Organizations Books

As a veteran educator, I feel that "How Teachers Learn Best" is one of the best organized and well-written texts on teacher development ever written. I cannot think of another text I would choose over it to showcase the failure of stagnant, inflexible, "one-size-fits-all" teaching approaches of the past. The text also provides an excellent overview of the myriad other professional issues challenging contemporary teachers (these insights carry over well to related fields - my wife is a professional counselor and thoroughly enjoyed the book as well). Dr. Fiszer obviously expects readers to become involved in introducing and applying fresh perspectives to "traditional approaches" that may not be as well suited for today's educational challenges. The author produces numerous useful examples for thought and discussion as well as skillfully designed activities for the classroom setting.

A great many educational books have been written dealing with how students learn (which is, of course, very important.) Few focus on how teachers learn. Dr. Edward Fiszer does an admirable job of this in his book, How Teachers Learn Best. Dr. Fiszer emphasizes shifting the focus of staff development from the traditional one-shot, isolated sessions to an ongoing, collaborative model which includes peer observations, consistent and constructive feedback, and reflective dialogue among teachers. He also ties the book together with practical and sensible recommendations on how this can be done. Dr. Fiszer's book is a sure-fire, practical model for administrators and supervisors to use in improving the learning capabilities for teachers, and ultimately, those of the students they teach.

Dr. Edward Fiszer has discovered what other educational researchers have discovered as well: that teacher quality makes a difference in student achievement. This book focuses on on-going professional development and what Sparks and Hirsh refer to as "job-embedded" learning. With a focus on teachers as reflective practitioners, Fiszer's book can be used by teachers, principals, staff developers, and superintendents as well. It's good research in an accessible format.

If read carefully! Will change your leadership style!

Rarely does a revolutionary write the history of his own revolt. However, that's exactly what John Adair does in this book. Adair is respected internationally in the field of leadership. His 1968 classic, `Training for Leadership', was a pioneering volume on leadership development. Although his work initially received relatively little attention in the U.S., it contributed to the current "leadership revolution," which has had a powerful impact on how companies train leaders. Today, in part thanks to Adair and others like him, companies no longer assume that "you either have it or you don't" when it comes to leadership potential. They are more willing to accept the idea that managers can be leaders, too, and should be trained for that role. Adair's book doesn't just peer in the rearview mirror of history - it casts a steady, discerning gaze at the road ahead as well. Using elegant, thoughtful prose enhanced with apt anecdotes and quotations, Adair establishes seven key principles of leadership development. His intriguing conclusion: while companies may mold the raw material of leadership, only societies and families can actually provide it. If "lead, follow or get out of the way" is your motto, we say have confidence - John Adair is marching to his rightful place at the head of the leadership pack. A must read.

This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book on leadership development by a world renowned leadership guru. In "How to Grow Leaders: The Seven Key Principles of Effective Leadership Development", John Adair outlines the various theories, approaches and concepts of leadership development and training and distils them into seven key principles of leadership development. Using his wide and deep knowledge and expertise in the leadership field, he explains how organisations can recruit, select, train, and develop leaders who are capable of formulating and articulating a shared vision for their organisations or units, motivate people and facilitate the achievement of organisational, team and individual goals.

I was particularly impressed by the gracious and thorough acknowledgments in the book of the thinking and research of others. Even when the authors point out the weaknesses and limitations of a particular piece of work, they praise the positive aspects of that work in kind and thoughtful ways. This is one of the few academic books I have read that took such a considerate approach.

The book beautifully elaborates on the thinking processes that companies use to grow leaders so as to achieve competitive advantage I use the book as a quick reference guide and I find it very useful and helpful. This book carries pertinent information, but it is organised and written in such a way that is easily digestible. The book is recommended as a resource kit for the leadership trainer or aspiring leaders.

A very entertaining read. Wonderful writing style. Chapters tend to be short and begin with a short quiz. The author interjects humor into what is often a boring subject. The final portion of the chapters consist of templates for use in your own work.

