Consultants Books

My husband and I just bought a new home, and a real estate agent gave us the Mortgage Muncher in our closing packet. We found the information and amortization to be of great help - we also learned so much about owning our first home, and so many ways to save money! This was a great gift to recieve.

This CD Rom was easy to use and follow w/ lots of great advice to reduce my mortgage. I loved the animation and graphics. The amortization was great to help me set up my debt reduction strategy!

I found this CD Rom full of information on buying/selling a home, forms of ownership and techniques to reduce debt and build wealth. The program is full of fun animation and graphics, and the amortization used to design your own system was both easy to use and one of the best I've seen! I have begun applying the helpful tips to my own finances, and I'm saving myself money! I highly recommend this book to anyone who owns or is thinking about owning a home.

As of late, political consultants have become convenient boogeymen. It seems whenever the American people decide they'd rather be apathetic than devote a few minutes out of their day to voting or whenever a politician is caught breaking the law, it somehow turns out to be the ultimate fault of political consultants. And so, every few months or so, we get a lot of people demanding a lot of new laws and vague terms like "campaign finance" get tossed around by commentators who obviously haven't got a clue as to what they're actually talking about. Yet somehow, nobody ever seems to really bother with, say, investigating what campaign consultants actually do. Luckily, veteran consultant Dennis W. Johnson has written "No Place For Amateurs," an inside look at campaign consultants that manges to avoid the anti-consultant hysteria of most recent insider books while at the same time never embracing the shallow arrogance of the "how-to" books of consultants like Dick Morris (who is featured in the opening chapters of Johnson's books and -- no great shock -- comes across as an egotistical cad). Chapter-by-chapter, Johnson explains, in detail, what pollsters, direct mail consultants, and advertising gurus actually do. He also explains how political consultants came to be so powerful in American politics and shows that the situation isn't quite as bad as we might think. At the same time, Johnson doesn't allow himself to be a shill for his fellow consultants. He does highlight some trouble spots and the reforms he suggests manage to be both effective and fair without resorting to the hysterical fearmongering of so many other reformers. As well, Johnson's book is also full of several entertaining anecdotes from previous campaigns and it should be a lot of fun for people with a taste for political trivia.

I'm interning on my second state-wide campaign and this book has helped fill in the details of steps that happen before I have joined campaigns. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in politics or campaigning.

This is a great read - especially for news and politics junkies. Johnson writes with authority, candor and humor about real people involved with real campaigns and facing real ethical issues. Not only does the book describe the tools and techniques of modern campaigns, but it provides real insight into their strengths and weaknesses when used in varying situations.

I have to admit, though, the best part of the book is the anecdotes. You get a sense of the decision making speed required in the chaos that surrounds candidates and staffs. In fact, you may actually gain some sympathy for the people who choose (or are driven) to enter the political arena.

If you liked The War Room or Primary Colors, you'll love this book.

You'll feel like an old friend has come for a visit in this third Bay TAnner mystery. As Bay winds her way through the Lowcountry, you'll almost be able to smell the marsh. When a young woman she's never seen or heard of before shows up in the local jail claiming to be a distant cousin, Bay has no idea the path that the two of them are about to embark on--one that could claim both their lives. A great read just as we've come to expect from Kathy Wall.

Kathryn Wall is destined to become one of the great mystery writers of our time. I've gotten so I can hardly wait for the next Bay Tanner adventure to hit the stands. Unlike some popular female sleuths, Bay is no ditz, no wilting violet looking up beneath her lashes to glean her clues from some macho male. She's sexy, funny, gutsy, and savvy--the kind of woman you'd love to have as a best friend. Bay Tanner makes me laugh out loud, a rare and delightful treat. And Wall's skilled plotting and scintillating prose keeps me turning pages. I think her latest episode with her arrant "distant cousin," Mercer Prescott,is her best work yet.

Former financial consultant Bay Turner convalesces at her Hilton Head home still recovering from the murder of her spouse. However, when she is asked to help her twenty something fifth half-cousin Mercer Mary Prescott who was arrested as a vagrant and locked up in Beaufort County jail, reluctantly Bay gets involved. Though a relative, Mercer is actually a stranger. Bay gets her dad's friend Judge Talbot Simpson to set bail. Mercer is freed.

