Consultants Books

This is my favorite of Schaller's books! It is designed for church champions and consultants but is a must read by any denominational executive or a person who works with local churches.

It includes some extraordinary diagnostic questions, ideas, and the contrarian statements that Schaller does so well.

It is a book that is useful for any pastor as it has enough nuggets and ideas that it may eliminate some of your need for a consultant in the first place.

The InterVentionist is packed full of valuable information for anyone who is concerned about resolving problems within the church. Schaller examines issues and offers suggestions from the angle of the overall perspective, all the way down to detailed questions to ask in specific situations. Very thorough and realistic!

Seldom is a book or resource a classic the day it is published. Such was the case with The Interventionist which is both a goldmine and a classic in one.

If you work in a congregation, or are a congregational champion, one of the best things you can do is to buy multiple copies of this book. Keep two for yourself--a paperback copy to read and a hardback copy to save as a collector's item. Then give a copy to each key leader in your organization or active network.

There are two reasons why you ought to invest in this book. First, it has an invaluable conceptual framework for doing church in a way that results in a vital congregational life. Second, it is the definitive work of Lyle Schaller in which he shares more than forty years of experience in congregational intervention.

The key concept the book teaches is how to ask the right questions! For you the key question at this moment should be, how many copies of this book shall I buy?

Although Madonna of the Apes is the 6th book in this series, the book's subject goes back to when the two regular protagonists, Fred Taylor and Clayton Reed, first met. Since I hadn't read any of the other books in the series, this seemed like a good time to dip my toe into the water.

As the book opens, Fred Taylor finds himself awakening to a situation that doesn't seem quite right. It seems like a large snake has slithered over him . . . bringing back bad memories of protecting his rice from rats. Eventually, he finds the situation isn't quite as threatening as it seems . . . but there's also a mystery. Who is his companion?

From there, Taylor heads out in the middle of the night to get some fresh air. Torn over where to go, he stumbles onto an older man helping a younger man down the street. Suddenly, the younger man attacks the older man. Taylor steps in and settles everyone down. The older man is a local art collector, Clayton Reed. Once inside the younger man's apartment, life turns bizarre. The walls are covered with what seem to be valuable paintings. Reed expresses interest, but also negotiates for an old chest. Pulling out his money belt, cash changes hands. Taylor carries the chest for Reed.

With that opening, we enter into a world of international nastiness that reminded me at times of The Maltese Falcon.

The first 50 pages of this book are extremely slow going except for the first three pages . . . which although active, are totally formulaic. After about 100 pages, the book picked up enough steam to be an average mystery. From there, the artistic speculations and observations started to make the book move above average. When not dealing directly with artistic questions, the book is amateurish in its plotting and development.

Take one eccentric, down at heels detective, mix with a cast of colorful, offbeat characters, toss in a crash course in art history and forgery, add a soupcon of homicide and sex and you have Nicholas Kilmer's latest installment in the Fred Taylor mystery series. The plot, which has more twists than a barrel of pretzels, turns on the question of whether a painted chest, of dubious origin, is or is not a creation of Leonardo Da Vinci. A delight for various ages and tastes.
Ron Katz

In Boston, Good Samaritan Clayton Reed tries to help his drunken companion to his home. Another passerby Fred Taylor comes along and helps. At the apartment, Fred, a former overseas operative, takes charge as he knows the drunk was pulling scam on the innocent Clayton and takes over the situation. The phony drunk is a Franklin from Atlanta and he has some interesting art, if genuine, in his place that should probably not be in the United States. Franklin says he has something truly special coming in to his possession in a few days; the tantalizer hooks art collector Clayton who agrees to return.

As they leave, Fred asks Clayton if he is nuts. He responds in kind by hiring Fred to provide him security. A few days later, they are shown a Renaissance masterpiece MADONNA OF THE APES that could have be an original Renaissance masterpiece. Though having doubts on its' authenticity, related murders occur that seem to affirm that this painting is indeed a lost treasure worth dying for.

The stupendous sixth Taylor-Reed collaboration is a prequel to the previous art mysteries by occurring at the beginning when they first met and formed their employer-employee relationship. The tale is terrific as the art expert and the former agent work to learn if MADONNA OF THE APES is authentic and uncover who is murdering those associated with the painting. Taylor receives a first hand lesson in art appreciation as dealers willingly lie to make a sale. Nicholas Kilmer refreshes his delightful series with a wonderful "first" tale.

Harriet Klausner

Comprehensive in style yet featuring very to-the-point content, this once was my favourite book about consulting management. Today, I prefer more practical management consulting writers such as Alan Weiss.