Very useful from a practical point of view as well. The focus of this book is on the big picture ideas. The author lays out the important conceptual steps which are vital for success. The more technical details (such as using software) are well covered in other books and this one does not go into those in detail.

Some of the great take aways from this book include; estimating the probability of success of a project, practical strategies for saving projects gone awry, how to review proposed projects before the expensive work begins.

I am glad I bought this book.

After working for various consulting companies I have discovered that the best have established processes that are based on project management and customer satisfaction, and the worst have no processes at all. This book provides a recipe from going from worst to best.

This is the second of Mr. O'Connell's books that I have read. The first was Running Successful Projects, in which he provides excellent advice on how to effectively and skillfully manage projects. In How to Run Successful High-Tech Project-Based Organizations he extends these practices to organizations, and does so by providing a step-by-step approach and a performance model that is the basis for company-wide processes.

He gives ten steps that every consulting or service company needs to incorporate, and does so in a clear and methodical manner. The steps themselves are easy, the barrier is leadership and management from the top. Unfortunately, Mr. O'Connell doesn't address how to get management on board, but that is outside of the scope of this book. My personal view is Mr. O'Connell advises and the wise will abide.

I thought that the two strongest chapters in this book were the organization-wide status report, which is sorely missing in too many companies, and the program for project-based organization. The organization-wide status report is the key to achieving teamwork because it communicates to the entire company and makes everyone a stakeholder in the company's success instead of relegating them to a cog in an impersonal machine. This, by the way, is one of the most basic tenets of good leadership, and the lack of leadership is why too many consulting companies are in chaos, have abysmal records for execution, and poor client satisfaction.

Part three of this book offers the real roadmap to success: treating your organization as a project. This is a unique approach and is really an excellent foundation for strategic and tactical planning. I saw how this aspect of Mr. O'Connell's approach provides the essence of a vision, mission statement and values.

This book, if read and taken to heart at the right level in a consulting company (or any other kind of company that delivers services), can make the difference between achieving world-class status and extinction. There would be less material for Dilbert cartoons if everyone read this book and applied the information.

Really it is a great book to read. All High-tech Project managers should read it. Easy to read, well organized, direct to the point approach, makes it an useful book.

I was born in Assisi, in Italy 800 years ago. And eight centuries later I still remember a thing or two.

You can tell from that opening sentence of Carretto's book on St.Francis that you are going to enjoy it and find it easy reading. it. Francis is an imaginary dialogue between the reader and the saint of Assisi.

The book outlines Francis' life in a chatty and breezy style, and as he tells the bare details of his story, he makes provocative comments on modern issues with a singular simplicity and clarity. Who else but one speaking in the voice of Francis could describe the parodox of the Church with such direct insight?

"Until now I had not properly understood what the ministry of the Church consisted of: sinfulness and infallibility; bad example and safety on the march along the road; fearful blindness in the shepherds, and .the certainty "of reaching the Promised Land with them.
Now I saw, and was glad to . . . have had Rome's approval.
I felt a peace.
I felt myself to be on solid rock.
I felt myself to be in God's design."

There's real comfort to be gleaned from that brutal honesty.

I found the book gave great enjoyment by combining the narrative of Francis' life with the comment. The account of Francis' wealthy upbringing and bourgeois aspirations to knighthood, his conversion, the beginnings of his little band is accurate. How the 800-year-old Francis now feels about his young manhood is told with the perspective and amusement of old age.

As is usual in Lives of St. Francis, the rest of his life takes less space in the book, but at least Carretto takes the middle years seriously and sees in them more depth and struggle than some other writters have done.

The author makes much use of the charming legends in the "Little Flowers of Saint Francis". He takes them with an uncompromising literalness which helped me see greater strength in Francis' spirituality.

"Are you astonished if the wood of St Mary of the Angels seems to catch fire at night while we are praying.

Does it seem strange to you that roses should bloom in winter?

And that wolves grew tame?

And that fish would listen to us?

No, brothers and sisters, rather be surprised if the opposite occurs,' be astonished if you see the sky unmoved and indifferent to your joy."

