Consultants Books

Used for one of my MBA courses.

I wish the book had explained more in detail on how one would define an ethical dilemma--Perhaps a step by step approach on how to define and apply the ethical principles would have been beneficial? To me, the book was just a collection of thoughts by various authors.

On the bright side chapter 1 explains several of the ethical principles, but it is up to you to understand how to define and apply them.

Anyway, use at your own risk.

This book is a critical reader, and it's probably the most highly used text in business ethics today. Those who reviewed this book negatively sound like people looking for a fun, non-academic overview of the field. If so, this book isn't it. These are articles published in top academic journals, edited for readability, by scholars who are addressing the fundamental issues in a wide range of topics. It's meant to expose the span of the field and still give students (not light readers) exposure to contemporary literature that touches on the most salient points. It's meant to be a starting point to deeper research in any given topic. As such, the book is a complete success. B & B do a great job (here as in other ethics compendiums) of providing a framework that makes it easy for a professor to expose her students to the field in one swoop. They do a fine editorial job, stripping the articles of padding, and they work hard to keep the offerings up to date (passing on older articles that are superceded by fresh insights that touch on contemporary challenges and technologies; look for something relating to the corporate scandals of this last year in the next edition). If you are a student looking for an overview on business ethics, this book is the correct starting point. If you are someone looking for light reading about corporate corruption, with illustrations and full-color photos, stick to People magazine.

I really enjoyed this anthology, especially the section on sexual harassment. Some of the subjects were hard going, but, it was a good introduction to business ethics.

This book is a good primer on business ethics, and it would be even better if the writer / editors hadn't shown their bias with their selections of included material.

Business ethics theories evolve, just like any other social phenomenon; however, just because a theory is new doesn't make it right. Especially in an ethics book! The authors are clearly biased against big business, against small government, and against "shareholder management" theory.

Does this make them right or wrong? No. The only "wrong" committed is the bias itself.

As you read this book, just keep your critical thinking skills sharp and your eyes open.

I teach business ethics at the college level, and have found Ethical Theory and Business to be very helpful. Basically, B and B attempt to do three things, or so it seems to me. First, they offer an introductory essay, covering some of the main distinctions in both meta-ethics (e. g. whether morality is objective or subjective) and normative ethics. This essay is the weakest part of the book, I think, because they seem to offer caracatures of most relativist leaning views (e. g. egoism), and do not adequately criticize Kantian moral philosophy. But even so, the essay does explain many useful distinctions in philosophical ethical thought. Second, B and B offer both classic readings in Business Ethics (e. g. Milton Friedman), as well as really up to date readings, by many of the leaders in the field (e. g. R. Edward Freeman). This is quite a good selection of readings, although they have omitted a few classic essays (like Galbraith's 'The Dependence Effect'), and a few subjects which might have been useful, such as the question of whether one can attribute moral agency to corporations at all. Even so, B and B include more than any course in Business Ethics could cover. Third, B and B provide a Web site with excersizes and instructor aids. Depending on how much one uses the Web, this may be helpful too. So generally speaking, although no anthology is perfect, Beauchamp and Bowie have put together an admirable collection. There is a seventh edition coming out soon. Perhaps that one will be as good as this one.

This was a very quick old fashion 1980's HQ book - so don't expect more than it can give you. This novel tells the story Elizabeth public relation expert who had terrible childhood and lack any self-esteem with men. Donovan is successful man who finds Elizabeth unlike anyone else he has ever met. They meet, they fight, and they fall in love.

Barbara Delinski is a great author, but this book was one of her worst. I could barely get through it. Also, you start to get annoyed with the character Liz, who is obviously being stupid, and you don't want to deal with her anymore. Don't waste you time with this book, Delinski has done so much better.

The back cover reads: "Liz Jerome is an expert at public relations. Well, at least in business. But when she is hired to do some damage control for a company owned by Donovan Grant, the dividng line between professional and personal suddenly disappears. Donovan cathes her off guard with his subtle come-ons and his humorous teasing. But being his playmate isn't on Liz's agenda. She is determined to block his every move. to resist the sweet confusion her arouses in her. Donovan threatens her safe, isolated world, making her want things she can never have. But a painful, secret keeps Liz from trusting him, and yet only by taking a chance with Donovan will she begin to heal the past."
My personal review is that Chances Are is one of Barbara Delinsky's greatest books. In the beginning, Donovan is sweet and funny, your regular nice guy. As the book progresses, he becomes more human; he's confused at Liz's reluctance to do anything sexual. In the end he retaliates in, I guess the only way he knows how. There is a surprising plot twist at the end. I would recommend this book to anyone.

