "We should use better teaching strategies appropriate to the real needs of the kids, based on their multiple intelligences." Better yet, Dr. Armstrong gives concrete teaching strategy suggestions parents and teachers can follow. He also lists learning materials, books, games,internet sites, and computer software to foster the eight intelligences. If we believe Dr. Armstrong, nurturing kids is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Children rise to the highest level of our expectations. Parents and teachers can have hope. A generation of "ADHD labeled" kids or "learning disabled" kids need not be thought of as patients needing lifelong medication or remediation, but as potential Stephen Hawkings, just waiting to be nurtured properly. It is our responsibility to help these souls find their own way. It is our future.

I read this book while on a 3 hour bus ride to St Mary's City with my son's 4th grade class. I was so overjoyed to have found something that provided a glimmer of recognition for my son's abilities. He was labled ADD and after several years of fighting it I was finally starting to say "Well, he is very bright, BUT he has ADD." Well, now I will say he is a Kinesthetic, Spatial and partially linguistic learner. He is bright and capable and he just doesnt fit into the traditional teaching styles, along with another 80% of the population. There is nothing WRONG with him. This book can help so many people regain confidence in themselves, their children and loved ones. Confidence that our tradtional school sytem has systematically destroyed in hundreds of thousands of bright, wonderful children by trying to force them to learn in a way that is not only unatural for them, but also, many times, impossible. This book helped me to understand my son, myself,and even my husband. Now I have some of the tools that can help me reach them. ADD may exist, but 99% of it is in the eye of the beholder.

This is the kind of book you have to keep replacing because when you loan it out it won't come back!

The Education Products Information Exchange shockingly reported, 80% of the content in school textbooks was known by students before they studied. If the content was known then education meant time consumption and rising tides of mediocrity. A national education reaction was expressed in the book "Nation at Risk" providing the following recommendation: 1) rigorous grading 2) more standardized tests 3) better textbooks 4) and adherence to English, Math, Science, Social Sciences, and Computer Science. The core curriculum was designed for students to compete against other nations but considered boring by students.

What does 500 million standardize test mean? First, standardized implies keeping someone out. Standardize tests force sterilization of alleged defective individuals. In 1930, standardized tests were used to keep immigrants out of the U.S. One should be asking themselves, "Is formal testing the best way to determine competency?", "What do these tests measure?" and "Do these test encourage fault finding rather than discovery of strengthens?" Business maximums absolutely focus on strengthens rather than weakness to survive. Businesses manage weakness. What doesn't the educational system do likewise? Standardizing tests are faulty in their construction, represent poor subject selection, and faulty in research design. 500 million standardize tests means significant defect!

Learning Disability implies a specific neurological disorder. Interestingly, no biological neurological correlation has been proven indicating learning disorder students have a problem. So no biological proof exists that these student's brains are different. Diagnostics do not access the students learning style. Instead, the learning disability diagnostics are used to pick and pry for weakness administered by certified qualified experts. These qualified experts do not have comparable academic qualifications such as Phds in professional psychiatry or psychology. Yet the experts are making professional assessments about the student education capabilities. Experts diagnose to the following disabilities: dyslexia, hyperactivity, dysfunctional auditory, sequential memory, attention deficit, reading difficulty, math block, underachievement, and overachievement.

Learning Disability is revolutionary in scope, 50% of the students are labeled with a certain degree of learning disability, including overachievers. Perhaps these students just learn differently and the mere suggestion that one model for learning applies to all students is irrational. For example, Norman Geschwind, observed those "dyslexic" students, "probably a mythical made-up term", have: unusual drawing and artistic skills, a strong mechanical aptitude, and above average special dimension capability. A learning diagnostic revolution has permeated the education system. Students are required to sit for long periods of time and decode long complicated instructions. Teachers talk too much, 1/5 of the day is spent in teacher explanations and instructions. Too much talking "at" and not "to" the student; too much money interest, $1.5 billion in textbook sales ensure that product is politically and culturally marketed and declarative statements help ensure students believe absolutely; too much task analysis, task analysis represents a fragmented approach to learning where each activity is broke in parts and performance measured against the parts. The end result is a current count of 2 million students labeled as having a learning disability. The percent increase of 21.5% in 1977 too 40.9% by 1983 suggests more students need special education services and these services need federal additional funding. Few of these educationally handicapped children ever make it back into mainstream education.

Contrarian's evidence builds up. Any contradictory evidence is viewed with skepticism and rejection, but gradually contrary evidence builds until such time it cannot be rejected. Teachers teach from their lesson plans. Lesson plan educational training ignores the multiple intelligence of the student. The huge number of "Home-Schooler's" and their movement suggests evidence that learning intelligence models have become an issue. The problem is not the system structure: public verse charter/private nor public verses home-school, but in the ignorance about learning intelligence.

