Performance Books

I'm 18 years old. My Uncle Keith bought my sister, now 20, and I the Cinnamon Bear when I was 11 years old.

I love this show and anticipate listening to it every year. This year, I convinced my boyfriend to listen along with me. It took a lot of nagging and begging, but he agreed to. Now I have to hide it from him to keep him from binging and listening to all of them early!

I'm the Cinnamon Bear
With the Shoe-button eyes
And I'm looking for someone
To take by surprise

I go growling and prowling
Each night after dark
But the folks say my growl's
Just a cinnamon bark...

So begins the enchanting world of puns and humor and fantasy and some superior caliber voice work which is the Cinnamon Bear. Who wouldn't want to meet candy pirates and gentle giants? And guess who the children meet at the end?...somebody very important in the world of Christmas, if you get my drift.

I also grew up in SW Portland in the 60s, listening to the Cinnamon Bear every Christmas on KEX. I treasure this as one of my favorite holiday memories. I used to sit on the floor and color pictures to go along with the fantastic stories. How wonderful that Smithsonian has now remastered this and re-released it!

Now my young kids can't wait to go to bed and turn off the lights so I'll play the Cinnamon Bear for them. What more incentive do you need? The 15 minute episodes are just right for getting the kiddies to settle. There is something fun about the live "feel" to the shows.

I would buy a CD version if I could find it, but this cassette holds up very well.

I first heard the adventures of The Cinnamon Bear and twins, Judy and Jimmy on the radio back in the l940's and remember the excitment I felt in anticipation of each days episode where they were in search of the silver star. The magical happenings, and many unforgetable Maybeland characters make this a cherished childrens story.

Shortly after Thanksgiving I share the story with my grandchildren, playing one episode each day (over the phone) and in addition to the silver stars they have each found in their Christmas stockings, I am sure they have a happy memory of a special story.

Wow! What a joy to know they are still selling these tapes! My sister and I grew up in a household where we played the Cinnamon Bear every year. My sister had a baby last year, and my father really wanted to start playing the tapes for the new grandbaby this year. Unfortunately, the tapes must have gotten lost in the last house move. I know my father will be thrilled to get the tapes this year as an early Christmas gift! Let the Christmas tradition continue!

This is our family favorite we even listen to it in the summer! I am 33 yrs old and my father MADE me listen to this on KEX radio when I was little. I just could not stand to hear it then it made me miserable. My things have changed. I bought this gift set for my dad for his birthday because he always said he missed it during the holidays because it has been discontinued. I have a 5 year old daughter who we introducted this to last Christmas. Her being more intellectual than myself just loves it! My husband cannot stand the music. The sound effects crack me up but my daughter just thinks it is the living end. We are planning on getting a reproduction old time radio with a tape player and I cannot wait to hear this on the old time radio. If you dont like this radio show at first it will grow on you. Start it out after Thanksgiving and listen to one everynight. It will get you in the spirit. I wish they had a Cinnamon stuffed bear I could buy my daughter. I like it because you have to use your imagination and things are not just presented to you like on the TV. I highly recommend it especially for people over 55 and little kids!

This book clearly answers the critical questions: why do we maintain, what tasks should we actually do and when should we do them.

On Page 230 of this book, Vee makes a series of profound statements which summarise the book and its approach.
He writes:
"There are many learned papers that address the application of reliability engineering theory to maintenance strategy discussions. Many of them use advanced mathematics to fine tune maintenance strategies. The authors have limited access to field data, and their recommendations are often abstract and difficult to apply. So these remain learned papers, which practitioners do not understand or cannot apply to real life situations".
He goes on to say later that "This chasm between the designers and maintainers on the one hand and the reliability engineers on the other is what we have to bridge"
I can not agree more with these statements.
While this book ventures into statistics and probability theory in some areas, it does so in a practical way and provides excellent guidance on such matters. Overall it is a practical book providing practical advice for people involved in maintenance and reliability management. It goes a long way to bridging the chasm that exists.
This is a very good text that has a place in any maintainer's library.

This is without a doubt the best reliability text around. No rubbish just straight to the point strategies based on sound engineering. Its a small book but is perfectly suited as a quick reference.

That the author has managed to cram so much into 200 odd pages is impressive and I will be using it as a reference for some time. What is very good about the book is the ease of read and the fact that there are a number of real life examples that make many of your points more relevant to the reader. There were a few instances where my own experiences where reflected in the text such as Reshnikovs conundrum and the RCA chapter. On the whole I think it is an impressive book that deals well with a much misunderstood subject.