This is a commendable book that gives useful advice and guidance to those who wish to enter the management consulting profession. The book is comprehensive which makes it an important reference book to those who wish to have an in-depth insight into consulting.

The author explores what the profession entails, the elements that makes one a successful consultant, how one should market and sell the consultancy services, the considerations for setting a fee, how one can be a successful consultant and some of the pitfalls that one needs to avoid, among several useful advice.

The reader is also provided with useful tips on the costs that one should expect and the need to ensure that one establishes a trusting and ongoing relationship with clients.

This is an important reference book in my library that I recommend.

Different from many books promissing the easy way to "become a successful conultant in 5 days". A good primer and refence book. Kubr presents key issues and methods in management consulting in a conzise way giving an overview on the consulting process, areas of work for consultants and management of a consulting firm. Extensive bibliographic information makes it a source of reference. Useful for people who wnat to engage in consultancy other than management.

Ideas, ideas and ideas. Thats what the book lack. It attempts to provide a blueprint of how to market a professional service company, without giving much useful ideas on how to do it, and more lacking is how to implement the few ideas it provides. Will be useful for planning, and not ideas generation.

The book provides a comprehensive coverage on how to effectively market consulting and professional services. The skill of selling consulting and professional services is critical and is the one most often in need of improvement for professionals such as engineers, architects, lawyers, marketing, IT and management consultants, accountants, doctors, among others. The book contains useful advice and tips that all those providing consulting and professional services should find critical to winning and maintaining clients.

This is a fantastic book that is user friendly as it contains insightful examples, checklists, worksheets and exhibits that gently guides the reader through the steps that should lead to successful and profitable business.

The veteran consultant and novice should benefit from the updates the book provides on current trends and issues, advice on how to grow and expand the practice, acquiring new, high value clients and ensuring client satisfaction in the current highly dynamic operating environment.

This book is about as good as it gets. It lays out a very fundamental way of approaching marketing for professional service firms. I found it easy to follow, although the language sometimes was a bit stilted. This is the third edition of this book, so the authors have had plenty of time to hone and refine their insights. I like the fact that there were many, many chapters, but each of them relatively short. This fits my style of getting through a book these days, because often I can only reach for a few pages at a time.

This book does NOT cost $199. They have made a mistake. Go to the website of the publisher and it is around $25! It is a good book. A little busy but helpful for students

This book has been such a huge help with studying. There are cute pictures that can be colored in while one studies. It covers major diseases from all the body systems and basic nursing practice and pharmacology too. This book helps to simplify all of the information that nursing students need to know. It is a great study guide for either school tests or the NCLEX. I loved it so much that I have ordered the Memory Notebook of Nursing II. This book should be mandatory for all nursing students.

This books is listed by you as $l99.95. Please check this as this can't be the price of l paperback.

This book is updated and organized to the current NCLEX-RN test plan, has good test-taking strategies, and with pretest to identify your weakness and pinpoint your study needs and posttests to see your improvement. Great review material for NCLEX. It has over 900 questions not that much compared to other review materials. I didn't like the CD that much though. But, overall, this book is a great review companion for NCLEX. I highly recommend it. :)

I just passed NCLEX and out of all my NCLEX review books this one helped me the most. The questions in this book were the most like the actual exam!!! This book is only Q&A, No reviews.. Good luck ;-)

This book is good because it has strategies that work and a diagnostic exam to gear you towards your weak areas, however the CD ROM has only one exam and that sucks.

Particularly for those who are considering consulting work, or who are just getting started in the consulting field, this is a most
well-written,invaluable source of information on the "organizational assessment" process.

As consultants in the field of organization design and change, we have long valued this author's "Organizational Diagnosis," a classic work now out-of-print. The current volume brings this original volume back, but fully updated and highly streamlined. The book takes a diagnostic approach influenced by a psychoanalytical background and psychosocial framework. It is a robust manual for assessing an organization in depth, and outlines a mode for gathering information. Rather than plunge into some recipe for organizational change, this book shows how to understand an organization from many perspectives. Based on this knowledge, a strategy for change can be developed. In addition to examples of proposals, letters to employees, interview questions, and feedback reports, the book presents an excellent assessment outline for use on-site. The work is built on extensive research and is ideal for external and internal consultants and graduate-level students. This book is a gem!-a one-of-kind work that is extraordinary in its comprehensiveness and depth.

This is something i hate to say, but i really didn't know for who this book is written. I didn't mean it did not say who are the readers it intended for, but at least to me the book was written for the authour himself with a language he understand better than others. This book disappointed me at least in following three aspects: fristly, poor organization both chapters and sentences. Just like the authour said "The division into chapters is arbitrary and to ease the reading". (see pp191 of the book). Seondly , ambiguity of the meanings of cases taken in the book. some of examples and cases appear abruptly and almost without any interpretion or conclusions. Thirdly, the writting style of this book is not suit for students, or it's not student-friendly.