Can the system really have so many learning disabled students? A new learning model must emerge. Many parents feel they need to motivate their children to learn. Perhaps learning starts by determine the type or combination of intelligence types, your child exhibits: linguistic learn best by saying, hearing, and seeing words; logical learn best by forming concepts and looking for abstract patterns and relationships; spatial learn through images, pictures, and color; kinesthetic learn by touching, manipulation, and movement; musical learn through rhythm and melody; interpersonal learn best by relating and cooperating; intrapersonal learn best when left too them selves. Learning how to get your c

As an IT professional, I understand the need for quick and complete information, and this book gives it. The learners guide for beginners and the definitive guide for advanced users all in one package. Inovative, and thought inspiring, the theories in design and implimentaion are on the cutting edge of design concepts...

As an IT professional, I understand the need for quick and complete information, and this book gives it. The learners guide for beginners and the definitive guide for advanced users all in one package. Inovative, and thought inspiring, the theories in design and implimentaion are on the cutting edge of design concepts, even 6 moth after its release.

Although this book is rich with details, it is too terse to be considered comprehensive. The ideal audience, in my opinion, consists of (1) project managers who will be tasked with planning these systems, (2) development managers who need to organize their resources to produce systems that are rapidly evolving even before the first line of code is written, and (3) production support, which will be taking highly dynamic systems into production.

One thing stands out about this book - it begins with business requirements and makes them a central theme of the Internet Commerce Development Methodology (ICDM), which is the author's approach to e-commerce systems development. The ICDM is the heart of this book. It's a methodology that successfully marries business analysis and development, and also defines how the project should be organized. It's a top-down approach with feasibility analysis and strategy at the top. The next layer in ICDM is the process level, which is imperative for e-commerce initiatives, which will certainly change business processes. This layer also requires a feasibility analysis, as well as process change, reengineering and transformation steps. Next is the meta-development strategy that encompasses your component strategy, functional requirements, architecture, design and implementation. Each element requires a feasibility analysis. Stepping back and viewing the ICDM as a whole it looks a lot like a spiral life cycle approach. I am not sure that is the author's intent, but it can be construed as such, especially if you view the feasibility analyses checkpoints as risk assessments as well.

The entire process is evolutionary, and therefore the approach supports incremental delivery and implementation. In many respects it resembles the Rational Unified Process and could be easily aligned to a project that used that approach in e-commerce development. Even of you are locked into a different methodology I strongly recommend this book because it has some excellent practices and will give you ideas that can be seamlessly incorporated into your approach.

Practitioners and students have been waiting for a book such as this to come along. In reality there is very little in the way of methodological help guiding the development of information systems for conducting web commerce. This book doesn't disregard the lessons learned from the evolution of systems development but it introduces the key issues throughout the lifecycle that differentiate the complexities of web systems from their traditional counterparts.

This book provides the information needed to develop Web Systems in an organisational setting. It takes you through all the components of development with an innovative approach called ICDM. The methods have helped me greatly at work in my role as a Web developer.

Lest make things clear form the start, I am from a beautifully country (Chile) that have over 90% of students in voucher schools, some private, some municipal, the proportion in Municipal schools is going down year to year, parents are moving to private-held schools, and municipal students numbers goes down, from overt 75% some years ago to below 50% now, and continues to shrink. It looks like that parents, if they have the possibility; they move to better-performing schools.

The simple power behind the general success of U.S. is the ability (and liberty) of persons to walk-out and obtain the service elsewhere, it puzzled me that a so simple, and sensible, idea has a significant part of the educators against it. When people spoke of liberty, in general, is fine, when people spoke of liberty to choose school is bad.

This is why I bought this book; I like to understand the position of anti-vouchers, maybe I got convinced, but I don't, the book is a compelling list of thinks going bad in municipal school today, and shows a supposed path to improve things, by developing an action plan to have better municipal schools, the tool to convince of the necessity of change is fear, fear that if they don't improve the vouchers are coming!

The book is a starling list of things that make for underperforming municipal schools, from School boards managed by conflicting interest groups, to curricula reform (that that author suggests is not working)and a hope that this time they have a working plan to improve municipal schools, the necessity of making system changes, but the author also recognizes than this are the kind of changes more difficult to obtain. The chapter "Changing the system" start with along list of difficulties to change, including to assess than "Structural changes that is not supported by cultural changes will eventually overwhelmed by the culture" after such strong expression one a the right to think that Mr. Schlechty is on a vain trail, as cultural changes are the most difficult to do.

Well, they have plenty of time to try this path or another or another, in the mean time they will keep children chained to his local municipal school, simply, by negating the possibility that they move with is tax money elsewhere.

Inventing Better Schools provides a rare opportunity for school administrators to to 'look over the shoulder' of a successful practitioner of educational reform.

Schlechty (pronounced Schlek-ty) predicates the teaching program on the belief that it is the teachers' jobs to actually ENGAGE students in meaningful learning. A radical idea!