Since the inception of sensible maintenance work culture which had been a refined terminology of repair for years together and which used to be considered as unwanted event being a cost center, no effort was made by industrial bigwigs to reform the approach to a structured, value added universal maintenance management system as focus was somewhere on market capturing by monopolized products clubbed with less competitive business arena and cultural drawback towards open and free sharing of information. The importance to pay reformative attention to upgrade the maintenance practices was felt in the beginning of 1960 and since then evolution in maintenance concepts &practices have become continuous and multi-directional. In course of this, scoring excellence in maintenance practices have become a inherent part of organization's commitment and much efforts are exerted by professionals to curb & realize the maintenance expenditure in terms of enhanced reliability by adopting formalized tools and functional approaches, so that maintenance no longer remains as cost center as it had been earlier.
Unfortunately alike other management courses there is no formalized academic course exists on maintenance management, and continuous upgrade of maintenance management process grows based on sharing of information through different seminars conferences where knowledgeable & experienced maintenance professionals volunteer to educate the upcoming generation with the tips and key techniques to achieve excellence in maintenance performance.
Respected Mr. V.Narayan is one such experienced personality and his book on " Effective Maintenance Management, Risk & Reliability Strategies for optimizing performance" provides a excellent overall insight that is essential to form a value added, cost effective maintenance management system.
Among the content of book, the basic concept of functional system, the statistical approaches and mathematical insight to find out various inputs required to benchmark and optimize maintenance tasks, the concept and significance of various events/features associated with maintenance& overall reliability, the utilization process of various analytical decision making tools with area of applications, the inherent commitment associated with different strategic maintenance approaches, the technique to integrate safety and compliance to environmental regulation in maintenance philosophy are the most mentionable areas.
The definition of system says, " It is an organized grouping of man, machine tools, equipment, instrument, procedure etc. collectively set to accomplish any task".
This is very well explained in chapter 1&2 and attentive readers can grasp many important factual &practical learning points to enhance their teamwork and organizing capacity as well.
The chapter 3& 4 content mathematical approach and matrix to define and quantify various important statistics on failure rate, survival probability, and hazard rate, MTTF, MTBF, mean availability which are well described through various graphical representations. These are essential inputs for benchmarking and realize the areas of concern for improvement. Here the more elaboration with practical example on applicability or significance of all above statistical data in strategic /functional maintenance approach would have added more learning value for the readers.
It is needless to mention that proper design selection of equipment considering service maintenance & operational flexibility provides a trouble free cost effective life of any plant equipment system. In chapter 5 the key features in relation to above are appropriately explained and possess many learning points. Here I would like to share my experience on widely varying maintenance policies and practices in different process plants/ refining companies across the globe. In India most of the organizations treat having 100% redundancy of plant equipment system is a normal phenomenon, whereas most of the overseas companies don't follow the same concept. More over people are not enthusiastic to carry out tedious task of statistical analysis involving complex mathematics and instead look for fast track solutions and ready-made decisions, without going for in depth analysis. Hence formalized steps to build up a useful design selection plan would have appeared more digestible for such readers.
Risk is probability of occurrence, and risk is a inherent and unavoidable aspect in all phases of human life cycle. Hence well calculated risk can yield benefit and risk taken in haste or without proper evaluation posses great threat towards occurrence of failure/hazard /loss and eventually safety violation. The Chapter " facets of risk" and " process plant shut down" illustrate in depth facts and features of risk management corroborative to maintenance, process plant operation / formalized shut down and its documentation.
The " Escalation of Events" is effectively unveil cost of unreliability and dispel many hard facts, from which readers can tighten their belt to curb undue leniency, indifference and laxity to go for analysis based, formalized, teamwork oriented maintenance practices.
The overall reliability is forthcoming when there exits synchronized operation of reliable equipment by reliable skill with reliable work culture, the avenue for man-machine -man communication. The different matrix and combinations of above there resources with respective merits and demerits are also important content of above chapter.
In maintenance chapter all the concepts, applicable limitations of various maintenance strategies, reliability- maintenance relationship practical approaches of planning, scheduling all are well explained and is a source of substantial benefit for interested readers. The statistical approach to optimize maintenance is also interesting part of this chapter. Here practical maintenance KPIs and its measuring standards/procedures may become further expectation from the readers.
The practical approach to carry out root cause failure analysis with case study, benchmarking of reliability, more elaboration on merits and demerits of preventive & predictive maintenance with its selection criteria & application effectiveness would have been a added attraction for the readers.
Readers also may expect the more details on practical way to achieve reliability through an effective condition monitoring program which is a keen desire of present maintenance professionals as the concept of PM has become obsolete and only adopted if it emerges out be only option undergoing RCA.
The success of all efforts in relation to any activity is definite when supported by effective and appropriate documentation. Though the importance of documentation is mentioned in relevant chapter content, but a general guidance towards forming culture of good documentation practices would have been useful to readers.
Finally, to the best of my knowledge the book of " Effective Maintenance Management, Risk & Reliability Strategies for optimizing performance" By Mr. V.Narayan opens up a new horizon enriched with most effective & practical knowledge base for maintenance professionals, specially for Indian Industry and I strongly recommend that this book must be read sincerely by maintenance professionals followed by implementation of applicable concepts and benchmarking to gauge the benefit as a part of continuous improvement.
I dare furnishing this review comment with professional mindset and hope that all senior maintenance & reliability professionals including respected author will pardon me with educative advices ,in case my understanding on content of captioned book goes off the track.

