Performance Books

This is a book you will probably want to buy in quantity. It's an affordable little 96-page compendium of the most relevant "Do's and Don'ts" of leading a group of people. What I like about this book is its simplicity. Each "Do" and each "Don't" is accompanied by a short story from real-life situations to help clarify the significant points. These are the issues that tend to get leaders in a lot of trouble, and Steve Herbelin has captured them nicely in this book.

The dos and don'ts are direct, to the point and extremely practical for just about any kind of working environment. I especially like the abundance of true anecdotes that clarify and reinforce the points being made. I strongly recommend this book for team leaders as well as coaches!

I started reading this book with a bit of skepticism. After all, it's written by the workers. Right from the start, though, this book makes sense. Lots of sense. It presents a philosophical outlook on team leadership that gets to the core --- interpersonal relationships --- without using superficial analogies or inventing contrived structures. Just common sense about how to deal with people and situations in a real, straightforward manner. Over and over again I found myself thinking things like, "Yes, I know that. That's true. Right on!" It's mostly things that we already know, but maybe need a little book like this to give us the confidence to more often do the right thing and act the right way. If everyone applied the principles outlined in "The Dos and Don'ts of Work Team Coaching," the world would certainly be a better place in which to work. I'm going to keep it handy and read it again someday, and again.

I love my job, which includes managing a staff of seven customer service representatives. But I always hated doing performance appraisals. My own manager sent me to a workshop where I learned a lot about how important communication is to successful performance management. At the end of the class, the instructor showed us a book, Writing Performance Documentation. I bought a copy for myself, and it was one of the best purchases I ever made because it helps me write objectives and performance documentation that communicate useful, specific information. I still don't love doing performance appraisals-but I'm much better at it now.

I love my job, which includes managing a staff of seven customer service representatives. But I always hated doing performance appraisals. My own manager sent me to a workshop where I learned a lot about how important communication is to successful performance management. At the end of the class, the instructor showed us a book, Writing Performance Documentation. I bought a copy for myself, and it was one of the best purchases I ever made because it helps me write objectives and performance documentation that communicate useful, specific information. I still don't love doing performance appraisals-but I'm much better at it now.

Writing Performance Evaluations was the one part of my job I dreaded. I never knew what to say, I didn't want to make people mad, I was confused about objectives-the whole process confused me. A colleague suggested I try Writing Performance Documentation. The meaningful examples and helpful feedback showed me what is meant by objective documentation. I learned what words to stay away from and the kind of details that are necessary to write helpful observations. This is one of the few times that I found the examples of how not to do something as important as those that showed the right way. The section on writing objectives was equally helpful. Because I now use details and facts when writing documentation and develop objectives that can be easily measured or observed, people actually thank me for my evaluations. This book has made a great deal of difference in how I see my job.

This book is a small masterpiece. Tucker Childers's warmth and wit are stunning. They are overshadowed only by his uncanny ability to draw very important lessons from the many homilies about the applications of behavioral psychology to people's everyday work, and personal lives. The book contains some of the best examples of these applications that I have read. I laughed until I cried over his stories and marveled over his keen insights. Anyone with an interest in humor, human behavior, and good writing will enjoy reading this delightful work. As a professor of psychology, I use the book in my teaching because the author's examples of the applications of psychological principles are ones to which students easily relate.

Tucker Childers has left his indelible mark on the many books on leadership.

For once, there is a source on easy to understand and apply information with regard to this subject.

Perhaps even more useful, Childers has underscored how to do well by doing good.

An informative, entertaining and quick read.

We are inundated with books on leadership. The authors all use a different hook to differentiate their advice from other books on the subject. Having taught management to several thousand managers over the last 30 years, I can tell you that most of these books are pretty dry. Peter Drucker's writing is brilliant, but the average supervisor or manager is unwilling to wade through the material.

If you are an executive in a large company and want to provide your managers and supervisors with a book they will read with relish, enjoy, quote from, and discuss among themselves this may be the only one you will find to meet those criteria.

Most books on management and leadership are a real snooze, that's why Tucker Childers' book, "You Can't Apologize to a Dawg" is so valuable. It is short, it makes solid points, and the points are immersed in real life stories that will have you rolling on the floor.

You will finish this book in short order and then be sorry that you did. Many authors on leadership and management attempt to be cute; Tucker Childers is funny.