This was the first book that I've read by Barbara Delinsky but I wasn't very impressed. If you're looking for a very quick beach read the book is alright, but there isn't much character development provided and the book drags on and on with the same sequence of events. The "suprise" at the end has been obvious throughout the novel. It is a simple quick read, but there's not much substance to it and when you're done you are left with close to nothing to consider.

I kept checking the top of the page to verify that Barbara Delinsky was indeed listed as the author, because this story doesn't come close to the quality and outstanding style she is known for and fans like me have come to expect from her. Donovan's come-ons were far from subtle and the teasing went way beyond humorous - it was pushy almost to the extent of stalking or forcing himself on Liz. And the painful secret that has Liz scared to death of any sexual intimacy is so obvious to the reader, and it should have been to Donovan too. The first 100-125 pages were a struggle to get through. However, the story did improve by leaps and bounds once Liz revealed her secret to Donovan, and he became patient, tender and understanding. He changed his approach to expressing his love for Liz and getting her to accept that she is worthy/capable of being loved, and to admit that she loves him in return. The ending was redeeming and heartwarming.

It was a quick, easy and entertaining read. I wouldn't call it a literary masterpiece, but it was worth reading. I'm glad I did.

The loss of a couple of stars comes from the fact that much of the "logic" appeared to be extremely flawed. Many times, his targets were judged guilty of improprieties for doing things that quite frankly are commonly accepted business practices and not particularly unethical or improper. And although Marks now claims to be a centrist, in many respects he remains far right and lacks objectivity. Some of his conclusions put this fact center stage.

The other issue I had relates to my frustration with people that must classify everyone and everything as either conservative or liberal. The world just isn't so simple - even if the book is.

Fun read, but now back to the serious stuff.

I had very high expectations for this book, having seen Mr. Marks on "Hardball". He came across as funny, articulate and a true "insider". It is evident, from this memoir, that despite his almost 20 years in "the game", that his retirement was brought on not only because of his personal, growing distaste of the job, but he seemed to have worked on as many, if not more, failed campaigns as successful ones. I wonder that perhaps work was harder to come by given his resume.

Additionally, I cannot remember EVER reading a book that was so poorly proofread. I marked no fewer than 25 mispellings, punctuation errors (parentheticals were never closed), and one or two places where it was evident entire sentences were omitted! This made me wonder, if a book gets published with so many glaring mistakes, how trustworthy was the text itself?

Do not spend your hard earned money on this book--get a library copy, and then decide whether you even want to spend your time. Terrible waste of mine.

I recommend this book, if you REALLY want to find out the tricks of the political trade. It can get seedy out there, but don't you want to know, so you can make informed decisions on candidates? I sure did. : )

With his 2007 autobiography CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN, former Republican operative Stephen Marks details his career examining public records of politicians in order to derail their electoral campaigns. Drawing on a decade of personal experience and a lifetime of observations, author Marks makes a strong case for negative campaigning as the best bet to swing fence-sitters to vote for your candidate. A year in advance of it happening, for example, the author correctly predicts Barack Obama's opponents using the Illinois Senator's outspoken minister against him.

It may interest you to note Stephen Marks does not mention publicly-financed campaigns or instant run-off voting as solutions to the problems of today's moneyed interests-controlled elections. Perhaps he could study states and cities where public election financing or I.R.V. is the law to see if negative ads still affect vote counts.

Throughout CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN, Stephen Marks refers to political discourse as liberal left versus conservative right. In reality, the wealthy minority's efforts to supersede the middle class/poor majority are what drives political affairs. History is nothing more than the affluent stealing from and dominating the masses.

Often appearing to be a Republican Party sycophant in CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN, Stephen Marks:

- regarding the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says, "those on the left actually root for . . . America's defeat." However, author Marks does not support that claim with the name of even one political progressive who ever said such a thing.