He states: "Viewing students as a customer places the the school in the position of accepting the proposition that the school's obligation is to invent work sufficiently attractive that the students engarge in it voluntarily. (Coercion may gain compliance, but it does not produce engagement and commitment.

It is the obligation of the school and the teacher to invent work that attracts the attention and compels the energy of students, for it is in inventing products that customers will buy that a customer- focused business creates the conditions of its own survival."

Across the world the public school system is under threat and Phil Schlechty provides the most practical scenario for its survival that I have read.

** We are starting a school administrators' reading group/ discussion forum in our district and this text is our starting point. Over 30 principals nominated to be in this program in two days.

First and foremost this book is so well organized it made it a pleasure to read. Schlechty clearly outlines and summarizes all 12 chapters in the Preface. Don't miss it! This book is not a light topic ~ so focusing the reader where the author was headed was greatly appreciated.

Schlechty claims that American public schools are in urgent need for dramatic improvement or they take the risk of becoming extinct. And the key to improving the schools is the quality of the work students are provided. Students need to be engaged in their learning and their work should reflect relevance to their needs to become socially and academically prepared for the next century. He says all students are entitled to a high quality of education. I couldn't agree more!

Here are two other aspects that I found powerful about this book (besides the organization style). 1) Schlechty clearly states what he perceives the problem is with American public schools and how he came to that conclusion and 2) he then provides the reader with an aggressive cookbook style solution to the problem (the action plan).

The author lives up to the title, Inventing Better Schools An Action Plan for Educational Reform.

I recommend this book to anyone who cares about our children's future: parents, students, educators, administrators, community leaders, superintendents, business leaders, etc. because it takes ALL of US to make the changes needed to Invent Better Schools and this book is a great starting point.

Inventing Better Schools, An Action Plan for Educational Reform, by Phillip C. Schlechty, is a must read for those interested in educational reform in the public schools including teachers, administrators, schools boards, and local educational leaders. Any district wishing to make systemic changes may wish to use this book to provide a common starting point for reform dialogue.

Schlechty presents his case as to the urgent need for public school reform and challenges educators to redefine what their role is in providing quality education for students. His two basic tenants for the urgent need for reform is the fear that public education could be lost to a voucher system and the increased need for people to have adaptive skills to be successful in an information based society.

The starting point for educational reform is the basic mission of schooling. Schlechty states, "The aim of schooling is an educated citizenry, but the core business of schooling is engaging students in work that results in their learning what they need to learn to be viewed as well educated in American society (page 31)." In his philosophy, if schools are looked at as a business, students are the primary customers.

Inventing Better Schools emphasizes that reform efforts in the past fail because the changes are not embodied by the whole organization and the culture that surrounds the schools. All stakeholders need to be involved in the reform process. To enable systemic change, four key questions need to be answered before by educational leaders:
1. Why is change needed?
2. What kind of change is needed and what will it mean for us when the change comes about?
3. Is what we are being asked to do really possible? Has it been done before? By whom? Can we see it in practice?
4. How do we do it? What skills do we need and how will they be developed (page 208)?
In the appendix, two districts provide examples of what goals and action plans they have by answering key questions like the ones above.

Take the time to read Inventing Better Schools, An Action Plan for Educational Reform before spending enormous amounts of energy on efforts that may only have limited lasting impact on education. Schlechty sums up his mission when he writes, "...great leaders are needed if real change is to occur. My hope is that this book will find such leaders and that they will find this book useful (page 185)."

Few authors have been able to write a more practical and informative guide to reforming the American educational system than Phillip Schlecthy. He explains both the postive and negative aspects of education today and provides strategies for redesigning schools to become focused on producing high quality, engaging work for students. Thought-provoking questions are included as tools to help districts transform as well as cases studies which exemplify effective educational reform. Inventing Better Schools is revolutionary, thorough and bound to make an impact on anyone who is serious about revitalizing American schools

This novel integrates several different tools, each individually useful in understanding personality, into a powerful way to evaluate and grow a corporate culture. The organization that I am involved with is currently using the tools described in this novel to great results.

Island of Excellence is an insightful book that explains corporate culture in a truly insightful way. Mark Bodnarczuk breaks the mold of corporate literature with this unique novel. While Island of Excellence succinctly explains corporate culture and ways to tap into its creative power, it also speaks to the individual. It has helped me greatly in my personal, as well as professional life. The lessons I've learned have helped me form a new understanding about my relationships at work along with a better understanding of how I fit into the culture of my workplace. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand corporate culture and thrive in their workplace.

Island Of Excellence: 3 Powerful Strategies For Building Creative Organizations is a must read for any business executive or manager looking to gain a competitive edge to drive their organization to higher levels of performance. The author, Mark Bodnarczuk, combines the solitude of scuba diving the spectacular reefs of Papua New Guinea to explore the corporate and personal lives of nine characters attending a life altering dive workshop. This "Teaching Novel" has provided me insight on how to set free the creative thinking within our organization and allow individuals to find meaning and significance in their work. An eye-opening book that I highly recommend!