Still Mercer remains in trouble due to a federal trespass charge for illegally entering the Savannah River nuclear plant. When Mercer flees thugs, goons and cops pursue. With other family woes descending on her, Bay joins the chase only to become involved in the deadliest family secret of all, PERDITION HOUSE.

PERDITION HOUSE is a strong thriller that seems almost out of control, but is deftly kept in line by author Kathryn R. Wall. The story line centers on Bay, who just wants a little peace of mind, but her relatives think otherwise. Instead of domestic tranquillity, Bay concludes that blood may be thicker than water and she somehow seems to get sucked into storms caused by her extended family starting with Mercer. This terrific tense thriller takes readers on quite a ride.

Harriet Klausner

The Personal Compass: A Visual Workbook for Exploring Your Future by The Grove Consultants International

WOW! This is a very powerful personal strategic planning tool!

I am very familiar with the technological know-how of and the many presentation products created by Grove Consultants as I have used them in my consultancy projects as well as training workshops. I consider them to be one of three industry heavy weights, and also a pioneer/innovator, in the field of embracing group genius through visual-graphic facilitation.

Therefore, I am very excited with their visual workbook for visioning and goal setting. It is a template-based system for determining & achieving your desired future, with a blend of personal analysis, imagination & strategic planning. The graphic templates in this workbook ease the challenge of self-exploration by structuring & focusing your thinking.

The entire system comes in the form of an A3 sized drawing block, spiral-bounded for easy folding/handling. Tactically, it is very easy to use as the instructions are very vivid. Plus, the seven step process steps as outlined are very easy to follow. They are really great stuff!

I wish I had this wonderful workbook with me when I was charting out my own life (my second half, to be precise) in the early 90's.

In the course of my own exploration in the field of visioning & goal setting, I have played with many methodologies which include futurescaping, mindscaping, life mapping, goal mapping, treasure mapping, vision collage, etc. My end analysis: I would like to rank this one #1.

The Personal Compass is a very powerful personal strategic planning tool. From the visual planning perspective, it is unsurpassed.

I love the COMPASS tool. As a career development consultant, I like the creative way that the tool can help people with their personal career strategizing by looking at multiple angles/issues that are involved in the career/transition process. It's easy to use, clear directions, and very fun and creative because of the visual focus of the tool. For folks wanting to do some right brain strategizing about career directions, this is the tool to use.

This workbook is engaging and substantive for those who are in a transitional period of their lives. It is about you: your past, present, and possibilites for your future. The templates provide structure and freedom to record/draw/write/list how you "do yourself". You don't have to be an artist or writer, yet you will begin to see what is deeply important to you.

It is designed to provide you with simple, yet powerful documentation of your history and experience with many of
life's important questions. As an Organization Consultant and midlife mother of teenagers, I have found it personally and professionally useful.

Being a professional photographer I have worked with many stylists. This book has lots of good info in it. I bought it for a friend who was interested in being a stylist. I looked at it and have barrowed it back several times to improve my own skills. It has lots of great ideas and skills you need.

This is a fantastic source of information for anyone interested in finding out what the career of photo styling entails but also offers lots of tips even for a veteran stylist like me. The author writes with insight, humor and obviously from a great deal of experience.
There are illustrations showing how things are done, many tips and "secrets" and very useful lists and websites.
The chapters on the business of styling and self promotion are alone are worth the price of the book.
Get this book if you want to work as a stylist or if you are working as one now. You'll learn something useful!!!

This book has helped me time and time again and I've only had it for a month or so. I'm so glad someone finally wrote a book on such an important part of photography. I recommend anyone serious about fashion and photography to get this book, it helps a great deal and explains everything in such detail.

I highly recommend the book! This book is a strong experienced based program that guides you through the Consulting Process. The tools are ready to use; I really enjoy that. I put this book on the same level as "Operational Profitability;Conducting Management Audits." John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Powerful Professionals is well designed for the specific needs of internal consultants. I enjoyed the book thoroughly. It's easy-to-use, providing lots of partical tools and advice. Organized into a user-friendly handbook, it covers everything from establishing your credibility to managing change and resistance.