Sourav Kumar Chatterjee
Senior Manager Reliability
HPCL Mumbai Refinery India

I have traditionally shied away from the entire genre of self help and business "how to" books because the information they normally contained was either too ethereal or simply restating common sense that I did not need to be spending $22.00 on for what I already knew. Not so with Dave's latest effort. I found his book to be extremely readable and chock full of great insights that are really applicable to not only my business, but to every day life as well. At the risk of plagiarizing a line from a recent movie, reading this book and implementing its simple steps into your life will make you a better person. I highly recommend this book.

Powerful book from a brilliant author who knows success and how to achieve it. Dave is a master communicator that will ultimately bring out your best performance. The value of this information is intangible. The direct result of my reading this book has been increased income. His methods have enabled me to get out there and make deals happen. Buy this book, read it, and I believe Dave will bring out the best in you.

An exceptional speaker, Dave can equally convey his high-energy message through text. As you turn the pages, you will be counting the ways in which to apply the basic elements of the EPOD Theory. Reading the case studies of individuals and organizations that have applied these elements, you will quickly see how these easy-to-follow principals can enrich both your personal life and professional career.

If you sell anything, or would like to sell more,
Chapter 7 "Selling and EPOD Solutions" is a MUST read. Dave's wisdom is presented with engaging wit amid relevant examples including sales mistakes. Dave's EPOD Selling method presents solutions that work in today's world.

I've been a big Dave Yoho fan for years, and I think this is his best work yet. He devotes a fair amount of attention the power of words and the language we use with ourselves and others. The chapters on Energy and Discipline are worth 5 times the price of the book. A great read!

Steve Siebold
Boynton Beach, Florida

It's easy to pick out what makes a particular brand distinct and valuable... Apple, Costco, Wal-mart all have a definite public perception that drives their operation. In the book Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, the authors contend that each company also has a "leadership brand" that helps drive that public perception and that enables the company and employees deliver on those expectations.

Contents:
Branding Leadership; The Case for Building a Leadership Brand; Creating a Leadership Brand Statement; Assessing Leaders Against the Brand; Investing in Leadership Brand; Measuring Return on Leadership Brand; Building Awareness for Leadership Brand; Preserving Leadership Brand; Implications for Personal Brand; Criteria for a Firm Brand; Firms with Branded Leadership; Notes; Index; About the Authors

Ulrich and Smallwood do a good job in changing the way that an organization's leaders are normally viewed. Using the "brand" concept, building and promoting leaders is based on an underlying element that lends a continuity to how the company performs and delivers in the marketplace. These types of leaders are the ones that allow a company to consistently lead their market niche over a long period of time. It's obviously not a "quick-fix" solution to a company that's failing. You don't just decide "here's our leadership brand, so lead in this way" one Monday morning. Using the measured approach outlined here, it's possible to start to attract and promote the type of person that will complement the core message of your company.

Legendary organizational theorist James March once called leadership a "bogus concept." His disparaging label definitely applies to the fuzzy material masquerading as leadership on the shelves of most bookstores. In Leadership Brand, Ulrich and Smallwood avoid this trap. Their "brand" metaphor is useful in at least two ways. First, it links leadership development to a business concept most people understand: brand development. This makes the ideas more concrete. Second, it follows logically from Ulrich and Smallwood's recent emphasis on intangibles, the non-financial assets that account for nearly half of a publicly traded company's market capitalization. Powerful brands epitomize intangible value, but leadership is perhaps the king of intangibles, since it drives all other organization capabilities. Linking the two concepts -- leadership and brand -- is a nice touch. Ulrich and Smallwood are developing an impressive stream of related work, of which Leadership Brand is the latest and perhaps best exemplar.

Customers associate Wal-Mart with wide product selection and low prices, Federal Express with prompt, reliable service, and Apple Computer with innovation and elegant design. These qualities define this trio of companies in the marketplace. They make them special. They are their all-important brands. Similarly, today's companies also should develop special "leadership brands" for their executives. Such brands should embody what makes these companies truly distinctive, and thus mark them - and their style of corporate management - as singular and meritorious. Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood are two of America's most respected experts on business leadership. Here, they explain why a company's leadership brand really matters. We recommend this study of the inherent logic and intrinsic value of acknowledging and promoting your company's particular style of leadership - its leadership brand.