Using Fictional Characters relating to Jungian and Enneagram models, Mark Bodnarczuk, takes the reader on a journey exploring the inner self. In a unique approach to the "Corporate Book" Mark invites the reader to identify with one of the characters and discover their own internal conflicts that prevent them from fully experiencing their potential for excellence and success. Mark's book takes us a step beyond just identifying leadership traits and obstacles, to recognizing, understanding, and overcoming those obstacles to unleash our full potential. I am on my third read of Mark's book and discover new insights each time. His principles have helped me achieve greater success not only as a CEO, but also in my personal life.

This book was one of the best books I've read in recent memory. The writer, Mark Bodnarczuk, uniquely used fictional characters to make a very complex subject enjoyable to read and easy to retain. His insights into how personalities affect work performance and teamwork were especially helpful. I've applied his principles in my organization and found them to improve teammwork, employee morale and organizational productivity. I would recommend this book to anyone who desires an understanding of human personalities, how people's personalities impact teamwork and how understanding personalities improves business performance.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to buy the book for my doctoral class.

It must have been a hard book to find. Once I finally received it it was in great condtion. I have no complaints. I took off one star because it took so long.

This book is great! The authors did a fantastic job. I'm going to be buying a few more...

There have been a lot of books published concerning teams and how to form them over the past decade, but this book, Leading Organizations from the Inside Out, goes a few steps further by providing specific tools and processes on how to create and utilize Action-Learning Teams (ALTs). These ALTs (as the book calls them) are teams formed to address important persistent problems or organizational challenges that a company may face. ALTs are based on "learning characterized by reflection in action"; or simply stated, they are internal teams chartered to focus and hone down a specific problem or process gap and then fix it. ALTs can do what most of us rarely do in our day-to-day efforts at work. They can helicopter above the canopy of the company's forest and get a clear picture by looking from the outside in as to what's wrong and what corrective actions will work. Whereas management may have a hunch as to the problem, the ALT deftly puts a finger on it. In our, quick time-to-market, immediate gratification world the ALT capability is a potent tool.

The book starts off slow so you have to be patient, but once you get past Chapter One, this book contains a great nest of resources. It has several effective tools (with some bonus tools in the Supplement) which any manager or team leader can use, and it connects the reader to further research and information. It has the right amount of effective information to create and run an Action-Learning Team. And good news! The Clue Train Manifesto stopped here since later chapters include how to execute an ALT from cyberspace and how to further knowledge worker development.

From my 19 years of personal experience in the corporate world participating on ALT-like teams, sponsoring ALT-like teams, and just being in the company population receiving the benefits of an ALT-like team, I can tell you that they are by far the fastest and most effective way to achieving a "break through" on difficult, persistent problems which a company may face. Especially in a marketplace where world competition is becoming exceedingly tough........ Action-Learning Teams might just make a difference between success and failure.

LaRue, Childs, and Larson provide an easy to read, less than 200 page book, that skillfully weaves Action Learning Teams (ALT) into knowledge management, creating knowledge based action learning teams. This is truly a hands-on guidebook with real world examples that clearly describe the stages and processes of implementing organizational change using ALTs. ALTs can shorten the time needed to effectively implement change initiatives in an organization by helping the practitioner understand both the behavioral and operational aspects of organizational change. ALTs will help ensure that the knowledge of the team is translated into action that makes a real difference for an organization.

The forward by Marshall Goldsmith prepares the reader for what is in store by asking the question; "Who are knowledge workers", and how does one tell them what to do when they may know more than their manager does. The process of Action Learning Teams taps into that knowledge to take the organization to the next level. This book has been adopted as part of the curriculum at the University of Phoenix in their Doctorate of Management second year leadership class. Don't let that concern you though if you don't think that is the level you are looking for, as the book is easy to read and follow. Major General Robert Ivany, recently retired President of the U.S. Army War College also provides a chapter that describes how Action Learning Teams played a vital role in fundamentally transforming the U.S. Army. Experiences from other organizations provide real world examples that can be immediately put to use.

The book integrates both behavioral and operational dimensions of team development within four key phases of the change process: Awareness, Design, Deployment, and Integration. I have already used many of these concepts in my work on a Change Management team government organization. I even gave a copy of the book to my boss.

My name is Chris Gibbs (Chairman/CEO) of Diversified Investments & Development, LLC. of Knoxville, Tennessee. I consider myself a lifelong learner, as I am currently finishing a dissertation in relation to requirements for a Doctorate in Leadership from the University of Phoenix. I hold degrees in Finance, Masters of Business Administration, Masters in Banking, and Doctoral work in Economics from Lincoln Memorial University, East Tennessee State University, Louisiana State University, and Middle Tennessee State University, respectively.

