Organizations Books

This is an excellent collection of essays by leading practitioners centering on the nature of human resources in the context of the new forms and dynamics of organization. Topics includes: human resources competencies; measuring effectiveness; redefining and restructuring the human resources function; the new shape and nature of organization; change management; leadership; compensation strategy; and competency-based pay. This gathering of perspectives and some case studies provides considerable insight into the changing nature of human resource management. Recommended. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, author of Stern's Sourcefinder: The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

Butteriss describes how information technology is impacting the human resources function and how to reengineer work processes and retrain staff accordingly. She examines current hardware and software applications. The volume includes a team readiness questionnaire.

Information technology (IT) is changing the entire organizational landscape and human resource management must be in the vanguard of this transformation. Sadly, this is not the case in many (probably most) enterprises, both in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. Given these realities, and the consequent pressures for keeping technologically abreast in today's competitive world, this book delivers relevant information that is of substantial value. Well written and substantive, we recommended the book for all human resource professionals whose HR department is not yet keeping up with the IT curve. Reviewed by Yvette Borcia, author of Stern's Sourcefinder: The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

"The equation of Human Resources with the processing of personel forms-payroll, benefits, evaluation, etc.-no longer makes sense to companies diven by global markets, global competition, and new technology...The rapidly changing nature of business in today's economy requires a fundamental rethinking of many HR processes...", Margaret Butteriss writes, "Thus, HR is increasingly becoming an important part of executive planning and actions and far more of an integral part of management than ever before...The HR fuction itself is increasingly being asked to take on new roles, and not all of its practitioners are equally equipped and ready to do this. We are in time when the competencies of individual HR practitioners must be developed to better support the business organization. If the HR function does not meet the challenges of today's global business environment, it is danger of being outsourced or cut out completely...(In fact), some organizations are cutting costs in Human Resources and outsourcing HR because they still see it largely as a transactional and reactive function that can effectively be done by outside organizations. Others are building more strategic partnerships between line, management, and HR experts and are creating a consultative role for HR to cope with the rapidly changing business realities. They recognize that HR can no longer be simply transactional and administrative, but must be far more proactive in assisting senior management plan for the future."

In this context, Margaret Butteriss and other contributors:

* discuss, based on a data from interviews with top Canadian executives and HR professionals, how organizations are being changed by globalization, competition, and advances in information technology, and identify seven key ways in which HR can contribute to dealing with changes in the marketplace and workplace.

* examine general and technical competencies required by HR professionals as they take on more strategic roles.

* define standard measurement ways to measure the effectiveness of HR in organizations such as functional measures, operational measures, and strategic measures.

* provide an example of a company that redefined its HR function in order to meet its current and future business needs.

* identify the fundamentals of Change Management, particularly HR's role.

* look at components of executive leadership development, including the required infrastructure, the process of talent identification, and the selection and resourcing of candidates to fill vacant leadership positions.

* discuss why most performance management systems are either questionable or fail to reach the required objectives.

* define competency and examine the history of competency, and examine the development of competencies and competency scales, both in individuals and job families.

* define the underlying principles necessary for a compensation strategy that supports business direction in a changing business environment.

* look at how individual pay is decided, whether it be on the performance of the individual, the division or department, the team, or the the entire organization.

* discuss how HR professionals can contribute to corporate success by taking a new approach to compensation, and introduce ,based on a case study, the concept of competency-based pay.

I highly recommend.

Didn't use the audiotape at all but the book gave me everything I needed to administer the IRI. I use it for tutorial purposes too.

Great and fast service. This book is great for my college class I am taking

This book has been so helpful in doing my reading evaluations with my students. I recommend getting this book if you are a teacher.

This book is outstanding! It gives enormous recommendation for the contemporary inner-city family, and does it in a practical, self-explanatory way. The substance is serious, but the writer makes available information while providing a few funny stories along the way. This book provides complete Christian guiding standard on everything from dating to desire a mate, to marriage, to the appropriate way to take care of a household and raise a family.

Easy reading but indepth. Challenging..I have hope for the community because I see where we have failed but where we can pick the ball up and keep rolling to restore our community.

