Consultants Books

This former headhunter is a good writer with a lot of practical advice, much of which he has taken himself. His last book Take This Job & Leave It was excellent. His new book is timed right for the boom in self-reliance.

This is a unique book, unique in the sense that it does not tell you how to work for McKinsey, PwC , Andsersen, Bain or BCG. Rather , it is focussed on the professional who has worked for 5-10 years in organizations, built up an expertise and would like to leverage that as an independant consultant, or would like to open up a small consulting firm.

Lucidly written, and brutally frank, this book covers every conceivable thing such a consultant might need to think over or act ! Sample this "Should you have a fax machine or e-mail address or both"..."how can you approach prospective clients?" to "how to write proposals" to "how much should you charge?"...this book covers them all...

So if you want to convert your expertise in a consulting career , and would like down to the earth, jargon-shorn advice, this book is meant for you !

Go ahead , pick it up !

Rick writes a column for Microsoft and this book is good for someone starting with their own practice or for a review of best practices.

Very rarely does any book delve into the mysterious world of the political consultant; in fact, these key players are merely treated as scenery by many other accounts. Thurber and Nelson's account suggests otherwise. CAMPAIGN WARRIORS is a compilation of articles that probes deeply into both the professional and personal lives of these political workers. The book takes a comprehensive approach to the study of the political consultant, analyzing the ultimate effect that they have on the electoral and decision-making process. Party relations, the amount of money available to political campaigns, and the degree of professionalization in House elections are all factors that are explored through the mention of consultants. An appendix in the book focuses on consultants as a demographic group. The prose is a bit technical at times, but only when discussing relevant statistics that the authors have acquired through surveys conducted at local, state, and national levels. However, that the authors were able to shed so much light on the doings of these behind-the-scenes workers in only 200 pages, makes this book all in all a good read.

Before Ken Alibek, Simon I Peymer wrote about Biopreparat in 1989 and the Soviet establishment involved in medical CBR research. From what is presented, the author appears to be the defector Vladimir Pasechnik that Ken Alibek refers to in his book Biohazards.

The book is not well put together, and reads like a long IIR or debriefing. It includes a flyer from Biopreparat at the end of the book.

While the book is not the polished text one expects from a publisher, it is highly revealing on the attitudes, working conditions, and projects of the former Soviet Union in the CBR field. The author appears to have come from the CW side of the house, and was later involved in RW research.

The book details how and why the Soviet Union investigated Substance 33 (aka V-sub-x), Agent 78 (aka BZ), and the probelms with military medicine for these agents. The presentation shows a completely different approach to military medicine than that in the West.

The accounts of RW medical research were more chilling. It appeared that the Warsaw Pact standards for CBR exposure were based on a two-week survival time in combat.

The military medical establishment had excellent resources in RW created by a system that put researchers and doctors into first-hand experience with radiation casualties from accidents. This was suspected by a US doctor that went to the Soviet Union to assist after Chernobyl, when he noted that the Soviet doctors were far more informed on radiological casualties than the state-of-the-art in the US.

Experimental treatments for RW casualties are fully explained. There was a considerable concern for alleviating the transitory incapacitation from 10+ Gy dosings, and some unusual aspects discovered. The drugs experimented with looked promising, but were still noted as not meeting Western expectations of safety.

The author repeatedly points out how Chernobyl reversed Soviet thinking on Radiological Operations, noting that psychological effects were far more pronounced from multi-specied radiation than anticipated.

This is essential reading for understanding the culture of military medical research in the former Soviet Union, and points to real universal problems in military medicine.

This is an absorbing and interesting novel. It is refreshing to read an exciting story and realize that this could really happen! I was also impressed with the fact that I could recommend this book to anyone, including my mother, because it of the way Mr. Walden created the story without undue sex and violence. I am looking forwad to his next book.

This book aims to help would-be consultants build a market profile that attracts notice and ensures continued success. In fact this is an easy to read guide book for would-be consultants.

Robert Gentle offers hints about getting into the media (without spending a fortune), writing research documents, newsletters, hitting the lecture circuit, producing effective advertising and trade exhibitions-all tools and methods for improving the profile of the consultant. The book is nicely written and makes you laugh with lovely humour.

Though this book covers many topics, it lacks depth especially if I compare it to another book for would-be-consultants that I bought - "The Successful Consultant" by Susan Nash, which goes much deeper and gives more though it is much tougher on the reader.

As a consultant, I found this book useful.

A good compendium of intervention recipes. Lots of team activities. I have found a number of these available on the web, but this does compile them together. No theory, just recipes. You should already have a concept of your OD strategy, then use this as a reference.

All internal/external, junior/senior consultant or you have to do a specific consulting job in your organization or for a client, this book is an excellent tool to give you the basic (and more) to help you to diagnose.
Being a "junior" I found them easy to use and "implement" and the results had high impact on my surprised customers. It helps to build your "legacy" as a consultant.
I recommend as well:
The Seven C's of Consulting: The Definitive Guide to the Consulting Process, Second Edition
The Consultant's Big Book of Organization Development Tools : 50 Reproducible Intervention Tools to Help Solve Your Clients' Problems

This book is a great way to get the inside track on consulting. Instead of focusing on multiple industries it targets consulting. This gives you precise information about consulting and puts many hard to understand things into lamens terms. Great read for anybody in college or looking to change careers.