My organization is involved in the food, lodging, and land development businesses. We had certain re-structuring goals to limit our involvement in day to day operations in the food and lodging businesses by using outside management and increase our land development inventory. Within only months of completing training with Bruce LaRue (one of the books Authors) and Richard Schuttler (Executive Coach and Consultant www.orgtroubleshooter.org) certain key organizational goals were reached early. With the material from this book and organizational training programs, my organization is thriving at a new profitability level, as well as employee and organizational value added systems continue to improve for all stakeholders.

Specific book comments:

1. How did you find out about the book? Through research in the area of Leading Organizations, I was attracted to this books content. Bruce LaRue, PhD is a colleague of Richard Schuttler, PhD, which is a professional Executive Coach that has consulted with me over the past couple of years. When I mentioned the book to Rich, he immediately reached out to Bruce and we entered into an agreement to utilize this book along with extensive works of Rich to transform my organization into a model of success that utilized its existing team and strengths. I will never forget the comment Rich made to me one day about the well known "corporate box," if you are thinking about thinking outside the box, you are still in the box. Therefore this book and training programs like Rich and Bruce present will allow the "Leader of the Future" to not confine their thought process to any box or obstacle."

2. The initial reading of the book presents the four basics to ALT (Action Learning Teams) and allows one to understand in the early reading of where their organization is today and what it will take to advance to a higher level of effectiveness and performance in the future.

3. A great suggestion is for the leader to play the role as coach and not BOSS. This is where Rich and Bruce developed the BUCKET concept that allowed everyone to assume responsibilities and each other member know who is responsible for what task within the organization. This supports the concept in the book on encouraging team members to focus on self improvement as they are accountable to the other team members in making sure their individual bucket is managed properly to benefit the overall organization. "This is like an old fire line where everyone is passing the buckets of water to put out a fire. If one person drops their bucket the fire can spread out of control. Therefore, proper management of the individual buckets maintains proper fire management without a fire ever arising, "Proactive Management." ALT's will make a difference if you understand how to make them work effectively.

4. An organizational leader and ALT "Coach" must truly commit to the Belief Model presented within the book. The advantage I had from the book material was the actual training program developed by Rich and Bruce, where I had to commit to making this reality before I could ever expect positive results. If the Coach cannot commit to taking a Belief to Potential to Action to Results than I question this leader's ability to be the Coach required for an effective ALT. I actually included all internal and external affiliate team leaders in the training process to make sure all areas and entities that affect my businesses were well informed of my organizations strategic plan and goals.

5. The PIP was completed at the end of the training and we found by our proactive implementation of this text material and consulting program that we were well on our way to achieving an organizational structure and performance level 1 year ahead of schedule.

6. Chapter 4 on Deployment should be arranged on a Cork Board in the Coaches office to read each morning, as a "Daily Devotional." Coaches/Leaders to often forget that by keeping there own skills focused and sharp, spill over to the actions and result of the ALT members.

7. The "Value Network" concept truly supported my personal philosophy of not deleting the most important life source of all organizations "PROFIT." An excellent Coach/Leader will be more effective with ALT teams and the process of strategic planning by honestly admitting we must make a profit, therefore their actions that support the material within this text will be more reality driven and not viewed as corporate fluff to keep morale at a moderate level of acceptance. Honesty is the first step in leading a successful organization.

8. Closing Comments: As we know and the book points out in Table format, today's business "Demands" are different from years past. This book is an excellent training tool for organizations at various levels including infancy, transitional businesses experiencing sales growth that could lead to dysfunctional performance without proper planning, and successful businesses that need to maintain and deal with everyday tumultuous situations. "A must read book for the true lifelong learner and concerned leader of the future." Also, follow-up with training to really experience the change and improvements you can experience through ALT implementation.

Don't let the title scare you mothers away. "Listen My Son: St. Benedict for Fathers" brings the reader through the Rule of Saint Benedict, (RSB), by way of a brief daily reading that explains each section as it would be applicable in any parent's life today. The entire RSB is read within one year's time.

It is often said that child birth comes without any instruction manual. "Listen My Son: St. Benedict for Fathers" can be that manual.

This would make an excellent gift for a new parent.

Dr. Longenecker's meditations on the rule of St. Benedict are both inpirational and pragmatic. This book offer a useful re-tooling and reapplication of these essentially monastic directives for use in family life. It makes me want to work more dilligently at being a better father and person.

My mother gave this book to all her sons (including me) for Christmas a year ago. This was my first exposure to Saint Benedict and his Rule. At that time I had very little exposure to the monastic life. As I read this book I could really begin to appreciate the devout nature of Benedict and his followers. It is clear that these men who give up their lives for Christ, these monks, truely have a calling to this vocation.

I really liked the interpretation that went along after each rule by Dr. Longenecker. This was especially valuable as I had not been experienced these teachings before. I highly reccommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about the contemplative life.