This book is superb! It gives great advice for the modern urban family, and does it in a down-to-earth, easy-to-understand way. The theme is serious, but the author provides information while providing a few jokes along the way. And just because it is easy to understand does not mean it lacks content. On the contrary, this book provides complete Christian guidelines on everything from dating to choosing a mate, to marriage, to the proper way to take care of a household and raise a family. This book was a blessing in more ways than one! What more can I say, if you are considering buying this book -- DO IT. On a personal note, this book helped me prepare for my marriage, organize my finances, buy my house, prepare for the birth of my child and I am STILL using this book as a reference. All Black churches should recommend this book to their congregations. This book was a fulfilling dose of Christian guidelines, peppered with loving wit and wrapped in practicality.

"... this is a highly readable volume which amkes an important contribution to the study of East Germany's transformation."

From the European Journal of Area Studies

"... this is a highly readable volume which amkes an important contribution to the study of East Germany's transformation."

From the European Journal of Area Studies

"As a detailed reconstruction of this important transition process, this book is outstanding. It covers developments in schooling at least as comprehensively as it does vocational training and higher education; I found the chapter on religion and schooling particularly instructive"

Professor John Field's review in "Higher Education Quarterly"

James Champy explains very easily why many worlwide companies fail in their business ventures, some companies fail eventhough they had excellent and hard working "OPERATIONAL" managers, but they were not very good ADMINISTRATIVE (strategic) managers. This book should be a required MBA textbook , because it mentions the essential fundamentals of management, and it explains why managers fail when they re-design the work of their co-workers, BUT they do NOT re-design their own administrative work. This book also mentions the real job of the manager as a trainer , leader and strategic planner, trying to anticipate the moves of the world economy in order to be prepare and to have his people (co-associates) ready for the tremendous changes in the world economy. Most of the MBA's should read this book to avoid making too many mistakes (by thinking that they already know it all), this book will be quite an eyeopener for everybody (junior and senior management).. We must movilize, empower, define , measure , communcate and ACT to modify our business style and our personalities to be able to be more FLEXIBLE to roll with the punches. We must also form strategic alliances with our co-associates (co-workers), customers, clients, suppliers and all our friends to be able to succeed in this turbulent times, good luck and see you at the top

this book is on sale for .01 of a cent. That is less then a penny. meaning, that you could by ten of these books for a penny.

This book is a must read if you have read REENGINEERING THE CORPORATION, plan to do any reengineering, or are considering making any useful change in your organization. Although ostensibly about how to do reengineering better, this book is really about making successful change. I found it to be a helpful and accurate perspective on organizational change, and far superior to REENGINEERING THE CORPORATION. That book promised too much, as sometimes happens with books that are heavily rewritten by others (one business book writer pointed out that 9 out of 10 best selling business books are ghost written by one of two people in the last 10 years, and that REENGINEERING THE CORPORATION was one of them). If you are thinking of reading REENGINEERING THE CORPORATION, I recommend that you read REENGINEERING MANAGEMENT instead. This book deals with people, while REENGINEERING THE CORPORATION seems at times to be dealing with a broken pocket watch instead. If you are in a change project, I recommend that you pull this book out weekly and check to see if you are following its principles.

Religion, Race and Reconstruction -- much has been said on the subject. Mr. McAfee, however, tells us about the time period in a surprisingly easy read. If you're looking for historical non-fiction, this book is easily digestable and a good read while making you rethink previous notions about our country's history.

Simply the best book on the subject written to date. Mc Afee has taken a complex and all too often simplified historical period and identified the underlying struggle that existed. His look at the societal conflicts of the 1870's allows the reader to identify with the conflicts we see today. The benchmark for other historians to shoot for.

With Religion, Race and Reconstruction, Ward McAfee has birthed something as yet unknown to his contemporaries, and in doing so, has illuminated them to factual, concise histories that will prove to be the standard against which other histories of the era are measured.

Agility a Necessity: I read this book while working in Malaysia and had the time to reflect on the two business worlds I have experienced in the USA and Asian Pacific Rim. The books brings to mind that taking an organization and moving its mentality is like trying to get a huge oil tanker to make a 180 degree turn.... not an easy task. Mr. Dove clearly states in the book the why, the need and the expectations for survival and how to shift ones business view from stagnated status quo to an adaptive and agile environment. The books content is not the type that you just breeze through and whip together a program to initiate change. Instead, you have to take the time to read, step back and understand where you are at and what it will take to define the change. In the book, Mr. Dove gives several examples and templates on how to evaluate and redefine your business environment. I would not recommend this book to those who want to remain in a lazy business environment and hope that the cash flow continues until they retire. This book is for those that are tough enough to step forward, make a difference and do the homework to drive some agility into their business environment. Of course...it does not matter if you are in Asia or the USA...this book is most applicable where ever you are in this world!