- supports the Clinton Administration's Republican-esque Welfare "reform" that forced single mothers to work, ignoring the fact that the majority of Welfare beneficiaries are children.

- says Christie Whitman was an "enormously popular New Jersey governor." As Whitman barely won her 1997 re-election against Jim McGreevey, does that sound like someone enormously popular with Garden State voters?

- subscribes to Orwellian definitions of terms such as "liberal" and "welfare." The former means "tolerant," and the latter "wellbeing," but CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN uses the words as if they mean the opposite.

- says Reverend Al Sharpton once said, "Off the pigs," a declaration the activist never made.

- describes himself as conservative yet speaks highly of the ayatollah-friendly, borrow-and-spend-America-into-debt Ronald Reagan.

- does not raise the fact that George W. Bush broke his 2000 campaign promise not to nation-build and says nothing about the debt into which Bush has borrowed and spent America. Last time I checked, conservatives do not support conquering other countries or spending on credit.

- objects to paroling prisoners, yet is silent on the fact that convicted felon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is a free man. America has more people in prison than China and Russia combined; is author Marks aware of that, and does he think its enormous prison population makes America, land of the free, a better place?

You will find a number of typographical errors in CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN, and to me such proofreading errors symbolize a work still in progress. Not the book, though; rather, author Stephen Marks. Despite sounding like the AM-talk radio listener you avoid after making the mistake of sitting near him on the train once, at times Stephen Marks' words show a man reconsidering his beliefs and actions. For example, he comes out against the baloney that is "tort reform," which in reality is a gift to insurance companies and corporations that destroy people's lives. He rejects the anti-immigration hysteria Republicans use to divide and conquer voters. Also, author Marks expresses empathy for poor and working-class individuals whose lack of education does not afford them the opportunity to earn a decent living; he never reaches the conclusion that no American who works for a living should be poor, however.

Okay, so that's only three things versus the eight Republican Kool-Aid statements I refuted above, and there were other hard-line G.O.P. comments I didn't mention for the sake of keeping this review shorter than the actual book. But no one changes overnight, or even in the time it takes to write an autobiography.

Read CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL HITMAN. Stephen Marks' legwork and ability to recognize politically-damaging information will impress you almost as much as his will to wear his heart on his sleeve.

Marks has progressed from a lucrative career in "dirty politics" to one of attempting to make a few more bucks by exploiting his inside knowledge about how he carried out his job. Once he has finished hawking his book we all know what he will go back to doing. How do we know? Nowhere in the book is there any hint of a sincere apology, unlike the case of Lee Atwater, who prior to his demise confessed his crimes and then asked for forgiveness from all the people he hurt.

This book is amazing. I have suffered from candida overload for 20 years (I had tried diet and alternative medicine many times) and it had developed into chronic fatigue - I was struggling to get to work each day. After reading her book, I hired a nutritionist from Ms. White's business (we converse via e-mail - ... and took the supplements recommended and carefully followed her four point plan and diet. I am, at only one month, feeling great - out of bed and on the move! All my pains are gone, my sinuses and acne are clearing up, I have lost 20 pounds, even my fungal toenails are clearing up. I still have to stay on the diet a year at least, but it is very much worth it. None of the other methods have worked as well as this. This thorough and complete program really works and I can't recommend this book and her program enough.

A lot of Christian tosh interspersed with some useful information about practical steps to take to get Candida under control. The recipes are useless for people following food-combining or gluten-free diets. Overall, I wish I never bought it.

A lot of Christian tosh interspersed with some useful information about practical steps to take to get Candida under control. The recipes are useless for people following food-combining or gluten-free diets. Overall, I wish I never bought it.

The book is definitely of little use to me.

I have a severe case of Candida, everytime I eat carbohydrates of any kind. i.e. Potatoes, whole wheat, oats, my Candida flares up.

The book is completely FULL OF WHEAT AND CARBOHYDRATE recipes. You will be surprissed!

As someone who is new to the candida world the information provided was extremely useful. The recipes on the other hand left much to be desired. I am an avid cook and had to ammend the recipes I tried in order to make them somewhat palattable. Some like the baking, were unfixable and had to be discarded. Some of the combinations suggested are absolutely unthinkable. If you are looking for good background information on candida this is a great book. If you are looking for great recipes, try something else.