Yes, he used to play football for The University of Georgia, and yes, he was brought up in the north Georgia hills, but don't let that fool you into thinking he has not learned some valuable lessons about how to get things done through people.

I doubt if many managers or supervisors actually change their behavior after reading the academic, abstract, and overly complex books written by authors who think that the value of a book is determined by how difficult the material is to understand and implement. Tucker's book makes simple but meaningful points about managing people through stories that are memorable.

He was a management consultant for 30 years and worked in a number of Fortune 100 companies. Tucker also managed people at various times in his life so he got a chance to practice what he had been teaching. Between the teaching and the doing came the lessons so effectively presented in this book.

Tucker is what is referred to as a humorist. He sees the funny side of life--a side of life that is quite plentiful in his small home town. If Jeff Foxworthy wrote a book on leadership, it would probably be this funny and almost this good.

And, if you think Tucker is a lightweight, you need to read the foreword to his book written by Dr. Aubrey C. Daniels, author of several books on management. His most recent book, "Measure of a Leader," and his stature as one of America's top business gurus establish the value of his opinion about books on leadership.

This is probably going to be the only book on leadership that you can recommend to your friends with any certainty that they will not hate you for it later.

What a great decision I made when I bought a dozen copies of this book when it first came out, since it's first edition sold out not long after it was released. I have given them all away, and find I still want more copies to share. The deep political and philosophical understandings of the ever-talented Ms. Hammad, woven beautifully together into these passionate poems, motivate the reader to no end. Her compassion and insight are matched with her gift for lyric, in style that is fondly at home with the griots Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, Helene Cixcous, Sapphire, Gil Scott-Heron, Nawal el Sdadawi, Michael Franti, Dead Prez, and anyone who has suffered long enough to know the difference between living and fighting to live.

As per the title you can probably tell I haven't yet read ZataarDiva. My only experience with Suheir Hammad is from the inspirational HBO series Def Poetry.

I know Suheir's voice. It commands me to listen. Never mind owning the stage, she owns the whole damn building. Powerful, beautiful, emotional and moving are words that, to me, describe both Ms. Hammad AND her poetry. She's so talented she makes me want to not only write more, but write better.

This book cannot get here soon enough.

k.

"Having traveled the world via her poetry, Brooklyn-raised and Tony-Award winning poet Suheir Hammad has published the long-awaited follow-up to her 1996 collections, Born Palestinian, Born Black and Drops of This Story (Harlem River Press). In the minimalist ZaatarDiva, a deeply spiritual and maternal Hammad wastes not a single word in tightly wrapped flower bud poems that blossom in the reader's mind, where her words give voice to unconscious thought. With roots as a spoken-word poet, Hammad's use of popular language to de-scribe and connect complex subjects and express the intimate can only be described as genius. Strong in her weakness, her raw intimacy defeats armies. The endless love that provides the backbone for Hammad's work transcends and eclipses simple politics to pure and beautiful revolution."
--From the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2006 Issue.

This is an excellant book for anyone practicing for shows or just wanting to improve their riding skills. It has patterns for beginning, intermediate, and advanced riders. It also explains how to work the patterns. I strongly recommend it.

This book is very comprehensive. There are enough "lessons" to
get the beginning instructor and the beginning-intermediate rider through a geat year of riding and teaching.

I had this book before and someone borrowed it and it never returned so I bought it again...that's how much I loved it! A lot of great activities to use in a number of situations and with a lot of different groups.

This book has enough activities to fill those preseason teambuilding needs and rainy day alternatives to practice. A must for every coach of every level.

101 Tips for Graduates: A Code of Conduct for Success and Happiness in Your Professional Life, is a wonderful gift and tool for any new graduate. Morem writes in a warm, personable style and gives straight-forward and thoughtful advice to graduates. Her 101 Tips range in topic from work skills and how to find a job and acheive career success, to communication skills, to leadership skills, social skills and more. Morem also includes insightful tips in her book from people all across the country.
Graduates and job seekers should also check out Morem's website, [...] for a new free series of video and audio podcasts. The video podcasts take the form of a reality tv series and follow five soon to be graduates through an interview process, complete with reviewing their tapes and receiving Morem's expert advice. This is a fantastic resource like none other I've been able to find!