Written with a healthy does of humor, there are plenty of practical, step-by-step models supported by checklists, worksheets, assessment tools, and examples--rather than long- winded discussions on theory.

I STRONGLY recommend this book for anyone dealing with the day-to-day challenges of an internal consulting organization.

There has been a glut of books on 'how to be a consultant' that have been published in the last few years. I have become frustrated with the increasing quantity and decreasing quality of such books. All that changed with my reading of "Powerful Professionals". Finally, a superb book! "Powerful Professionals" is grounded in experience that I can relate to, and offered excellent, immediately useable advice for me as a professional. I also liked the easy-to-follow formatting and mix of text and graphics. There is also the behind-the-scenes theory for us who like such stuff. Chapter 15 of the book is "Putting It All Together". Well, the author and editor certainly have put together an all-encompassing and all-powerful book for all professionals. Bravo! Books of this quality are not often found by me. But when I do find a high-utility book like "Powerful Professionals", it becomes a jewel in my collection.

For anyone serious about facilitation, this is THE book to read, read again and use often as a reference. Each chapter is a gem; core values and groundrules are invaluable when working with groups. And the chapter on difficult conversations will change your experience when the issue is divisive. This isn't a "read it and put it away" book; this is a "put it where you can get your hands on it" critical tool for facilitators.

Central to this work is the Skilled Facilitator approach (TSF), a systematic, values-based approach to group facilitation; at its core is the idea that the way we act and the consequences we create begin with the way we think. Chapter one delineates the 10 key features of TSF approach. It is used to help groups and entire organizations address issues and make significant change, as well as in coaching, training, and conducting HRD/OD initiatives of all types.

This ambitious resource is bursting with 62 contributions clustered into seven parts:
1) Understanding the Skilled Facilitator Approach-main focus: summarizes the approach and describes its major principles and features (8 chapters)
2) Starting Out-main focus: using TSF in a variety of basic ways (12 chapters)
3) Deepening Your Practice-main focus: refining intervention and diagnosis skills, and increasing personal awareness (7 chapters)
4) Facing Challenges-main focus: dealing with the most difficult situations (5 chapters)
5) Seeking Your Path-main focus: integrating the TSF approach in practice and life (5 chapters)
6) Leading and Changing Organizations-main focus: creating major change in leadership and organizational functioning (15 chapters)
and
7) Integrating the Skilled Facilitator Approach in Your Worklife (and Non-Worklife)-main focus: shows how to integrate TSF with other approaches and roles (coach, trainer, consultant, leader, parent) (10 chapters)

The book is further enriched with: definitions; key points; examples; tools and techniques and samples of the outcomes they produce; reflections; model conversations; and resources.

As a consultant in organizational analysis, design and change, as well as a reviewer, I was particularly drawn to Chapter 51, "Do Surveys Provide Valid Information for Organizational Change?" by Peg Carlson. She concludes what we have found to be true of surveys-they are useful for spotlighting likely issues but they do not deliver the depth of analysis and meaning required in organizational consulting, nor the motivation for learning and deep change. This chapter is emblematic of the books' quality of content. In a nutshell, this book is outstanding! I highly recommend it.

I've read this book almost cover to cover and I've gained a lot of insight in using Skilled Facilitator approaches as a teacher and a minister. Mostly, it's given me insight into how to develop myself as a creative listener, and how to control my inner thought processes, and turn that back around into positive leadership for the good of the group. I find it particularly helpful to keep the RULES foremost in my mind as I interact with students and parishioners. And it's true that the more I model these rules, the more my students and the others around me absorb them and begin to use them in their own interactions.

I have been a stepmom for 4 years now, but I still find myself running into dilemnas that my friends who are not stepmoms cannot relate to. This book has helped me find reassurance from God's word and has reminded me how strongly God's presence can be felt in every day things. I highly recommend this book whether you are just becoming a stepmom or if you have been one for years.

In my own stepmom experience, storms of anger, envy, fear, insecurity and despair came all too often to disable my effectiveness, not only as a stepmom, but in work, friendships and other family roles as well. When I read Karon Goodman's newest book--A Stepmom's Book of Prayer--I found I wasn't alone. This book takes stepmom's to the throne of God, the One who has the wisdom and the power to help us persevere, maintain our integrity, and grow in our own personhood in spite of so many seemingly endless trials.