As a mother, I was intrigued by the title of this book, and now wish that I had read it long ago, when my children were younger. The advice is age-old and not just for fathers, rather, it is inspiring for all adults, but especially parents trying to keep a family together in these chaotic days.

As any who have read an ancient work in translation will tell you, any commentary that is included can be a blinding distraction, or the most illuminating aspect of the literature. In this case, Longenecker's accompanying prose is surely the latter. Benedict's Rule is related to the work of a father with practiced ease and grace. The work is profoundly instructive.
In fact, my only gripe is with the slightly unwieldy, slightly overlong introduction. Though it should by no means be skipped, I remember feeling a little anxious to get on to St. Benedict. Very high marks though, I thoroughly recommend this book to any father, or mother for that matter.

Too rarely is a book on the education of children written by a person who has been an effective teacher, a highly successful school administrator, and a scholar. Dr. Lawrence combines all three qualities.

As a former public school teacher, principal, supervisor, professor of educational evaluation and a Fulbright lecturer, I can highly recommend this book to those teachers, principals, and school supervisors (and parents) who wish to learn how to cut through much of the red tape and bureaucracy that, sadly, characterizes too much of public education.

Dr. Lawerence provides specific cases of being confronted with and coping effectively with children whose instructional level is misclassified, the difficulties of unsuitable tests, rigid grading systems, teachers who are in dire need of help and many other areas of concern.

For your information, in retirement, Dr. Lawerence continues to volunteer her time working with children prone to being written off as failures.

William D. Hedges, (...)

I'd like to thank Dr. Lawrence for sharing her experience and wisdom with us through her book. Having insight to the internal workings of the public school system has better prepared me to make sure my child is not "left behind." Dr. Lawrence's emphasis on reading readiness in the early grades, has helped define my goals as a parent.
Thank you so much,
T.F.Ambrosio

It was a pleasure and surprise to see the inside commentary of a modern school principal. I do not think a parent can get a better picture of school administration problems and details. I thought "Boston Public" was a little too violent. My experience with school boards is deciding on how to pay for new water fountain. This book gives a parent a great insight to school problems and solutions.

Dr. Lawrence writes an honest inside view about the nuts and bolts of running an elementary school with the principal as a strong curriculum leader. She recognized reading as the elementary school's primary concern.
This anecdotal, informative and entertaining book explains the significance of identifying correct student instructional levels to effectively impact reading gains. Her ability to recognize the school as a function of its community is a critical factor in a successful education system. Poverty is a serious subject, a powerful distracter, but Dr. Lawrence guides us with humor, and the down and dirty understanding of identifying vital academic needs. She shows how to remain focused throughout the day-to-day crisises of running a school while making positive impacts on the children's academic and social growth.
As someone considering a career in educational leadership, I would recommend reading this valid, often humorous reflection of a principal's journey.

Dr. Lawrence has a simple solution for the education of children. Teach them at their level so that they can achieve success. In the days of over emphasis on test results, children are not only left behind, but they are also taught to fail. This book takes a humane view of the tender loving care that children need. By teaching them at their level, they do achieve success, thus beginning a real education. The gift is in their joy of learning.

This first volume in the set of 6 (I sincerely hope that there will be more to come) is, in my opinion, essential reading for every Christian.

We in the USA need to unlearn everything that we were told about "the big, bad, Red Russians"... This set is a good start in introducing westerners to the amazing and profound depth of Russian spiritualism!

Just read it, you have to, no description can give it justice. All I can say is this, it's comparable to Issac of Nineveh's "On Ascetical Life" in its beauty, depth, and penetrating words of love, peace, and prayer. Just read it, this book will change you forever.

While preparing a lecture on Surat Shabd Yoga, I came across the Philokalia and thought it might be useful in my talk. "Surat" is a Sanskrit word for "Soul", "Shabd" is the Sanskrit word for "Holy Spirit". "Yoga" simply means "To Yoke". Hence, Surat Shabd Yoga is the process of connecting the soul to the Holy Spirit. In the "Little Russian Philokalia", Saint Seraphim of Sarov taught that the main aim of Christian life is to acquire for oneself the Spirit of God. His amazing and supernatural conversation with N.A. Motovilov on "The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit" is included in this volume.

Simple, elegant, uplifting, and profound.

I am glad to see that we now have a Russian companion volume to the traditional Philokalia.

I found that the pictures of St. Seraphim spoke to me too.

I've been really enjoying the Russian Philokalia series, more so, even, than the original Philokalia and the sayings of the Desert Fathers.

From an evangelical perspective the Desert Fathers can often come across as legalists whose religion has less to do with a Christ centered faith, than it does with trying to outdo each other in their rules of piety (ie: the argument about whether a true monk would (a) never lay eyes on a woman or (b) be able to look at a woman and not even recognize her as being of the opposite gender).

The original Philokalia, on the other hand, reads more like a text on Hindu meditation: weird mystical concept and breathing techniques mixed with Christian references and other rules for achieving enlightenment (or seeing the uncreated light of God).