Here's the Quick Review of Leadership Brand: Developing customer-focused leaders to drive performance and build lasting value by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood.

HOW THIS BOOK IS DIFFERENT:
Concentrates on leadership as a company endeavor, not as a matter of individual growth.
The authors attempt to get you to analyze your company's leadership from the outside in.

STRENGTHS:
This is truly about leadership development in the company.
The chapter on "Assessing Leaders Against the Brand" is worth the price of the book.
Good research and citations.

WARNINGS:
You may have trouble reading this book from cover to cover.
What's here is far too programmatic to be practical taken whole.
The concept of "Leadership Brand" may get in your way.

BOTTOM LINE:
If you're interested in leadership development, this book should be on your shelf.

Now for the detailed review.

There's not much new about leadership. But every new leadership book attempts to give you something unique, a new way to look at the subject, new things to try, or old things to try in different way. Every book tries to shift your thinking.

Leadership Brand by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood attempts to shift your thinking from studying leaders to studying leadership and toward influencing how leaders connect the company to customers and other "outsiders." They work through the metaphor of a "leadership brand," which they tell us is "the identity of the firm in the mind of the customers made real to employees because of customercentric leadership behaviors."

That quote tells you that this book will stretch your thinking about leadership development in your company. It also tells you that the authors are overanalyzing and, yes, branding the process they describe. Here's a quick chapter outline

Branding Leadership - the authors introduce their concept of Leadership Brand

There are six chapters that lay out the process in step-by-step fashion.

Creating a Leadership Brand Statement
Assessing Leaders Against the Brand - worth reading if you read nothing else
Investing in Leadership Brand
Measuring Return on Leadership Brand
Building Awareness for Leadership Brand
Preserving Leadership Brand

Implications for Personal Brand

There are two Appendices

Criteria for a Firm Brand - worth reading for an overview of things to do
Firms with Branded Leadership

HOW THIS BOOK IS DIFFERENT

Leadership Brand concentrates on leadership as a company endeavor, not as a matter of individual growth. That makes it different from most leadership books, but similar to recent books like The Leadership Pipeline.

The authors also attempt to get you to analyze your company's leadership from the outside in. This is a powerful concept and one you can use in any company.

If you start thinking about leadership development by thinking about the results that need to be produced, you will see things that you won't see with the "competency" or "trait" approach. You will also be able to identify the ways that leadership at your company needs to be different than leadership at other companies.

STRENGTHS

This is truly about leadership development in the company. It will help you develop a leadership development program or modify what you've got.

The chapter on "Assessing Leaders Against the Brand" is worth the price of the book. This chapter is filled with tools and references that will help you assess leadership and leadership development whether you use the authors' program or not.

I love leadership books that are well-researched. Because the authors describe their thinking and support their points with research, you can judge whether you agree. You can also adapt a point or suggestion more effectively to your own situation.


WARNINGS

You may have trouble reading this book from cover to cover. The prose is absolutely tortured at times.

What's here is far too programmatic to be practical taken whole. Like so many programmatic books, this one lays our multiple, detailed steps and makes it seem like you go through them, bang-bang-bang in a linear fashion.

The fact is that the kind of changes the authors are calling for require changes in multiple company systems and in the culture. It's a generational process that will take years, not months.

The concept of "Leadership Brand" may get in your way. It did for me.

I never understood how a "leadership brand" was different than the culture and values of a company. Ultimately I just substituted "culture and values" in my head every time I read "leadership brand." That seemed to work fine.

BOTTOM LINE

If you're interested in leadership development, this book should be on your shelf.

In the Preface, Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood make this affirmation: "We believe that leaders matter, but leadership matters more. We have all experienced a gifted leader who engaged all of us -- our hearts, minds, and feet. Dynamic leaders enlist us in a cause, and we willingly follow their counsel. But leadership exists when an organization produces more than one to two individual leaders. Leadership matters more because it is tied not to a person but to the process of building leaders." By no means do Ulrich and Smallwood question the importance of individual leaders. On the contrary, they assert (and I agree) that one of the most important obligations of being a leader is to strengthen or at least sustain a process by which to identify, hire, develop, and then retain high-impact leaders at all levels and in all areas throughout her or his organization.

