Organizations Books

Christian community in the nature and character of God is the framework for this extraordinary book on Christian small group ministry. Scripture from both Testaments supports the thesis that small group gatherings are both ontological and teleological, consistent with the spirit and intention of God's existence in community. The author emphasizes that humanity, created in God's image, is called to live and mature within small communities or groups.
From the Creation stories, through the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Christ, Icenogle reiterates that certain divine and human realities are uniquely communal where two or more persons come together in the presence of God (Mat 18:20). "Scripture begins and ends with God calling humanity into relationship with the divine community and with one another."
There are three major biblical sections: before, during and after Jesus' life on earth. Chapters highlight biblical material relating to major small group concerns, such as covenants, leadership, communication, structures and ministry. General themes of God, creation, sin, covenant, Christ, Spirit, the church and eternal life are also explored in detail.
In the Old Testament section of the book, there is a great deal of reflection on friendship, tribal, marital and familial communities, and God's struggle to create, re-create and participate in that shalom (wholeness). For example, Icenogle says the book of Ruth is about three women and a man, related by family ties, who share in the faith history and ancestry of Jesus. " Their face-to-face relationships are a classic small group case study that deals with grief, friendship, love, loneliness, journeying, self-sacrifice, sorrow, security needs, bitterness, personal faith, grace and reconciliation."
God as a small group, as three persons in one is described as a dialogue with other members of the God-self of the Trinity as an intracommunicating group who also created a similar existence for humanity. Yet, all human groups display human brokenness, says Icenogle. He cites the Cain and Abel story to underscore the shattered relationship between two brothers. "The brokenness of every group would continue except that God refuses to leave us alone to self-destruct."
By definition, the author says small groups are face-to-face gatherings of persons to be, to share and to act for the betterment of one another and the wider good of others, where God is the subject, and the groups are the vehicle for humanity to carry out God's will in everyday life.
" Jesus changed human history through the process of forming an intentional small group of twelve. The various small groups around Jesus-of men, women, young, old Jew and Gentile, give a clear signal as to how God desires humanity to move into our salvation future."
Icenogle asserts that God's perspective must be the centering reality of any Christian small group, where its members are invited to understand one another through God's eyes. In order for this transforming perspective to develop as a group ethic, the group must first invest deeply in the presence of God to define each relationship, through prayer,
listening for God's voice, a continued intimate relationship with God, and further knowledge of the Scriptures. I highly recommend this book as a "must read" for pastors, lay leaders, consultants and professors as an excellent resource for intentional small group ministry.

Gareth Icenogle not only shows some very good theological insight into the nature and dynamics of small group ministries, but also offers practical applications for many of these ideas. He lays fundamental groundwork to the topic of small group ministries and expounds with passion and clarity the need for this expression of spiritual formation in the church today.

This book can be appreciated everyone involved in this type of ministry, ranging from the seminary-educated clergy to the parishoner or lay leader in a church.

I highly recommend Black Students and School Failure (BSASF) to all serious educators and parents of black students. I also highly recommend re-reading it to anyone who has read this book some time ago. Simply put, this book makes the reader think.

I first read BSASF in 1991. Over the years, I have re-read sections of the book a number of times. For me, the vital and brilliantly communicated points of BSASF are these:

1. [Contrary to "Bell Curve" thinking,]Black children's capacity and potential for learning is equal to that of other ethnic groups.

2. Black children's learning potential is systematically not being realized in America's school systems. Reasons or this include but are not limited to: low expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies; lack of cultural synchronization; lack of national, strategic focus on effectively educating poor, minority children.

In other words, black student failure in school does not point to an inherent inability to learn. Rather, it points to clearly ineffective - perhaps even racist - policies and practices on a classroom, school, school system, and national level.

3. The problem of black student school failure is significantly correlated with the problem of black poverty - and the salient issues of drug abuse, violence, teen pregnancy, etc. These problems persist and will continue to persist until there is an active commitment address them with not just short-lived interventions, but long-term strategic focus on improving educational outcomes for black students.