You can find the podcast at www.suemorem.com

At last a book that distills the learning of the last 20-30 years in business management. Drennan and Penningtons book is unique in the simple and structured way in which it helps set out action plans for us all, no matter what our role in business. An irresistible feature is a checklist for carrying out an immediate evaluation of your company and its world class status. A special aspect of the authors approach is the people dimension and how to achieve world class performance through people.

It is also a great reference book for picking up and putting down. Its part of my toolkit for running businesses in different parts of the world. Well done to the authors!

The book focuses on the 12 key benchmarks that lead on organization to world class performance and results. We are using this book within our facility in order to help drive results. Best practices and continuous improvement are the emphasis. I strongly recommend this book for all organizations. All managers have a copy of this book and we are beginning our world class audit.

This important work shows you how to take a results-oriented approach to human resources. It explains how to develop programs with an emphasis on accountability, determine the costs of HR programs, calculate the return on investment, design data collection instruments and techniques for evaluation, and strengthen management's commitment to HR efforts. The author presents a nine-step model to analyze, develop, and implement programs and illustrates its use. He also presents a methodology for measuring overall effectiveness of HR. This book shows how to benchmark against other organizations. Comprehensive and useful. Overall, tracking success is crucial for HR practitioners to understand and do! Ergo, HR practitioners need this book.

"During the last decade, the Human Resources (HR) function experienced drastic change in its role, status, and influence". Jack J. Phillips writes, "Some HR executives recognized the change and stepped up to the challenge. A panel of top-level HR executives recently assembled by Personnel Journal agreed that HR is moving away from the transactional, paper-pushing, hiring/firing support function it has been and is becoming a bottom-line business decision maker...Peter Drucker predicted these changes in The Wall Street Journal over ten years ago when he asserted that the personnel department, in addition to changing its name to human resources, must behave quite differently and follow the line mode of behavior rather than the staff mode"(pp.1-5).And hence, he rightly argues that "from recent articles, reports, books, and interviews on the subject, seven trends can be identified that have a significant impact on an organization's bottom-line results and the HR function's role in the process. These trends include the increased importance of the HR function, increased accountability, organizational change and quality programs, improvement in productivity, adoption of HR strategies, growing use of HR's information systems, and reliance on partnership relationships. Collectively these trends enhance or complement the efforts of the HR department to monitor and improve its contribution to organizational performance" (pp.5-6).

Within this context, he divides his book into four parts as follows:

Part I- presents a general framework for evaluating the HR function (Chapters 1-2)

Part II- presents the issues involved in developing a results-based approach to HR (Chapters 3-4)

Part III- focuses on specific ways to measure the contribution of HR (Chapters 5-9)

Part IV- explores data analysis and presentation results.

One of the core concepts of the book, in Chapter 1, he focuses on paradigm shifts from traditional HR approach to a more results-based approach demanded in today's environment, and summarizes these paradigm shifts necessary for a results-based approach as follows:

Traditional Approach:

(1) New programs initiated by request or suggestion of any significant manager or group.

(2) A maltitude of programs in all areas.

(3) Existing programs are rarely, if ever, eliminated or changed.

(4) Count activities, hours of involvement, number of employees involved, etc.

(5) Limited management involvement in the HR process.

(6) HR viewed as cost center.

(7) HR staff unfamiliar with operations issues.

(8) HR staff lack knowledge of finance and business concepts.

Results-Based Approach:

(1) New programs initiated only after a legitimate need is established.

(2) Fewer programs with greater opportunity to make an impact.

(3) Existing programs are regularly reviewed and eliminated when necessary.

(4) Measure the impact of programs on the organization.

(5) Extensive involvement and collaboration with management.

(6) HR is viewed as an investment in employees.

(7) HR staff very knowledgeable about operations issues.

(8) HR staff versed in basic finance and business concepts.

I highly recommend this invaluable study to all HR executives.

Acts of Passion is inspiring in its diversity,
intelligence and depth. The acts of passion it
describes are often acts of courage for the artists
involved, given the uniqueness of their voices.
I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in
performance and sexuality.

This fascinating book is about the various ways lesbians and bisexual women express themselves through the arts. It contains many personal essays about how lesbians have used poetry, performance art, and dance to liberate themselves. If you're a creative person, or have wanted to be creative but were afraid of what people might think of your efforts, this book should inspire you. I loved it!