Gestalt theory is wide and deep, often conceptually slippery, and difficult to grasp, but it can impact one's life and work in profound and lasting ways. Nevis is certainly one of the masters at applying Gestalt in organizations and this is (so far) his masterwork on the subject. I truly believe that you will benefit from reading this book if you do so reflectively and let it do its "magic" on you.

That said, Gestalt is highly experiential and needs to be learned through the hands, mouth, ears, and eyes. If this book piques your interest, I hope that is only the beginning of your inquiry. A very good next step will be hands-on training.

I thought this was a great read. This book began by first explaining how organizations can increase their awareness by utilizing principles found in the Gestalt approach. Even though I had heard of individuals speak of the Gestalt approach, I still did not fully understand what exactly it was. However, after reading the first few chapter of Organizational Consulting it became much clearer.


On page 15, it states that "Appropriate healthy behavior is that which enables people to recognize what they need at any given moment, and to obtain it." I thought that this sentence was profound in that individuals need to realize what appropriate healthy behavior is and compare that to what often happens in organizations or even sometimes groups. All too often in my work environment I have witnessed individuals putting up with inappropriate or unhealthy behaviors because that is simply what they have dealt with it for years. Reflecting back on what I have learned of change and being a "change agent", it seems that groups that most often can grow from the use of appropriate healthy behaviors are reluctant to break the cycle and change their behaviors, or the behaviors of others.


I appreciated the author's use of diagrams; especially when explaining the section titled; Intervention as Boundary Changing (located on page 50). Since I am a visual learner it is nice to see that author's choose to incorporate figures into their books. Also, within chapter fours section "Narcissistic Versus Collective Identity", I was drawn to the books notion of becoming a "carbon copy".

I thought one very effective tool for organizations to utilize was within chapter eight's section "On Meaning of Resistance in Organizational Settings". I thought this was an excellent chapter because the author included numerous case studies to depict how resistance is dealt with in organizations. I enjoyed how the author stated on page 143; "Those who "resist" are to be seen as "bundles of cycle energy", not as passive lifeless blobs." I thought that was a fantastic statement that summed up Gestalts, Cycle of Experience which outlines different parts of the cycle in regards to mobilization of energy and action. It clearly identifies that resistance may be useful in the decision making process.

Nevis' book is thorough look at how Gestalt principles affect organizational consulting. I have not been a student of Gestalt ideas and methods since graduate school in a former life. Nevertheless it provides very good handles and tools for helping organizations learn what they need and to learn ways of acting in the future on their own.

Midnight Louie Does it again!!! He's one cool cat that has the street smarts to solve the case.

Midnight Louie, the suave, sophisticated cat sleuth, has done it again! He and his family and friends come to life in a very unique way. As he "pussyfoots" through the pages, he becomes a part of "the family." As a devoted fan of animal detective mysteries, it is easy to see why this one rates high on the list. And the way the human and animal stories proceed together is excellently done. Keep 'em coming!

*Pussyfoot* draws the reader deeper into Midnight Louie's and Temple's slice of Las Vegas. You get to meet Crawford Buchanan, a rival PR man, and sleazy 50s throwback who completely missed the Women's Liberation movement. After suffering a heart attack, Crawford talks Temple into covering a stripper convention, the climax of which is a competition. Unfortunately, strippers start to show up dead, strangled with items from their costumes. Temple also encounters a striptease protestor who joins in the adventure, and learns some of the dancers' stories. As a special added attraction, the reader meets the Divine Yvette, Midnight Louie's petite, silver coated lady love. Temple's natural nosiness puts her face-to-face with the killer. Carole Nelson Douglas always includes some little device to explain the title...where will it be this time?

After reading Book 1 I couldn't resist to start reading Book 2 as soon as possible. One feels at home with Rivey and all the adventures he has are amazing, considering he's blind. I loved Xmas and Lakota and Nitro. What a team they are. And even better, he really answers his e-mail!

I went to great lengths to get this book. It is a beautiful story, but the read was spoiled for me by all the errors in grammar, usage, suffixes and wrong words in places. I can't see how it has gone through three printings without someone pointing this out - after all, it is recommended for young people, and we are trying to get them to write and speak correctly!! Please, Mike, get yourself a proofreader!! The word "of" was used throughout the book where it should have been "have", ie "would of" for "would have".

wow what a heartwarming story for parents to read to their children. It is especially wonderful for parents with children who have special needs. It shows how no matter what you can achieve your dreams....what a positive message