Professional Resources Books

As an IT consultant I spend a lot of time keeping abreast of technical information, refining my understanding of techniques and acquiring new skills. Like my colleagues I tend to focus on the technical side, forgetting that "soft skills" are just as important.

This book is about those "soft skills" and it has greatly influenced how I approach one of the most important activities in which consultants engage - interviewing and elicitation. Prior to reading this book I viewed this activity as an art and, to be honest, as a necessary evil. As a group IT consultants have traditionally failed at effectively communicating with business users. There has been much written about aligning IT to business, but little has been said about how to go about it. This book changes that - at least from a requirements gathering and communications point of view.

To begin, it takes a methodical approach to the interview process by defining deliverables. We consultants seem to do this for every activity *except* interviewing. It then gives an example situation, and covers the basics of interviewing.

As you go through this book you will find sound advice on note taking, managing interview material, and advanced techniques.

Among the advanced techniques are how to read non-verbal communications (body language), how to match conversation styles with your subjects, and how to manage the interview. This is excellent material that should be read by any consultant who has customer contact.

I especially liked the chapter on facilitating workshops and groups, managing feedback sessions and eliciting knowledge (as opposed to eliciting information). I also found the checklists provided throughout the book to be excellent aids and have copied them for my own use.

This book should be required reading for all consultants and IT professionals regardless of their level of experience. It gives us a set of tools to use to align IT and business, starting with the most basic of activities: effectively communicating.

This is a collection of sermons from WWII and the early part of the cold war.

The author started out as a physician and then became a pastor. He has analytical skills seldom found in pastors and theologians.

As a minister, I like to keep my flock honest by delivering the occasional white-knuckle ride of a sermon about the betrayer of out Redeemer; and Pastor Wiersbe is right on the money with 5 bruisers which I can't wait to thunder from the pulpit. My favourite is on Dante's vision of torment for Christ's fallen disciple.

This is an essential book for your library if you have ever been tasked to work in this area. Juvenile criminal law has a whole other set of laws and guidelines and if you are the hired expert, you need to know the area. This is a great addition to that expertise. And it's by Grisso, the leader in competence issues.

Having noticed and become more familiar with symptoms and failures of ADHD, it is helpful for how often these factors show up in society. For example, the "enigma" of Bill Clinton may be confusing to many, but may be a result of the class symptoms of many of the characteristics of ADHD undiagnosed persons whose spouses often compensate for them in many situations and circumstances. This can be seen in many cases where she "spoke for him," in interviews, for example, to explain what he meant, or to clarify his views, specifically in the 1995 interview about Flowers when he said "he had caused pain in his marriage." Reviewing the many complaints or observations of his staff about his personality suggests that he was indeed not only brilliant, but also suffered the effects of ADHD that had never been diagnosed, and should be looked at with what we are beginning to learn about adults with undiagnosed ADHD. All signs point to this problem and may explain much of his approach and his behavior, especially the desire to do everything at once, and to jump around from thing to thing. The extent of the effects of childhood trauma and the possibility of undiagnosed ADHD together make for a very interesting analysis of this complicated person, and how his family and friends deal with, or cover for him, in many situations. Hillary has classic characteristics of many of the compensating ADHD behaviors that unwittingly spouses fall into using to cope with their ADHD mates over time.

This book contains a concise overview of Cognitive Therapy for couples with detailed descriptions of assessments and therapy procedures. In addition to providing a clear outline of the structure and course of therapy, Dattilo and Pedesky provide excellent strategies for identifying and changing beliefs that often interfere with the therapeutic process.

Cognitive Therapy With Couples is an excellent resource for mental health professionals of all therapeutic modalities working with couples in distress. Its clear and concise style makes it accessible to all therapists interested in learning to apply the cognitive model to couples therapy.
--- excerptfrom book's Foreword by Aaron T. Beck, MD.

His case studies are compelling examples of the mistakes that dominate the real work products of the field. I love the way at the start of each chapter he presents a reasonable sounding evaluation (unless you know from experience what mistakes to look for), and then by the end of the chapter you understand that it was meant as an example of what NOT to do, and you now have a deep understanding of why.

This book blazes a wide trail into the terrain of managing the people side of conservation work. As I read this book I repeatedly said to myself, "I wish I'd thought of that" as Bonar offered principles and pragmatic techniques for addressing many of the rough spots I encountered in my 30+ years of fish and wildlife jobs. In my corner of conservation work there is plenty of rhetoric these days that success is more about working with people than working with critters, but little in the way of support to learn the `how-to. . .' aspects of making good things happen. Bonar's book successfully fills this gap as he presents practical tips and techniques for managing the crossing points between scientific/technical efforts to understand management need and getting people to say "yes" to conservation. Along the way he imparts a good deal of wisdom about managing yourself so that you get more of what you want out of a conservation career.

I highly recommend this book if you want to make real change happen and actively manage your career to transform people problems into opportunities for positive conservation change in your management community.

From start to finish, the author's provide a wealth of information necessary for the care of this unique population. From sexuality to genetic influences, the issues are current and insightful. A must have reference for all nurses working in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities nursing

Access to gambling has never been greater. Internet gambling, the poker explosion, most states running lotteries is just some of the new temptations that lead some to serious gambling addiction. Treatment of problem gamblers has had a low success rate.

Joseph W Ciarrocchi has put in one book clinical wisdom and research into a treatment package aimed at developing the skills for successful recovery.

Covered in this manual:

Step-by-step treatment plans
Diagnostic instruments developed by the author
Focus on specific cultural concerns, with clinical applications for women, minorities, and religiously committed persons
Integration of spirituality in treatment
Coping strategies for family members

This is the book for counselors dealing with these very serious problems.