In an original and entertaining way, Carlo Carretto has given a lot of food for thought on issues as diverse as Christian feminism, non-violence (which he calls the twentieth century expression of true poverty), death and . suffering, and the signs that really speak of the Church's love.

"Every Christian house . . . should keep a door open to welcome those in trouble. And if possible, the door should be easy to find and not too frightening for the poorest, with halls not too brilliant, staircases not too mammoth - signs rather of might and grandeur than of humility and truth."

An underlying theme in this book deserves mention. Carretto sees in Francis part of the madness of being a saint - a follower of Jesus.

"Look at what Peter of Bernadone's boy has got into his head!
He has certainly gone mad.
Yes, my friends of Assisi, I have gone mad.
But if you only knew my madness!
I am mad with love.
I can no longer help it.
I can no longer resist.
If I but look Jesus in the eye, I am on fire right down to my insides.
Don't you know that my Most High Lord is God's Son?"

My criticism of "I, Francis" is that Carretto doesn't explore the dark side of this madness, certainly present in Francis of Assisi - the ruthlessness and the irresistible urge sometimes to bully the brothers under his authority, and the irritating inconsistencies within the company of brothers caused by Francis' violently wavering temperament.

Using the device of speaking as Francis, Carrretto has given us an entertaining, provocative and inspiring book, but one which is strangely unsatisfying. Perhaps, as Francis himself would, Carretto is forcing on us the conclusion that the obsessive study of Jesus, not of Francis of any other saint, brings true satisfaction.

© Ted Witham, 1983. First published in the Anglican Messenger, July 1983.
.Published in "Span", the journal of the Society of St Francis, Australian Province, August 1983..

This book describes the life of Francis of Assisi, his humanness and his deep spirituality, told through the eyes of Francis in modern times. You truly come to know Francis, and are inspired by his actions to lead a more simple and spiritual existance and to draw yourself completely into the arms of a loving God. This is one of the best short books that I've read in a long time. I'd read it again in a heartbeat and refer to it whenever I need to be rejeuvenated in my faith.

This book is simply wonderful, written by a man who knew very well and loved the places where Francis lived his life, and knew so much of His spiritualty. This book is a way to discover the life and beliefs of the man of Assisi, to make it nearer to us, to refer his culture to the culture of our days. After having read this Carretto's book you couldn't love Francesco D'Assisi, no matter what your faith or belief is.

This book has been one of the more practical and realistic books I have read while an education administration student. It is a very easy read for very busy people. The book is well organized and offers some valuable commentary by practicing school administrators. I would recommend it for someone who is beginning a school leadership role as a new administrator, or if you are still early in your career and starting at a new school.

Dr. Alvy was indeed the best Principal I ever had. If anyone is qualified to write a book on this topic he is. May others be inspired to be as great a Principal as he is.

This book is packed with information pertaining to the principalship. There are scenarios and information throughout the book that gives readers a glimpse of their future expectations in the Educational Leadership profession.

This book offers a valuable insight into the attitudes of military personnel who were stationed in Bosnia to implement the Dayton Accord. I have read many books on Bosnia which have fuelled my indignation at how the international community stood by and let the Serbs mount what is tantamount to a genocidal war against Bosnian Muslims. This book gives an idea of how military people felt about the Bosnian issue. Their attitudes range from the idealistic and noble to short-sighted and complacent ( in fact some will fill you with rage at their indifference). It is rare that one encounters a book dealing with a major historical issue which allows the ordinary person, albeit a soldier, to articulate their views so openly. The photographs are excellent and Mr Wolfe Murray's introduction is very insightful. It would, however, have been even more interesting to have a similar book which gives voice to those UN troops who were there at the height of the conflict.

The book was given to me by the author himself with dedication and as soon as I read it it became my absolute favourite. IFOR on IFOR has the largest accumulation of reviews, interviews and facts as well as interesting thoughts not only by the author himself but by the interviewed soldiers as well. As the author is in Bosnia from 1993, he knows the situation so if you need a close-up look on our rugged country check this book out.