This guide is fairly useful though a bit repetitive. Still it is worth a read. Also recommended is the Vault Guide to the Case Interview.

In my opinion, this book was not worth my time to read it or my money to buy it. There was very little in depth information on the consulting industry.

The problem with these cases is that they tend to be oversimplified.
Consultants are not looking for you to regurgitate someone else's
thinking in the form of a framework. It's not a matter of recognizing
this case as a Seven S and this one as a Four P, etc.

While I
think this book will help you if you're just not feeling comfortable
with cases, most would be better served going through the cases
prepared by the Consulting Club at your school (or buying the case
book from Wharton's or HBS's Consulting Club). Then spend your time
talking to second years and alumni who either worked for top-tier
consulting firms before school, over the summer, or after
graduation.

The Wet Feet Press... reports are very valuable
for researching companies, and the Ace Your Case book is very good,
but this one was rather redundant.

While this guide may have once been useful, in my opinion it has
become out of date. In my experience consulting firms have recently
dramatically changed the format of case interview questions and more
recent reflection of the new trends in case interviewing can be better
found...

Volume I is excellent - this is even better! I've used both and highly recommend them. Other guides I've seen are not nearly as smart as the WetFeet.com guides. My interviewers were impressed with the skill I exhibited and the insights I offered in response to their case questions. Helped me land a great job at a top consulting firm!

I have actually been an independent consultant for 9 years, but I wanted to become more successful - so I bought several books on the subject. This was by far the best book on consulting that I found. Every warning he gave to the reader was SO TRUE - it nearly always described a mistake I had made along the way that had hindered my success! I read several poor reviews of this book, but I can only imagine that the reviewers were new to the world of independent consulting, and maybe were hoping for a rosier picture!

I agree with the other reviewers: there are many other books that cover the material in more detail and in far fewer pages. I'd recommend Alan Weiss' "Million Dollar Consulting" or Alan's "Getting Started in Consulting." Either of these books should be considered a MUST addition to any consultant's library. Overall grade: D+/C-

Holtz's general consulting guide has been updated for the new millenium with this new concise edition. Notice it is concise, perhaps in deference to the whole notion of the lack of reading time our contemporary business environment. Nevertheless the book is packed full of advice about the nuts and bolts of consulting and the perspective is useful to experienced consultants as well as beginners..

I was struck by two issues that are emphasized in the book. There is lots of attention paid to the notion of continuous marketing. According to Holtz, most businesses fail because of a lack of a marketing strategy; they just don't have enough sales. The other emphasis is an in-depth discussion of consulting to government agencies at the local, state and federal levels

I have to admit that there was some useful information in the book. Especially in setting fees, importance of retainers, the current outlook towards the consulting industry. While Mr. Holtz does have a great amount of knowledge, that can be quickly seen in the text, I find his writing style lacking and even frustrating. Many subjects appear in the book multiple times - a rehashing of subjects he has already discussed. This, and the back and forth references of subject matter was disconcerting. I think that if the duplication of information was removed from the book, the nearly 300 page book would be about 25% smaller.

This Guide is an abridged version of the best-selling How to Succeed as an Independent Consultant. Packed with expert advice, helpful tips and industry secrets to successful self-marketing, it gives you the crucial tools and techniques to survive and thrive in this highly competitive field. From founding your business to writing proposals to negotiating fees, this guide has details on a wide variety of essential topics.

Herman Holtz is one of America's leading experts on business and consulting. Holtz's consulting clients include IBM, General Electric, Dunn and Bradstreet, Chrysler and Georgetown University. He is the author of more than twenty best selling books on consulting, marketing and sales.

Reviewed by Azlan Adnan. Formerly Business Development Manager with KPMG, Azlan is currently managing partner of Azlan & Koh Knowledge and Professional Management Group, an education and management consulting practice based in Kota Kinabalu. He holds a Master's degree in International Business and Management from the Westminster Business School in London.