With regard to this book's title, Ulrich and Smallwood offer another affirmation: "We believe that all organizations have a leadership brand, either explicitly crafted and deployed or implicitly perceived and randomly perpetuated...[Therefore] leadership brand is the identity of the leaders throughout an organization that bridges customer expectations and employee and organizational behavior." I've noticed that in recent years, several of the same companies (e.g. Berkshire Hathaway, FedEx, GE, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Toyota Motor) appear on the annual lists of those Most Valuable as well as those Most Highly Admired. These exemplary companies all have high-impact leadership that consistently produces superior results. I've also noticed that the U.S. military services and their academies are also renowned for the high quality of their leadership development programs. However different these organizations are in most respects, they do share this in common: Each has devised a high-impact leadership program that is appropriate to their specific needs and objectives.

As Ulrich and Smallwood correctly point out, a brand combines an identity with a reputation among various constituencies. "Leadership brand is the identity of the firm in the in the mind of the customers, made real to employees because of customercentric leadership behaviors. In other words, leadership brand occurs when leaders' knowledge, skills, and values focus employee behavior on the factors that target the issues that customers care about." The challenge for any organization (whatever its size or nature) is to formulate a program ensuring that everyone in that organization embraces the values, gains the knowledge, and strengthens the skills needed to drive performance and build lasting value.

After briefly explaining the "what" in Chapters 1 & 2 (i.e. what leadership brand is and why it is important), Ulrich and Smallwood devote the remaining chapters to "how," answering questions such as these:

3. What is a "brand statement"?
3. How to prepare one?
4. How to assess leaders against the brand?
5. How to invest in the leadership brand?
6. How to measure its ROI?
7. How to create and then increase awareness of it?

Note: My own opinion is that creating and then increasing awareness of the leadership brand should precede measuring its ROI. That is, I would reverse the order of what are now Chapters 6 & 7.

8. How to preserve it?
9. What are the implications of a leadership brand for a personal brand?

Then in two appendices, Ulrich and Smallwood review the criteria for a firm brand and include the last of several self-diagnostics, "Diagnosis for leadership brand"). Then in the second appendix, they briefly discuss their research on the top firms for managing quality, suggesting that some function as "feeder firms" because they "feed the demands for next-generation leaders in other firms." For example, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson Controls, and Kraft. Non-profits include the Drucker Foundation, UNICEF, and the U.S. Marine Corps.

With regard to the U.S.M.C., Jon Katzenbach is quoted in a footnote to Appendix B: "Their mantra is simple and compelling and I first heard it articulated by Brig. General John Ryan (ret.) as follows: `We want all of our leaders - at every level -to focus on only two things: First, mission accomplishment; you will accomplish your mission no matter what...Second, and of equal importance, you will take care of each and every one of your Marines - let me repeat that that, you will take care of each and every Marine in your unit.' I have often thought that if all aspiring young leaders focused on these two things they could go a long way down their journey to becoming admirable leaders at whatever level they gravitate to."

I especially appreciate the provision of self-diagnostics as well as various "Tables" that organize key points within the context of a given chapter. They include Figure 3-1, "Creating a leadership brand statement" (Page 53), Figure 4-3, "Collaborative behaviors" (Page 94), Figure 7-1, (Pages 166-167), and Figure 9-1, "Creating a personal brand" (Page 212). Reader-friendly devices such as these facilitate, indeed accelerate frequent review of key points later.

Credit Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood with providing in a single volume just about as much information and counsel as most organizations will need to devise and implement or strengthen a process by which to produce the high-impact leaders it needs. In my opinion, becoming a "leadership brand" is only one result of that process. Moreover, everyone should be involved both as a student and as a mentor. Exemplary companies are proud of their current, hard-earned reputation as a "leadership brand" while keeping in mind that the high quality of their leaders will continue only if they constantly nourish and strengthen the process by which they are developed. For that reason, I strongly recommend that all decision-makers in a given organization read this book, then discuss it with other members of senior management. It would be a serious mistake to try to apply everything that Ulrich and Smallwood recommend but equally irresponsible to have no development process whatsoever. As they suggest when concluding their book, "the journey to leadership brand begins with the self." Bon voyage!

Those who share my high regard for this brilliant book are urged to check out Judgment co-authored by Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis, Ram Charan's Know-How and his more recent Leaders at All Levels, Roger Martin's The Opposable Mind, The New American Workplace co-authored by James O'Toole and Edward Lawler, Henry Chesbrough's Open Business Models, Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect, James Kilts's Doing What Matters, Dean Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement, and Enterprise Architecture As Strategy co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson.

Companies pay a lot of attention to a strong marketing plan for consumers but often don't pay much attention to internal marketing. One of the most powerful marketing forces you have is your employees. When they are excited about your product then they tell others. The authors of this book provide step-by-step guidance on how to get your employees to become your best marketing source by being your most dedicated consumer. They even include details on how to do things like break bad news to employees in such as way that it does not demoralize others.