Bosnia has pretty much faded into the background of American concern. When the American Division of the NATO Implementation Force (IFOR) rolled in on December 1995, the spotlight was on Bosnia and Americans became aware of the military role that their forces would play in the Balkans. Out of the tragedy and confusion of war came a book entitled "Cry Bosnia" by Paul Harris which chronicled the war in Bosnia itself through words and pictures.

Inspired by the success of Cry Bosnia, Ruppert Murray decided to write a similar book which would focus on the peacekeepers themselves rather than the political elements of Bosnia. His idea was merely to write minimal text with pictures but as he began to interview the soldiers and have them share their opinions, backgrounds and experiences the book began to take a life of its own. IFOR on IFOR is the soldiers' stories of their perceptions of why and how they came to Bosnia and what they feel their presence will accomplish.

The book is divided into three sectors representing the United States of America Division, the British Division and the French Division. He interviews the men and women of the armed forces who candidly share their views with him. Listen to these young warriors as they share their apathy, hope, and naivite in sharing their views of their deployment. The voices are diverse within each division and you can see the differences of opinions that run from nation to nation. The insights you get are extraordinary.

On a personal note, I was deployed to Bosnia and stayed there for a year. Everything that you have read, heard and seen in these interviews are what I experienced with this group of international soldiers. I highly recommend this book to you in getting the story of the soldier. Six copies returned home with me and many more were purchased for friends and relatives. This is an excellent chronicle in pictures and words.

I'm an American based in Japan and working all over Asia. I found this book to be an outstanding analysis of the relationships between Americans and their foreign colleagues or customers.

It's written from a business perspective more so than an academic perspective. Although the style is a bit heavy, I still found many of the anecdotes entertaining.

In the past four years, I have used Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace with over 500 community college students interested in cultural differences from a business perspective. This book provides a useful structure for thinking and talking about both the theoretical foundations of global diversity as well as the practical implications of working cross culturally - - whether from a desk in the USA or traveling and working abroad. The book is well-organized and includes thoughtfully selected, real-life examples of cultural differences (which I, as an overseas expatriate of 20 years can verify). The real value of the book is in these multiple examples which give readers a sense of the rich diversity of our globalized world and the importance of encountering business people from other cultures (both within the USA and abroad) with an awareness of, and sensitivity to, cultural priorities. The case study in the chapter on negotiations with other cultures is particularly well-conceived and useful.

In the past four years, I have used Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace with over 500 community college students interested in cultural differences from a business perspective. This book provides a useful structure for thinking and talking about both the theoretical foundations of global diversity as well as the practical implications of working cross culturally - - whether from a desk in the USA or traveling and working abroad. The book is well-organized and includes thoughtfully selected, real-life examples of cultural differences (which I, as an overseas expatriate of 20 years can verify). The real value of the book is in these multiple examples which give readers a sense of the rich diversity of our globalized world and the importance of encountering business people from other cultures (both within the USA and abroad) with an awareness of, and sensitivity to, their cultural priorities. The case study in the chapter on negotiations with other cultures is particularly well-conceived and useful.

There are a great many very good psychological thrillers out there, but this is the only one that satisfactorily explains how a person becomes a psychotic killer. All the others just expect you to accept that a person is a psychotic killer. I've always been fascinated by psychotics but never understood how someone becomes psychotic. Now that I understand it, I'm going back to re-read all my favorites. All you other novelists beware, Rick Lacey has just raised the bar. If you don't really understand psychosis and the psychotic transformatic experience, find another career because readers won't just blindly accept your characters anymore.

Involuntary Separation: Corporate Downsizing Gone Fatally Wrong by Rick Lacey is a compelx and deftly written novel about murder in the upper management of an international oil company. Revenge, suicide, and one man's single-minded obsession to halt corporate downsizing make for an exciting and savage unfolding drama that will compell the reader's total attention from first page to last. Also highly recommended is Rick Lacey's early novel Cat Fever.