Being a first-year teacher of math at a 90+% black high school in South Florida, I am an everyday witness of low teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies for black students. This book convinces me that there would be significantly less black poverty if significantly more teachers had high expectations for their black students. Moreover, it makes me wonder if perhaps there would even be a cure for cancer!

Patrick Harper

Coconut Creek, Florida
April 20, 2003

That book is difficult, but I made my way through it, because it’s the truth. And it is good stuff. And it’s worth it. She tells the truth. She explains why black children and students have such problems with Western education. Her answer is that Western education was designed and made by whites. This may be OK for Asians, who are closer to whites, but it can’t work for Africans, our race is too different, the “racial distance”(and the culture that stems from each race) is too big. I don’t mean to be racist, man, but that’s how it is, we are no whites, and whites are no blacks, and that’s fine. Seems to come close to a book I haven’t read, The White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power. AND, even worst, she proves, reveals that the aim of this white education that is imposed unto blacks is enslave them by conditioning them to respect white authority, to be docile, subordinate and dependent on white, and by predestinating them to the inferior lowest jobs whites need for their free-market economy. Put it clearly, man : it is still white slavery and exploitation of Africans, but it is hidden. And worst, because you don’t see it and you won’t revolt and shake off the white yoke. It’s deception. And I would had that this white schooling hurts terribly, breaks our African soul, identity , and that’s why many of us fail, our African soul can’t work out with a white identity that is unnatural to us and that enslaves us. But she has the (obvious) solution: we need our own separate schools, but not just so before the segregation, not compulsory, and above all not designed by whites for white children, but designed by Africans for black children. That’s it. The whole point is about designing black school. It should be done by Africans who have rediscovered their roots, I mean their own African cultures, religions, races and languages. Here in South Africa we got a seminal book, P. C. Luthuli’s The Philosophical foundations of Black education in South Africa. Luthuli saw that “While throughout their history Black people have borrowed quite generously in order to construct their school curriculum, the time has come for this to be done within the dictates of their basic needs” and that our schools “must be governed by the fundamental collective philosophy of life”, that is by our own African soul, not the thinking, the soul of the white race, which is alien to us. Irvine, working with the African diaspora in America has come exactly to the same conclusion. What a good book, man, that’s real black studies, black university, and it’s not baloney like some of those white racists say who would like to abolish black studies. Quite the contrary, read her book, she proves we need our own “Afrocentric independent schools”.

If you are looking for a book to explain how to plan and implement a special event, this is the book for you. This book explains what to do and what not to do, so that your organization can get the most money out of your event. You can read it straight through or just go to certain chapters to get the information that you want. Also, don't let the celebrity/high society examples turn you off. What is in this book works even if you don't have access to a celebrity or society connections. I used what is in this book to raise money for my local Lions Club. Don't get any other book for special events--Black Tie Optional is the guide for special events.

At last! This book answers all the difficult "how to" questions for the fund-raiser for a non-profit organization. Every possible problem is anticipated and discussed, and reasons for doing and not doing are offered. Most organizations spend more money raising funds than they collect, and Harry Freedman explains where the hidden costs are and how to avoid them. Freedman seems to know what you are thinking and he will tell you why what someone else does may not be the right event for you. There is something in this book for the veteran fund-raiser or the eager new volunteer.
--Andrew Kevorkian
Public Relations Consultant

You can read it in one sitting but should read it again and again. It is simple, to the point and tells us the kind of people we could become. Well worth the read.

This book I read in the begining of the school year. It is a great book. Whan I say great I realy mean great. The things that the mother teresa would toatly amaze you. She lives with the poor helped people with sickness and took care of abanden babies. you should read this book and find out more about it infact I would recomend it a lot.(you SHOULD read htiss book)

"Board Members Rule is an essential read for those who want to transform their board membership into an opportunity to exercise strategic leadership in promoting the mission of the agency."
- Emily Murase, San Francisco Department on the Status of Women

"Zimmerman Lehman have once more produced a hands-on practical board manual, Board Members Rule, that will benefit both the experienced and inexperienced board member."
- Phillip Kilbridge, Habitat for Humanity San Francisco