Starting with Chapter 4 the authors take you on a detailed method for setting a course for action, setting goals, and then achieving those goals. Chapter 5 follows up with communicating good and bad news, choosing the right vehicle for communicating your message, and making the most of that communication vehicle. Other chapters include training as a marketing tool and using rewards and recognition. Easy to understand and apply, Light Their Fire is highly recommended.

Once picked up, this book would not easily yield to being put down again.
Written in fast-paced style, with great insight and illustrated with a fund of anecdotal evidence, "Light Their Fire" is a valuable blueprint for any organisation to follow in getting a grip on their internal processes that lead to external successes.
Throughout the book, I became aware of a feeling that issues raised in the book were pointing to the necessary creation of another one to address them... I look forward to it with anticipation.

This basic manual teaches you how to encourage your employees to buy into your business strategy and brand before you begin selling to real-world customers. Internal marketing programs should be part of every company's operations. Authors Susan M. Drake, Michelle J. Gulman and Sara M. Roberts show that motivated, energetic employees are important assets; they can expand your business exponentially. Simply by fulfilling basic human desires for recognition, advancement, esteem and education, you can build tremendous employee loyalty. Written in a light, breezy style, which occasionally might have benefited from more detail, this book provides examples of companies that have instituted exceptional programs. We strongly recommend it to executives, small business owners, and human resource and department managers looking for strategies to energize their companies by using their most valuable
resource: their people.

We are always trying to attract new customers. We seek new and attractive ways to bring them into our work places, but we forget that some of our best advertizers are the people who work for us. Light Their Fire focuses on pulling our employees into the advertizing mix and making them part of the equation of success. Sections of the book also focus on planning, which we all lack. We have meeting with staff and plan for the meetings only hours in advance. What are you going to focus on but the negitives rather than the positives. Proper planning starts when, if not before, the meeting is scheduled. Well worth the time to read.

As anyone who has ever read Dilbert knows, working for a big company sucks. The pointy haired managers are all too common. This book is on solving that problem.

People in most companies are made to feel that their contribution, their importance to the company is just about nil. Experience has shown most of us that devotion to the company is not reciprocated. We think we are doing well, we think we are doing what the company wants. And we are on the lay off list.

The difference here is communications within the company. Are we really pushing in the direction that the company wants to go, do we understand what the company is expecting of us. Most of us care, most of us don't feel that the company cares.

This book talks about inter company communications and how management can most effectively communicate their views to employees. This includes the three key points of identifying and tailoring your messages for maximum effectiveness, understanding and using various communications tools to get as much understanding out of your messages as possible, and most important, measuring the effeciveness of your messages.

This book presents internal communications in a new but easy to understand light.

This is by far the most researched book of its kind on the market today. To say that it is full of fun facts, Mopar models, various engines of the era, etc., etc., would be an understatement. Having lived in those glory days of Mopar myself - and owned and raced a few Mopars of my own - I highly recommend this book for any automotive enthusiasts library.

a good history of early MOPAR cars and the motors that made them great. If you know what a max wedge is you are in the right place. 413 and 426 wedges and then on to the hemi, its MOPAR at its best. Enjoy!

Very good book, but I was hoping to see more of us who raced our MaxWedge and Hemi Mopars on the west coast at LADS, San Fernando, Bakersfield, etc., but the book concentrates primarily on the mid-west and eastern area cars... and it was great to see these guys again. I bought my '62 Plymouth 413 Sport Fury from Milne Bros., trading in my '60 Chevy 348 tri-power, because I was tired of getting beat by the Mopars. My '63 426 Belvedere and '65 Plymouth Hemi also came from Milne Bros. and as Jim points out in this book, the Hemi HP was grossly understated, as mine was producing 543HP out of the box. Blueprinting it produced even more.

Overal, a very good book with a lot of good background and product spec. details. I only wish it had more of what us west coast guys were doing. Jim, FYI, Chrysler made a Teflon valve seal and valve guide machining tool for installing the Teflon seal available during '62. Stopped the 413 sparkplug bad oil fouling!

All that I was hoping for and more - very informative enjoyable book.

For those who love mopar and cool, classic Chryslers, you will love this book. Pictures of some really cool Plymouths and equally serious Dodge classics delight the eyes. A beautiful ca. 1965 Plymouth graces the cover. Note the strong resemblance to the 1965-1966 Dodge Dart 270. A very serious car indeed, that Dart! Super stockers never had it so good!

This book is vastly superior to any other I have read on the subject of measurements. One gets the impression that Will Kaydos definitely knows whereof he speaks. Early in the book, Kaydos provides a measurement model that is applicable to any kind of process and at any level - organisational, process, functional or individual. Several realistic examples permeate the book and two detailed case studies in the appendices add immensely to the value the reader can derive from it.