John McCall finds his boss murdered, still seated at his desk with a bullet through his head. The letters ISP have been carefully written in marker with the P around the bullet wound. ISP, involuntary separation seems to be a powerful motive, but with hundreds of past employees laid off and hundreds more potentially threatened, suspects abound. Oddly, the victim was not that heavily involved in the previous downsizing and would not have been involved in the next one either.

John has already worked with the police on a previous case. Two years ago his wife Alicia and her best friend were brutally raped and murdered. While investigating Alicia's murder, police received so many calls from John's office phone late at night that they labeled him a workaholic with extreme dedication to Moon Oil. John is equally dedicated to ending corporate layoffs targeted to artificially inflate quarter reports. His dedication proves to be his downfall when Moon Oil uses his financial computer model to justify downsizing.

With rumors flying regarding another downsizing, John intends to find a way to stop it. His long-term financial forecasting models predict dire consequences for the economy if corporations continue to downsize, but John has not as yet been able to predict short-term negative results. When a second board member is murdered and ISP is found be brutally slashed on his belly, every employee of Moon Oil, past and present, becomes suspect. Meanwhile, the chairman of the board assigns John to keep an eye on Beatrice Winter because she has "the eyes of a killer".

Author Rick Lacey makes restitution for his own participation in a sever corporate downsizing at BP Oil by drawing upon his personal experiences as a Senior Financial Analyst in INVOLUNTARY SEPARATION. Lacey admits that INVOLUNTARY SEPARATION was written to start a national dialogue regarding corporate abuse in general and corporate downsizing in particular. The novel's psychotic killer seek revenge even while exposing the dangerous power plays that occur behind fancy boardroom doors. While the primary murder plot will hold readers riveted, it is the exposure of big business that will make readers indignant and angry with the abuses corporations perpetrate on their employees. Indeed, corporate abuses abound with an eye only for the next quarter: never mind the devastation to America's families and workforce, not to mention to the long term health of the company. Consequently, the novel succeeds with a powerful tale that affects every citizen of America. In addition, Lacey's sophisticated prose will appeal to literature lovers who enjoy a touch of metafiction, irony, and satire. Note: Some discerning readers will be ethically challenged by John's evolving personal relationship with his psychiatrist. INVOLUNTARY SEPARATION comes very highly recommended.

Fr. Byron is the pastor of my church, Holy Trinity, in Georgetown, DC. In this artfully written work, he explores the essence of Ignatian spirtuality applied to education and being an educator, or simply day to day living and being part of the wonderful circle of friends who try, as well as each of them can, to live by the principles of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.

Jesuit Saturdays reads easily and I was anxious to keep turning to the next page to learn another gem of wisdom from Fr. Byron. I overwhelmingly recommend this book to anyone who wants to plant the first seed or nourish his or her on-going spirituality and perhaps learn better what God's will for her/him is.

Am not in the habit of reading "religious" books. But, someone had given this book to me - and noticed that coincidentally, it was by the same author as this one spiritual book I had picked up several years back while visiting Georgetown University. Really can relate to the language and practical philosophy that Fr. Byron uses to convey his points - true to Jesuit form. Even more impressive is how well-read Fr. Byron seems to be - from philosophy, to politics and business. Would highly recommend to everyone, but particularly to those who are interested or working in politics and business.

These days Jesuits and their co-workers, particularly in the educational apostolate, are trying to elaborate together their shared mission in common awareness of the centuries-old Jesuit tradition. Fr. William Byron here makes his own valuable and informed contribution to the cause, drawing on fifty years of experience, much of it in key administrative positions, summing up some of his recent keynote speeches, and citing extensively individuals and institutions involved in the world-wide Jesuit apostolate. He writes of the founder of the Jesuits, the reasons they are in education, the kind of alumni they seek to form, discernment and choice, service of others, celibacy, being a responsible individual in community, proper use of talents, the value of the cross, and the question of vocations to the Jesuit order. He shares with us as within a family everything from the highest ideals of the order to the difficulties of using community cars. Anyone who wants to know about the Jesuits could profit from this book, but it's particularly aimed at those who work in the Jesuit schools, and its individual chapters would be especially useful as topics for their common discussion. A correction: the book has 112 pages, not 260.