I am both biased and surprised. Biased because I was involved in some
of the experiences on which this book is based and because I reviewed
parts of the manuscript. Surprised because, knowing the focus was on
real world pragmatics by a guy who has pioneered on the factory floor,
I simply did not expect the span of coverage that emerged when all the
chapters were brought together. This book is about how to make
factories more productive. But also it is about how to make
businesses more responsive and more profitable. Further, it is about
how to facilitate proactive learning by all employees. What a concept
- letting everyone help make their enterprise successful. In a few
pages Response Ability shows you more about knowledge management than
most authors can muster in a whole book. Further, Response Ability
shows how all three aspects of a sustainably successful enterprise fit
together, each reinforcing the other, through a framework and module
architectural concept. Of course, the reason all this works so well
is that all is based on principles (clearly explained) and vetted by
results. Results count. And with this book Response Ability is a
result that every alert leader can create.

You know, original thinking in business books is rare, so it is something to celebrate when something new and useful -- even paradigm busting comes around.

Rick Dove is something of an Abraham Lincoln of the Agility movement, having been there from the very beginning. So part of what you'll get here is the maturest ideas that have been put into practice from the small community of original researchers. The Abe metaphor carries into the fact that Rick has chosen to focus his intellect on practical breadth. His approach is rational and understandable: he speaks the language that real managers use, and he uses the type of useful conceptual devices apparent in the clever title.

My own book on Agility ("The Agile Virtual Enterprise") takes a different approach: focusing on a few high payoff, hard problems of interest to advanced implementors. It probably does better as a second book on agility, after one has become convinced. I wish this book had preceded mine in publication -- it did so as far as the legacy of many of the ideas: Rick's ideas were shared early in the game with other, concurrent researchers.

Check it out. It is accessible, with many case studies. And these aren't the headline type of "Chinese food" examples, but the kind that dig in and actually turn the cases inside out. It has tools that you can use now, that are applied in these case studies to show you how and why they work.

All that's rare enough, but the most valuable element here is the original thinking. If you are not exposing yourself to original thinking of this type -- well, you're just not a manager.

Reviewer: Phil H. Gropp from Omaha, NE
Dr. Seymour Sarason's book is divided into two main sections/parts. In the first section, he reproduces and elaborates on the second edition of his 1971 book, "The Culture of The School and The Problem of Change." The main thesis of the section was that of defining the organization and culture of a school and the attachments the school personnel have to their ways of working in that environment. His main argument was that both of these complex realities must be changed if real improvement is to take place. In the chapters of section one, Sarason expounds on three major themes/concepts: that school cultures are complicated, that principals and teachers are isolated in their position, and that teachers responsible for student achievement often have little time to learn new educational ideas. In concluding section one, Dr. Sarason stresses that changing a school culture is difficult work and must be done in a comprehensive way if it is to be effective and of lasting significance.

In the second section, Sarason "REVISITS" his original thoughts and philosophy of changing school culture. He elevates his concerns of trying to maintain and improve public education as we have known it. Sarason states that "what happens in our cities and our schools will determine the fate of our society."
The first of the two main points he "revisits" is that for the process of change to take place today, you must completely understand a school's culture especially its people, values, and practices. Secondly, for increased achievement to be envisioned, teachers must relinquish their total control over students and allow them to take more responsibility for (at least most of) their own learning.

This book is a fascinating look at 20th century United States educational history. From the philosophy of pre-World War II educators, to the major Supreme Court decision dealing with desegregation, Sarason spins his challenging philosophy in a way that makes the reader establish attitudes about his/her educational convictions. With his knowledge of history, Sarason provides his opinions on what it will take for public education to flourish (or fail) in the 21st century. His visions of changing educational paradigms gives his work food for thought and interesting educational debate.