"Board Members Rule is chock-full of excellent advice and practical techniques for the proactive board member. Tons of resources, references, tables, forms and exercises will ensure that all boards govern effectively."
- Tim Hallahan, Stanford Law School

Lehman and Zimmerman draw on their extensive background in community organizing and public policy to demonstrate the power of strategic advocacy in affecting change and implementing a nonprofit's mission.
- Norman A. Constantine, University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health

Any reader who ever observed an institution become ridiculous, be it university, church, political party or office committee, will laugh out loud at Paul Levitt's humorous story about Bogus U. As a mafia gang member accidentally becomes president of a university and changes the policies for the better, we laugh (knowingly?) at the subterfuge involving a champion football team (if only...) and a question of tenure for an incompetent but potentially influential professor. We enjoy the intigue among administators--for power and sexual conquests. We laugh at parallels between University politics and the mafia. This book offers a bawdy, funny read about all of us who are compromised, all of us who ever served on a faculty or even a committee. It is a funny and scathing look at hypocrisies, rationalizations and absurdities. You are invited to read it--and smile.

To University of Colorado Professor Emeritus Peter Michelson's characterization of this work as 'a delightful romp through the sins of everyone's alma mater,' I wish to add that only insofar as the main institutional target of this trenchant satire is representative can it be thus generalized. The cover art, settings, and scathing indictments of the faculty and administration compel the conclusion that this work is a trenchant and effective satire on the university where its author has taught and serially chaired the English and Writing departments for the past 45 years or so, not counting sabbaticals -- namely, the Univerity of Colorado. During those years, the makeup of the student body has changed from two-thirds out-of-staters to at least 80% Colorado residents, but the nature of the school seems little changed from 1968, when it was featured as a playboy institution by the magazine of that name, which cited the Drama department's production of Shakespeare's Macbeth that featured totally nude witches. Graduating students invited to faculty parties are known to have commented on the lack of intellectual conversation. Anyone jogging at six in the morning is likely to see the adulterers returning home. Its passion but lightly disguised, this novel is a damning but highly readable and enjoyable indictment of American higher education as embodied in one thoroughly portrayed institution.

The title is a misnomer: Although the authors do indeed suggest how to "break through the chains of organizational structure", they provide an enlightening explanation of four different types of boundaries (vertical, horizontal, external, and geographic) which give definition to any organization. They do not advocate the total elimination of these boundaries (which is impossible, anyway); rather, they suggest how to rearrange them so that an organization can thrive. For the authors, there is what they call "A New World Order":

"In living organisms, membranes exist to give the organization shape and definition. They have sufficient structural strength to prevent the organism from dissolving into an amorphous mess....Like a living organism, the boundaryless organization also evolves and grows, and the placement of boundaries may shift....Because the boundaryless organization is a living continuum, not a fixed state, the ongoing management challenge is to find the right balance of boundaryless behavior, to determine how permeable to make boundaries, and where to place them."

This brief excerpt from the first chapter correctly suggests the purpose of this remarkable book: To explain HOW to meet that challenge. The material is presented within four parts plus a conclusion. The first explains how to achieve "free movement up and down" by crossing vertical boundaries; the second explains how to achieve "free movement side to side" by crossing horizontal boundaries; the third explains how to achieve "free movement along the value chain" by crossing external boundaries; and in the fourth part, they explain how to achieve "free global movement" by crossing geographic boundaries." Then in the Conclusion, the authors discuss "Making It Happen: Leading Toward the Boundaryless Organization." The authors also include a series of six questionnaires. By completing each in sequence, the reader is able to determine (a) where her or his organization is now located relative to "the boundaryless paradigm", and (b), what is needed to eliminate the "gap" between where it is now and where it should be.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read The Boundaryless Organization Field Guide. It contains a wealth of hands-on set of diagnostic instruments, exercises, and tools as well as a disk with presentation slides in Powerpoint format.

The fieldbook is written in a very user friendly way. It provides information that can be used in various ways - presentation slides, workshops, surveys and inteviews. Each tool is explained in great detail - how to use it and the intended purpose. I borrowed a copy from our corporate libary and liked it so much I will order my own personal copy!