The Russian Philokalia series, on the other hand, especially this volume of the writings of St. Seraphim, are far more "down to earth" or at least more familiar. Seraphim's sayings, for example, are generally rooted in a Spirit-centered faith, and hence, more accessible to evangelicals and others looking at Orthodoxy for the first time. I don't know what makes them more accessible. Perhaps its because these men lived closer to our own time; perhaps its because the Orthodox church in their day had been influenced by Western thinking; or perhaps its because they were simple Russian peasants. In any case, I really enjoyed this series of books and would readily reccommend them to interested readers.

Reading Dr Guillory's book, I found myself looking at a totally new arena in the workplace. Many concepts and thoughts that can improve employees relations at any level in an organization. Much, much more then the trendy books recommended by most of corporate America today. A "must read" book for those looking for the missing connection.

In THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS, Thomas Kuhn suggested that the evolution of science was marked more by epistemological shifts than linear developments over time that reflected unchanging truths and practices. After Kuhn's analysis, scientists would never again be able to do "business as usual." William Guillory's work represents a similar epistemological shift, and like Kuhn's REVOLUTIONS has the potential to change the way that business is envisioned and actualized, literally challenging the business of "business and usual," and introducing an element that has yet to be fully explored in the numerous works that articulate transformative business practices. The future of business, for Guillory, is defined by one idea/practice: spirituality. SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE: A GUIDE FOR ADAPTING TO THE CHAOTICALLY CHANGING WORKPLACE is William Guillory's contribution to the emerging conversation of how to effectively transform business and implement practices that will be responsive to, and inclusive of, empowerment, diversity, and organizational coherence. Guillory challenges some of our most sacred beliefs about difference and division: self and other, individuality and collectivism, and of course, spirituality and materialism. It is a book that offers a new vision of leadership, one that values intuition as much as observation, and the spiritual as much as the material. William Guillory's vision is, indeed, integrative, and reflects his own personal challenges and transformations. Guillory is the CEO and founder of Innovations Consulting International, and a highly sought after authority on facilitating organizational transformation, managing diversity, and creating contexts for individual empowerment. His work with organizational change and diversity led naturally to his own transformative self-reflections, reflections that moved him beyond the material concerns of a career to the spiritual possibilities of exploring his own deeply embedded life interests. He writes in the prologue of SPIRITUALITY of an experience in October of 1985 that changed both his life and his mind. "Words flowed through me at a rate with which I cold hardly keep pace. There were phrases and concepts I had never heard before, pouring into my consciousness." Those words and phrases, he relates, challenged one of our culture's most sacred division, the separation of the spiritual and the material. Guillory believes that this division needs to be understood, addressed, and ultimately healed if organizations are going to be able to adapt to accelerated change and potential crises. The multiple ways of addressing this division are revealed throughout the book, in both the titles and the contents of each chapter. Chapter one discusses "The Living Organization," and offers a biological metaphor for understanding organizational evolution. Chapter two "Spirituality as a source of wisdom," addresses directly the main focus of the book and offers both definitions of spirituality and examples of how it is reflected in specific business practices. Chapter three, "People--The Only Sustainable Competitive Advantage," discusses the difficulties of personal transformation within organizational contexts that privilege material over human resources, and illustrates how individuals can successfully empower themselves to become agents of change. Chapter four, "Service--An Unconditional Commitment to Others," points to the value of challenging and redefining our conception of ourselves in relation to others, and the potential that committing one's self to service can have for both individual and organizational transformation. Chapter five, "Organizational Self-Awareness--Know Thyself," explores the critical connection between communication and culture that defines the problems and possibilities of organizational change and development in an increasingly diverse and global business economy. Chapter six, Wisdom--Your Soul Connection," illustrates the importance intuition and personal self-reflection for overcoming limiting conditions and actualizing performance potential. Chapter seven, "The New Leadership--Spirituality," explores the critical need for visionary, transformative, and spiritual leadership, and how these approaches reflect both normative principles and practical outcomes. In the final chapter, "The Future--A Call for Action," Guillory challenges us to rethink the world of work and our place in it, and the impact of our personal and professional works on the world in which we live. Guillory paradigmatic shift invites us to consider what David Bohm described as the "implicate order" or reality, the many diverse and seemingly divergent principles and practices that implicate us in each other's lives and, ultimately, in the planet itself. Although the titles of Guillory's chapters suggest at first glance an exploration into the realm of the esoteric and the transcendent, the chapters themselves reveal concrete and down to earth discussions and examples of spirituality at work in the work place. The book is very accessibly written, and does an excellent job touching on many of the emerging theoretical discussions of organizational change and development without being "theory laden." The use of personal experiences and narratives also serve to make the book extremely practical in terms of presenting concrete examples of spiritual practices. Each of the chapters also offers exercises and measurement instruments for facilitating self-reflexive explorations of spirituality in the workplace and in our lives. While at first glance this may seem like a strange mixture of science and metaphysics, a kind of "lichert scale spirituality," the exercises if take seriously serve as provocative catalysts for further understanding, and recognizing the necessity of a paradigmatic shift toward the spiritual. Guillory suggests that the economics of self-interest and personal gain have placed the planet in a tenuous position, one requiring radical change and personal transformation. SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE offers an alternative paradigm for re-conceptualizing and re-creating the way we do business with each other, with the planet, and with ourselves. The articulation of a new paradigm is perhaps the most important contribution that this book makes to the literature on organization change and development. Unlike many of the texts in this genre, however, SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE forces us to delve deeper into the mechanisms of culture and consciousness that undergird our business organizations and economic institutions. This is an important and provocative book that will makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how organizational change and personal transformation will be the keys to business competitiveness and development in the 21st century.