When Sarson first published his work 25 years ago, he was, without a doubt, far ahead of his time in his thinking about schools, teachers, principals, and the ability of the students to learn. He questioned the problems associated with the whole educational environment, and suggested such "outlandish" ideas such as de-emphasizing the teaching of reading and arithmetic in the early grades and eliminating the role of the school principal and the boards of education as they were then known (13). He judged the new math as being pretty dull and ineffectual. He relished giving teachers more control over their classroom environments. To emphasize his points, he referred to his man from outer space who frequently observed schools from a purely non-partisan role. For example, this spaceman would puzzlingly see schools filled five days a week, observe virtual bustling communities of activity, only to close down two days a week. He would then ponder better school scheduling and community involvement. Sarason took on the great educators of the time-names like Conant and Dewey, Koerner and Rickover, and offered sound proposals for the changing world that was profoundly influencing the school culture.

But in his REVISITING section of the book, he offers his opinions on a gammed of subjects, including school organizations, teachers, students, vouchers, and social change, to name a few. One of his most fascinating points is that of reiterating the idea that schools need to create and maintain environments that are continually providing productive learning for students that allows "knowing" to become internalized. This book is a fascinating look at the past, as well as a glimpse at the present and future of education in the United States. Sarason provides the reader with an opportunity to examine the ideas he first propounded a quarter century ago, and to see how well they fit into the 21st century. His work is tremendously written, carefully crafted, and lovingly offered to the educator of today.

Reviewer: Phil H. Gropp from Omaha, NE
Dr. Seymour Sarason's book is divided into two main sections/parts. In the first section, he reproduces and elaborates on the second edition of his 1971 book, "The Culture of The School and The Problem of Change." The main thesis of the section was that of defining the organization and culture of a school and the attachments the school personnel have to their ways of working in that environment. His main argument was that both of these complex realities must be changed if real improvement is to take place. In the chapters of section one, Sarason expounds on three major themes/concepts: that school cultures are complicated, that principals and teachers are isolated in their position, and that teachers responsible for student achievement often have little time to learn new educational ideas. In concluding section one, Dr. Sarason stresses that changing a school culture is difficult work and must be done in a comprehensive way if it is to be effective and of lasting significance.

In the second section, Sarason "REVISITS" his original thoughts and philosophy of changing school culture. He elevates his concerns of trying to maintain and improve public education as we have known it. Sarason states that "what happens in our cities and our schools will determine the fate of our society."
The first of the two main points he "revisits" is that for the process of change to take place today, you must completely understand a school's culture especially its people, values, and practices. Secondly, for increased achievement to be envisioned, teachers must relinquish their total control over students and allow them to take more responsibility for (at least most of) their own learning.

This book is a fascinating look at 20th century United States educational history. From the philosophy of pre-World War II educators, to the major Supreme Court decision dealing with desegregation, Sarason spins his challenging philosophy in a way that makes the reader establish attitudes about his/her educational convictions. With his knowledge of history, Sarason provides his opinions on what it will take for public education to flourish (or fail) in the 21st century. His visions of changing educational paradigms gives his work food for thought and interesting educational debate.

Kriegel and Brandt are so direct in their approach, so simple in their ideas, so refreshing, it begs the question, why didn't someone think of it sooner? As a strategic planning consultant, I believe that any manager in any business will benefit from reading this book. But BEWARE, reading this book can lead to frustration, as you try to implement these heretical concepts in organizations that are not run by Change Ready people. I would love to see them attack our tax code next!

Highly recommended for any supervisor or manager who acts as a change agent in their organization. Reflected my own organization in each chapter and I appreciated the specific strategies suggested.

This book will not only give you the insite but even the courage to identify, corral, and even eliminate many of the sacred cows which encumber your daily work environments. If for no other reason you can use some of the ideas in this book to have a little fun buy just calling attention to sacred cows at the office

This is a terrific book for use as a devotional book or a resource book. I use it for both. As Music Director for my church, I often use some of the stories to share with the congregation just before we sing that praise song. Doing so, adds depth to their worship experience. It's well written and a great idea.

I did not recieve the book. I have forwarded my mail temporarily, but everything else seems to reach me. I do not understand. Please credit my account. Thank you.

Do you like the stories behind the songs? IF so, you will treasure this complication. I was touched, surprised, and inspired by many of the experiences these composers traveled through to receive some of the most beautiful woship songs written. If you like me are a worship leader then this collection must be a part of your ministry!