Will Kaydos did actually a very good work. This book addresses to top management officers who wish to change to a more customer orientated approach and implement Performance Measurement in every aspect of their business. Well structured and easy to read with significant information on effective management. There are no equations or weird stuff in this book, because the author wishes to explain the core of this subject: how to implement performance measurement everywhere. This is a great book for industrial engineers, CEO's, Sales Managers, HR managers, Quality assurance officers and anyone involving with performance.

A terrific business improvement reference applicable to a wide range of business and their operations. Consultants and managers will especially value Kaydos' insights into the role of metrics in supporting culture change. The case studies are well chosen with clearly presented implementation examples and informative detail.

"Operational Performance Measurement" is a must read if you are committed to improving your business or the business of your clients.

This is one of a handful of books on performance metrics I recommend to peers and clients. The author starts with one of the most cogent set of reasons for measuring performance that I've read. These reasons are compelling, reinforced with realistic examples, and clearly articulated. He then briefly discusses the art and science of measurement, and associated standards, techniques and methods. I especially liked his "Measuring the Unmeasurable" advice, which knocks down mental barriers and shows how you can, indeed, measure indicators that you may think are unmeasurable.

The approach he sets out is systematic and encompasses performance measurement in not only manufacturing, but in services and sales. In fact, Appendix C, "Implementing a Formal Selling Process", shows just how wide the scope of this book is. I've worked in technical pre-sales support and was thoroughly impressed with his approach.

Among the aspects of this book I especially like are the techniques he explains, the way you are lead through the development of an effective measurement system by identifying what to measure, implementing the system, analysis and interpretation, and actionable use of performance measures. Moreover, the way the author knits together a system based on multiple perspectives, taking into account strategic, customer, departmental and company-wide views is insightful. I also like the chapter on ensuring measures are showing an accurate picture, and the benchmarking information in Appendix A, "What Some Leading Companies are Measuring".

In my opinion this is a "must-have" book for anyone involved in operations, process improvement, or who has P&L responsibilities and wants to manage by fact - the right facts.

The book features procedures for identifying what to measure and specific steps readers can take to determine what to measure. It's a useful guide for figuring out what to measure for a specific organizational need, but requires some knowledge of measurement terminology. While I found it a useful guide as a performance and scorecard consultant, some of my clients found it a bit daunting. Good models and examples throughout.

Hi,

This book is great for DBA and Developper alike. I would recommend it to anyone working with Oracle, even if you're not working to solve performance issues. With all those tips at hand never your application will suffer from poor programming.

Guillaume

I highly recommend this book as a handy reference to keep at your desk. It is full of handy tips and a great assessment for reviewing your own environnment.

I love reading this book. I typically read a few pages before bed. It's filled with lots of practical examples and suggestions. Very thorough explanations. Some of the examples could do with a little more explaining but overall it's still very useful.

This book manages all concepts, basical and advanced, and the reader can review and fortify concepts. The OCM Author with explains in an easy mode Oracle Products. Excellent book.

A "must have" Oracle book for anyone who works with Oracle on a day-to-day basis. The database efficiencies I have been able to obtain for my clients by simply using Rich's book as a point of reference are well worth the cost in purchasing it.

Adam Suber, Event Chairperson, Southeastern Michigan Oracle Professionals (SEMOP) Group.

One of the most difficult hurdles a QA new to performance testing can go through is shifting their testing methodology from specific to componenents to a balanced environment-wide perspective. This book helps guide the Architect or QA through the process of discovering HOW we look at metrics and WHY we use certain metrics over others. This is much more useful in the long run than rather just looking at WHAT to look at since this can vary depending on your specific infrastructure.

If your reading a RedBook on WebSphere Performance Tuning and you haven't yet figured out what your Peak Average Load is, your performance testing is doomed to fail. This book guides you on the right path to the methodology that will work for your testing. It provides test plan guidelines and even sample scripts. In addition, there are several guidelines for analysis and interpretation.

The book only requires a couple of things to be a truely complete performance testing guide in my opinion: More detailed information and guidelines for Performance Testing Failover situations and slightly more concise guide for scripting. For the type of sites that you'll use this book for, you'll most likely have more complicated scripts and script requirements.

Over all, this book provides a great introduction of the core concepts and outlines quite a few of the more overlooked requirements in this increasingly important field.

This book's title has "Java" in it (and book covers Java performance analysis very well), but large part of it is about web performance analysis approach and methodology that can be applied to non-Java web sites. This is a great resource and a must have for those who deals with performance of web sites. Simply look at the table of contents and you'll love it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0201844540/ref=sib_rdr_toc/104-1411948-5301507?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00H#reader-link

It takes a comprehensive look at the java performance analysis. It is very good at describing common bottlenecks be in architect, hardware (load balancing) , user interface etc.