William Guillory has hit the nail squarely on the head. It is about time that someone has been able to give solid thoughts as to how one can adapt to the ever changing workplace, while maintaining and enhancing spiritual values.

With consolidation being the main focus of companies across North America, the pressures and anxiety are at extreme levels. William Guillory gives employees and executives a fresh insight into dealing with these changes.

This is a must read for anyone who is experiencing change or chaos in the workplace. It is a must read for everyone!

Spirituality in the Workplace is a truly inspirational book that encourages individuals and organizations to incorporate their values and spirituality into their work endeavers. The powerful ideas inside this book show how we can align the spiritual, mental and physical components of our lives to become more fully functional in the workplace. Although the focus is on values and individual development, Bill also makes a strong business case for using these principles to create excellence within an organization. His real life examples and creative insights make this a interesting and motivating read.

With the increasing trend to introspection in Western society and inquiry into sources of personal meaning in all areas of one's life, it is not surprising that the place of spirituality in the workplace is also being examined. The past 5 years have seen a number of books appear on the subject; many of them fall into a couple of categories: they are broad and fuzzy surveys of the topic, or they try to define what spirituality SHOULD look like. This is inherently flawed because spirituality is a manifestation of personal belief and a reflection of corporate culture. Dr. Guillory's book is one of the very few I have seen to take a different, and I feel proper, approach. First, Dr. Guillory is by training a chemist and yet he tackles a nebulous topic like spirituality with ease and familiarity. He effectively applies a scientific rigor to treatment of the subject but never becomes preachy or inaccessable. The volume is clearly written, well organized, and has a VERY strong take-away for the reader, who can complete exercises in the book to the formation and manifestation of a personal belief system and apply that to a work setting. Throughout the process, Dr. Guillory seems to accompany and guide the reader through the exercises. It is as if he is writing from within a spiritual context, rather than standing on the outside looking in. This volume has a wonderful mix of information and applications, as well as illustration of schematic and thought-models, that serve as a springboard for further inquiry. I found this book stayed in my head long after I had closed the cover. The examples of how corporate leaders had developed their own corporate spirituality were inspiring and believable. In conclusion, I loved this book because it was practical, direct, entertaining, and enlightening. It is a roadmap and guidebook that others can use to navigate through a murky topic with ease.

As a Christian, I am constantly pleasantly surpised that the truth can be found in all places and times. This book is a wonderful and refreshing reiteration of basic yet exceedingly profound truths. I am so thankful that I was drawn to it. I give it my highest recommendation. It sits on my self next to my Bible, Dhammapada, Tao Teh Ching, Analects, I Ching, and Bhagavad-Gita. The message trancends time and space: Love, Nurture, and Forgive!

A wonderful book! The three words, Love, Nurture and Forgive, provides the basis to our lives. It is truly fascinating to discover that 'love' contains many different levels to be practiced. And that our relationships with others allows us the opportunities to deeply understand and develop the means to love, nurture and forgive one another.

As a Christian, I suspect that this is the book that Jesus would have written had he been able to find a publisher at the time. The title says it all. Although an essentially Buddhist philosophy, the ideas contained in the book could have been written with the Christian reader in mind. What could be more Christian than living for the sake of others (LOVE), looking after and helping others develop (NURTURE) and recognising that we are all children of Buddha/God no matter what our transgressions (FORGIVE)

As with all his books that I have read, Okawa continues in his unpretentious style, and is therefore very easy to read.

As a Christian, I suspect that this is the book that Jesus would have written had he been able to find a publisher at the time. The title says it all. Although an essentially Buddhist philosophy, the ideas contained in the book could have been written with the Christian reader in mind. What could be more Christian than living for the sake of others (LOVE), looking after and helping others develop (NURTURE) and recognising that we are all children of Buddha/God no matter what our transgressions (FORGIVE)

As with all his books that I have read, Okawa continues in his unpretentious style, and is therefore very easy to read.

This is a shining honest account of the experiences of a true masters' awakening. And lays out a clear description of the starting point to understanding his broad and profound teachings. This is a big step foward for religious thought!