"Six Sigma: Understanding the Concept, Implications and Challenges" is a great book for those experienced using the Six Sigma methodology. It is not a statistical tools reference book, but is classic in its masterful description of how to successfully deploy Six Sigma. The historical content in the second half of the book is valuable as well. The book even tackles the "1.5 sigma shift" contoversy. A very worthwhile read for Black Belts and Master Black Belts who have experienced the struggles of attempting to implement Six Sigma.

I believe Mario Perez-Wilson wrote this book to show the novice how to start the trip to achieving Six Sigma. He uses a real life example to teach the concepts that can be used in any industry. I have used the principals in this book as well as those from the courses he teaches with great success. I did not have to get a "Black Belt" or pay "Cowboy Consultants" huge fees to bring my processes to Six Sigma. I followed his road map. I cannot recommend it enough if you are serious about improving your companies' bottom line.

Ok, so every now and then I ignore what may be a helpful book review, and get burned. After reading this book, I wish that I had heeded the advice of others posted here. This book will be of little value to anyone looking for serious info concerning six sigma. I did not find the "novel" approach used by Perez to be useful in any way. I also was offended by the blatant marketing that takes place at the end (sorry to ruin the ending for everyone). Take my advice--spend the >$ on other authors (Breyfogle or Pyzdek), who do provide the "meat" of six sigma. You won't be sorry...trust me on this! I've seen more useful six sigma pamphlets!

I have just finished reading Mario Perez-Wilson's 396 pages of Six Sigma consulting propaganda. In fact, an entire chapter is devoted to promoting Advanced Systems Consultants-Perez-Wilson's consulting firm-as the best, if not only, way to achieve Six Sigma in an organization. A memorial to the overarching ego of Mr. Perez-Wilson, "Six Sigma: Understanding the Concept, Implications and Challenges" is repetitive, poorly edited, and gives only enough information about Six Sigma to allow the reader to engage in cocktail party small talk.

"Six Sigma: Understanding the Concept, Implications and Challenges", gently and in a novel way, takes the reader to understanding the importance of applied quality techniques in today's industry. Mario Perez-Wilson demonstrates how each "opportunity of error" in a complex manufacturing or administrative process can mount into disastrous cumulative consequences, if each opportunity is not reduced to zero. Armed with statistical methods, it is possible to achieve zero-defective products in processes involving mass productions in the order of the hundred thousand units, and this is what SIX SIGMA does. Like in the electronics industry, there are also many other processes in which it would be impossible to control the release of a flawless product or service if not counting with the power of a tool such as Six Sigma. This book clarifies concepts and introduces a new approach for those who must deal with quality issues, productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability.

Planning my wedding in Martha's Vinyard from Maine was effortless all because of The Wedding Directory. It was packed with wonderful and exceptional sites and services in one easy to handle resource book. The Wedding Directory gave me so much information and no editorials-just page after page of possibilities! Because of this book my dream wedding became a reality!

We never had to leave the state of Georgia to plan our Cape Cod wedding! We could NEVER have done it without THE WEDDING DIRECTORY! Every one we dealt with was friendly and accommodating! EVERY state should have one! Thank you!

This book is nothing but a collection of second rate venues surrounded by far too many ads. we were very disappointed in breadth of choices for receptions sites. don't waste your money

This book is nothing more than a collection of advertisements. There was no mention of prices, not even in general terms. So few sites and services were mentioned. This book is mildly useful and not worth the money. The website for this book was very misleading. I really thought there was going to be more content.

I was really disappointed by this "directory". I thought this book would be a valuable resource in trying to plan a wedding in the Pioneer Valley, but I found a TOTAL of 3 sites listed for the area. This book is basically only for people needing services in the Boston and immediate surrounding areas. The majority (about 3/4) of the state of Massachusetts is listed under "West of Boston" and has practically nothing listed. Even in the Boston sections, the lists are certainly not exhaustive. They don't even have Cheryl Richards listed as a wedding photographer, and she has ads in every national bridal magazine! This book may be helpful to those in Boston and coastal MA, but if you're at all "west of Boston", save your money and have someone send you a copy of the local yellow pages. (I actually purchased the "Millenium Edition" of this book, not the 1999 version).

You have to understand pay plans in order to select the right company for you. Why labor endlessly for little pay when another company, with the same effort, could make you more. Some get rich in network marketing, while others struggle. Being in the right pay plan is a big part of the answer.