Ideas are well received by our team and book provide food for thought on diverse topics. We have continuous integration testing and continuous inspection (and adaptation) for performance testing and this book was very helpful.

This is an excellent book, providing thorough coverage of performance analysis. Although this book is aimed at Java based sites, it would serve as a good primer for anyone learning how to tune a website with dynamic content. The authors assume the reader has only basic familiarity with internet technologies, and explains concepts as needed. After providing a basic theoretical grounding, the authors illustrate the concepts with a case study, going from simple to complex.

The book is well-organized and thought out, and presents its information in an understandable, easy to follow fashion. I particularly like the inclusion of the test and capacity planning forms in the appendix. This gives readers the chance to put the information to work, instead of just giving case studies or presenting only theory.

A highly recommended and informational book.

The team of authors who wrote this book have two things going for them - in-depth knowledge of performance analysis, and, most importantly, the ability to impart that knowledge in a crystal clear manner.

I like the way this book starts out, showing the contrast between a bricks & mortar store and its online equivalent. This introduces the basics - throughput, transaction, page and user rates, response times and states. More than an easy to follow introduction, it contains all of the key elements of performance analysis, doled out in easy to understand chunks, and sets the stage for the rest of the book.

Every facet of a typical environment is covered, including Java server performance factors, external and internal factors related to networking, load balancers, protocol behavior, and Java internals. The chapter on performance profiles of common web sites is especially useful. Different site types are characterized in a set format that shows caching potential (of the site type), any special considerations, and specific performance testing considerations. This allows you to go directly to the type of site you are going to test, get the relevant information, then proceed to conduct the testing, which is covered in subsequent chapters.

The chapters on testing begin by showing how to develop the test plan, associated test scripts, and select the right tools to support the testing. The areas covered in these chapters are comprehensive. Actual test execution and results analysis are covered in equal detail, using examples and scenarios. One especially useful chapter is 13, Common Bottleneck Symptoms, which is useful to track the cause of observed results that do not match expected ones during testing.

This book goes beyond testing, though - it also covers capacity and performance planning, which is normally a discipline onto itself. Again, excellent advice and coverage of key points. The appendices are an invaluable collection of templates, worksheets and checklists.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It exemplifies top notch writing, is well illustrated, and is technically accurate, and based on proven approaches.

This is not what you are going to hear in the pulpit. This teaching was truly divinely inspired to set the captives free. Now I know that I can never be good enough through works to earn the Love of God, acceptance and grace of God. They are a gift that He has given me in the person of Jesus Christ and all I have to do is receive His Son. This book truly has changed how I view my relationship with Christ and has set a bubbling brook of worship and adoration for the Lord. As you can see I highly recommend this book for those that truly want to be set free!!!

One of the stones that many Christians stumble over is the idea that Jesus wants us to keep a set of rules. This misperception is a subtle but deadly trap by which we are so easily snared. In this book Steve Crosby does a very articulate and biblically solid job of showing that performing to make the Lord Jesus happy is not a New Testament reality. As a Christian, we can have a living relationship with Jesus, and this changes everything. Read this book to see how the New Testament clearly spells out this profound difference, and that our relationship with Jesus provides us with the keys to release from this deadly trap of striving - and the defeat that always follows (Romans 7:15).

Anyone who really wants to be freed from the deceptive power of leaglism and a spiritual life motivated by performance will benefit from this book. The author has researched it thoroughly by diligent study of the Scriptures, theological works, and contemporary authors. Application of the truth presented in this book can change your whole life. It has mine.

In Silent Killers, Dr. Crosby hits home on the central issue of modern christianity - legalism. In it, he does an outstanding job of explaining the real truth of the gospel of Christ.

This book brings alive the truth of Paul's teaching; which focuses on living life in harmony with the Holy Spirit, and has nothing to do with following any set of religious rules. The leading of the Holy Spirit, and the life of Christ in you is the fulfillment of the law; and we are no longer bound to live under the weight of perfect adherence to a legal code.

We are freed from the burden of the law; and so are freed to walk joyfully in Christ - and fulfill the law from the inside - not from the outside.

A definite must read!!!

In a day and age when church is becoming more and more organized and professional, a book like this one helps bring a clear, refreshing and liberating perspective. I agree with this author wholeheartedly that Jesus has come to release us from the tyranny of trying and set us free to the liberating secret of trusting. My hope is that all the folks that genuinely love the Lord but are contemplating never darkening thte doors of a local church again out of complete and utter exhaustion will some how find a copy of this book before they give up all hope. How true it is that Jesus' yoke is easy and His burden light. Thank you Dr. Crosby for reminding us all that He's already carried our burdens up to calvary and we don't need to dance to impress Him any longer. I highly recommend this book.

Bob Grimm
Walla Walla, Washington