This is a superb book. It is scholarly yet passionate, courageous yet level-headed. The book argues that the Solidarity labor movement in Poland in 1980-81 was created by workers of the Gdansk shipyards rather than by Warsaw and Krakow intellectuals. However, the intellectuals supplied self-serving interpretations of Solidarity, and these were accepted as fact. Goodwyn shows that ever since the failed bread strikes in 1956, 1970, and 1976, the workers of Poland continued to devise methods by which to oppose the communist regime. In 1980, they succeeded: the so-called "occupational strike" in the shipyards made it impossible for the police to disperse the workers, while a system of human couriers allowed workers from various enterprises (as many as 370 factories, at the end of August 1980) to communicate when telephones were cut off by the communists. Finally, in August 1980, the workers presented to the government the centerpiece of all their demands: the demand for free labor unions. This was a move which the government of Soviet-occupied Poland did not expect. Polish intellectuals in Warsaw advised against it. The workers stood firm--and the government yielded. For a year, there was jubilation in Poland. But at Moscow's bidding, the Soviet-controlled government in Warsaw arrested thousands of Solidarity leaders in December 1981. For seven years, Poles lived under martial law. Under martial law, hundreds of people were tortured or "merely" beaten, thousands lost their lives because elementary medical help was impossible to obtain.
In later chapters, Goodwyn points out that it was "citizens' committees" and not the Solidarity labor union that produced delegates to the Round Table talks. Among the delegates, the intelligentsia members were overrepresented (195 out of some 240 delegates), while the workers who created Solidarity had a few dozen delegates. Since that time, the Warsaw intelligentsia was disproportionately credited with creating and aiding Solidarity, whereas worker activists slid into oblivion. The situation further worsened when factories began to close down because of restructuring, and millions of working men and women lost their jobs. The intelligentsia kept theirs: white collar workers were not much affected by restructuring of steel mills, shipyards, and cotton mills.
A magnificently lucid tome that provides real insights into the workings of democracy. If you are concerned with the erosion of democratic institutions in the United States, read this book.

As a student in Larry Goodwyn's social movements class, I have been reading this book to study his philosophy and methodology. It's incredibly interesting and enlightening, and sure to infuriate anyone with a vested interest in the convential wisdom about movement building in general and Solidarity in particular. I'd recommend it to anyone who can get their hands on a copy (& let me know if you can!)...

As a student looking to become a high school guidance counselor, I found this to be one of the best texts from both a practical and educational point of view.

It focuses on the real issue of counseling, how to meet the needs of the client. Each explanation is backed by popular theories, yet the focus remains solution based.

The key to the book is how to be a catalyst in change utilizing the client's perspective of the problem. The authors have done a wonderful job of explaining the school practitioner's role as a catalyst, or an instrument of change.

Too often, I believe counselors try to fit the client into a preconceived box of neurosis. In fact, this book counters that train of thought and shows the reader how to address the client's problem as a unique opportunity to enable the client to find his/her own solution.

I highly recommend this book to students, practicing counselors, parents and teachers.

If you work with children and adolescents and also wish to apply solution-focused thinking to the school context you must read this book. Each page offers highly practical and clear to understand ideas. Incredibly, I would say that it appeals equally to the novice and experienced solution-focused worker. Excellent indeed. Furthermore, John Murphy's workshop presentation, based on the content of the book, is an unmissable experience, worth attending.

Art's book is an excellent resource and useful roadmap to successful selling with proven theory. The book is jam-packed with never seen before sales models and examples of implementing them.

I had the pleasure of working for Mr. Wilson while I was in college, so I have a bit of firsthand experience with his methods. I'm not a businessman or a salesman, but from a purely lay perspective, I often marvelled at his gift for taking complex, subtle ideas and explaining them in accessible ways.

Mr. Wilson and his colleagues have made careers out of teaching their selling methods and strategies to others; this alone speaks to the soundness of their methods. This is certainly a book that should be on the shelf of all sales professionals, and will doubtlessly yield extraordinary results for anyone who employs its methods.