Goodman's book is a shopping list of things we stepmoms can trust to God and allow Him to work on, first and foremost in our own hearts. She shows us how we can depend on our Heavenly Father to walk with us through every stepfamily dis-ease, and how He can keep us on track by supplying us with those vital ingredients of honesty, courage, understanding, forgiveness, and even joy. Goodman states, "When we understand how protected we are with His words of truth, the chaos others cause becomes far less important than we thought it was. It is still real and painful, of course, but our path is through God's footsteps, in holding onto Him through the storm and not wallowing in what hurts."--How true!

Goodman honestly and caringly shows stepmoms how their whole perspective can change when we depend on God for strength, courage, guidance, and love. Stepmom's will want to read this book again and again, every time a new wave of emotional stress hits, to re-focus on the Source, and have their hope renewed.

In her latest book stepmom Karon Goodman discusses how stepmoms can find strength through prayer. Written from a Christian perspective, the book is divided into four sections - beginning, struggling, coping and growing. Each section reviews common five emotions felt by stepmoms, discusses Biblical scriptures relating to those emotions, and offers questions to stimulate thinking and prayer. Comments from real-life stepmoms reflecting on their spiritual insights, struggles and triumphs make the book down-to-earth and ground it in the reality stepmoms face. At a slim 132 pages, the book is a quick read. However, this is a lot to absorb, and readers may want to pace themselves through one emotional highlight per day as a devotional - in 20 days you will be through the entire book!

Unlike other books about diet this one tells you how to feel good, NOW, being the person you are. It has practical advice about getting off the dieting merry-go-round and about living life to its fullest, no matter what your size.

How many times have you been told that you must change your thinking about food if you want to lose weight? How many times have you been given suggestions on how to do that? I'm sure your answer is "many" to the first question and "none" to the last. That situation is now reversed thanks to Dr. Nikki's many practical strategies on helping you learn your current relationship with food which also helps you change your thinking so you'll be successful in shedding some pounds. I particularly appreciate her proofs regarding American society's craze for "thin". If you truly want to understand and change your mind about food, weight, and exercise, I promise that this is the book for you! Put all the others in the recycling bin and keep this one to reread many times as you need the support to continue your success with weight loss through smart thinking.

This book offers a wonderful approach to life whether you have body and food obsessions or not. Not only does it offer techniques to help me put food and my body in perspective, it gives me techniques I can apply to living life to the fullest.
I'd reccommend this to anyone who has ever tried a diet and felt like they failed. It will lift your spirits too. I now feel like I can eat any food that I want without fearing I won't be able to stop after the appropriate amount.

WRITE & WRONG is a wonderful new book for anyone who cares about writing well. Marthy Johnson loves language and it shows in her work. She illustrates correct usage with humor. After reading WRITE & WRONG, you'll find it easy to remember such things as when to use "lay" and when to use "lie".

As a writing instructor and corporate writing trainer, I use WRITE & WRONG as a text. Participants give it high reviews. And, we enjoy laughing and learning as we discuss the most common errors writers make.

I recommend WRITE & WRONG in the highest terms of praise.

Coming from a seasoned copy editor, "Write & Wrong" sets us straight about common pitfalls to avoid when writing. The fun part is, Marthy Johnson manages to do this with great humor. Some of her examples are unforgettable. These are painless lessons in English grammar for those who know enough to recognize a split infinitive when they see one and who care enough to want their writing to be free of errors. Johnson has thoughtfully indexed the book and given it a spiral binding for ease of use. A small treasure, well worth the purchase price.

I'm the author of a novel, numerous manuscripts, magazine articles, screenplays, and a collection of short stories. WRITE & WRONG is my first-line reference book because it covers the majority of writers' goofs and questions. The information is to the point, relieving the writer of having to sort through and interpret pages and pages of stylebooks and grammar guides. WRITE & WRONG is a reference book written for writers by a writer. Besides, the facts come clothed in humor. Where have you seen that in a writing reference manual?