A 'must have' for any feminist's library. I would have liked to have it in hardback though.

Those going to this book for traditional feminist theology may come away disappointed. It can perhaps be understood more as a critique of feminism than an endorsement. Observe how Bynum, perhaps the most respected medievalist in the United States, sheds considerable doubt on some standard Seminary mythology:

"It was not women who originated female images of God.... such language is in no way the special preserve of female writers... There is no reason to assert, as some have done, that the theme of the motherhood of God is a 'feminine insight.' Moreover it is not at all clear, although many scholars assume it, that women are particularly drawn to feminine imagery" (140).

Bynum goes on to explain that in the Middle Ages, feminine God images were occasionally employed by men, specifically abbots, "because they needed to supplement their image of authority with that for which the maternal stood" (154). Interestingly enough, women writers used such imagery much more rarely, if at all. "Jesus as Mother" can therefore be contextually explained as a response to leadership challenges in medieval monasteries, not as a long-suppressed feminine ethos:

"The theme of God's motherhood is a minor one in all writers of the high Middle Ages except Julian of Norwich. Too long neglected or even repressed by editors and translators, it is perhaps now in danger of receiving more emphasis than it deserves" (168).

Instead, what stands out in the writings of twelfth and thirteenth century nuns of Helfta is their theological orthodoxy:

"Unlike the God of the fourteenth-century mystics (Julian of Norwich or Eckhart , for example), the God of [Gertrude's] visions is tough... There appears to have been a moment in the thirteenth century at which the growing sense of man's likeness to God - expressed not only in the later medieval emphasis on Christ's humanness and the rich variety of homey and natural metaphors for the divine but also in the new confidence about man's capacity for intimate union with God - was still balanced by older images of an awesome God, totally unlike man, who rules a universe... This thirteenth-century combination of likeness and unlikeness underlay the optimism and strength of the piety of Helfta" (255).

Bynum's book, then, is in agreement with another medieval historian, Barbara Newman, who in another misleadingly titled book, "From Virile Woman to WomanChrist," wrote:

"It was not because of their commitment to feminism, self-empowerment, subversion, sexuality, or 'the body' that [medieval woman] struggled and won their voices; it was because of their commitment to God" (p. 246).

Shortly after Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in 2006, she gave a sermon in which she referred to "our mother Jesus." This caused gnashing of teeth in some Anglican circles, whose members accused her of appealing to "radical feminist theology." But in fact, as historian Caroline Walker Bynum demonstrated twenty-five years earlier in this wonderful and ground-breaking collection of essays, the feminization of Jesus (and occasionally of God the Father) wasn't unknown in 12th century Cistercian monastic writings. And no one can accuse these high middle age monks of radical feminist theology.

Bynum's Jesus as Mother actually contains five erudite but enjoyably readable essays. They deal in one way or another with spirituality in the 12th and 13th centuries. The final essay, "Women Mystics in the Thirteenth Century: The Case of the Nuns of Helfta," is especially fine, and is long enough to be a short book in its own right. But the essay that's attracted the most attention is the fourth: "Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twenfth-Century Cistercian Writing."

In this carefully crafted and utterly nonpolemical essay, Bynum demonstrates that Cistercian models of community and leadership were frequently thought of in maternal terms, and these in turn were adapted from maternal metaphors to describe the nurturing and loving qualities of Jesus. The relationship between monk and abbot was often spoken of in mother-child terms, just as was the relationship between Christian and Christ. No 12th-century Cistercian would've thought the expression "our mother Jesus" unusual or heretical. On the contrary, he would've thought it nicely captured the essence of the Christian story.

How marvelous that an all-male environment in a time too often referred to by us as the "dark ages" should've so enriched discourse about Jesus and God. Surely the "dark ages" have things to teach us.

Readers who enjoy Jesus as Mother may want to take a look at more of Bynum's work. A particular favorite of mine is Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. I look forward to reading her recently released (2007) Wonderful Blood.