This book purports to provide insight into MLM pay plans and their construction. It does no such thing. Rather, it is filled with pithy anecdotes, poor grammar, and indecipherable charts. Save your money and do not buy this book.

Rod Cook has been walking the halls of Network Marketing since the dinosaurs ruled the earth. In fact, he was the only animal on earth at the time that the T-rex feared. His knowledge on the subject of MLM is without peer.

Rod, as a consutant to MLM start-up companies is their best hope for getting it right. As the MLM Watchdog, he is their worst nightmare if they do it wrong. If you are a MLM distributor, he truly is...Looking out for you!

His Really Big Book Of MLM Compensation Pay Plans is, in my opinion, the ultimate source for compensation plan information....period!

Greg Arnold

If you have little or no experience in MLM, this book might as well be written in ancient Sanscrit.

First off, the editing seems like it was probably done by a laboratory chimp. The copy is riddled with syntactical, spelling and grammatical errors that would be unacceptable in a third grade English class.

Secondly, the content is generally inchoate drivel. The author fails to adequately explain most of the terms and theories before gratuitously tossing them about. It starts out with a graphic representation of a binary tree consisting of various levels of totally undefined numerals within little globes. It all leaves the reader slack jawed, trying to interpret it all for him/her self, without much or any real explanation, or a very cursory one at most.

The author also operates a garish web site which is mainly a tableau of bold font colorful hype promoting his products, to which the book seems largely dedicated to steering one towards.

Verdict: Next to useless for the neophyte.

I sat down in the bookstore today with Network Consultant's Handbook and found it to be as hard to read as most other Cisco Press books. This book is hard to read because like most other Cisco books, it is a patchwork of concepts thrown together and published without proofreading for typos, ambiguities, awkwardness, and correctness. It is an incompetent, incomplete work that does nothing more than awkwardly state a few jumbled facts. It does little for trying to understand the concepts and it is useless for troubleshooting real life problems. Cisco Press books, in general, are much worse than even Microsoft Press books. So, that leaves me, the student, avoiding Cisco books and in search of more interesting and competent reading.

I am reading this book via the O'Reilly Network Safari Bookshelf, and am glad I didn't buy it based on the (only) glowing review here. This book is a so-so reference to networking technologies, but suffers from bad grammar and technical mistakes. It is very disjointed and many paragraphs, and even sentences, do not flow together very well. Here is an example:

Yet another drawback of IPSec is that it is not compliant with IPv4, so it requires the use of IPv6. This incompatibility is causing much discussion among IETF officials, resulting in the delay with the release of the protocol.

The first sentence is just wrong. The second phrase of the second sentence is just hard to read. One has to wonder how much time the 'reviewers' spent actually reading the manuscript.

In the IT industry consultants of any networking value are constantly updating the skill sets with the latest information available, so it is true with Cisco Consultants and technicians. This book is one of the first sources I have ever found to bring to you information about Cisco products and networking.

Beginning the 960 plus page manual is the OSI Model, layer by layer, then LAN Topologies, with topics like unicast, broadcast and multicast as well as bus, ring and star topologies. Finally this section gives you information about the hard devices you'll be working with.

802.3, Ethernet, documentation and analysis take chapters 3,4 & 5 followed up with Token Ring and 802.5. FDDI, ATM LANE, telecommunications such as ISDN, DSLx, and T1 and DS technologies are next on the list of topics discussed.

The author covers Fiber Optics real well in Chapter 14 and then moves on to 120 pages of Frame Relay. The next 65 pages are for ATM, ATM WAN, MPOA, cell and cell relay coverage. Other topics covered are VoIP, VPN, SMNP and network management and that gets you to chapter 24.

From there the author takes 110 pages to cover the routing protocols associated with Cisco routers, protocols like RIP, RIPv2, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS and BGP. The book is rounded out by IPv6 and Multiprotocol Label switching. I do think more coverage of switches and switching could have been included as well.

Several appendices were also included for things like Network Assessments, subnet masks and protocol lists. The book has several case studies included to help you understand the concepts presented as well as screen shots of the actual router code. Overall this is one great book to have and a great addition to my technical library.