Organizations Books

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.

Collaboration is the way to help students overcome a variety of issues they face in today's tough world. By learning to work together in a safe environment, they develop lifelong skills that will help them with all interpersonal relationships. Home and community and school need to work together to educate children. McCaleb offers reasons why and how to accomplish the important task of interweaving the culture of these 3 elements in the children's lives. Sharing stories and creating books together is a great way to come together and also to create lasting memories.

This book provides the reader with classroom ideas to incorporate the family, communities, students, and teacher in the school curriculum. The teachers in the book suggest many different tactics to approach very diverse students and their families. McCaleb wants the students to realize that they are important in society, by showing them how others have succeeded. Students bring many experiences into the classroom, and teachers should build from those experiences to make their education more meaningful for the student

"This book explains how to use behavioral competencies to link human resource (HR) systems to an organization's purpose. This linkage will help organizations better communicate to associates about how they can effectively guide their own actions...The book is written for human resource professionals, who strive to link their organization's core competencies, capabilities, values, and priorities to its human resource applications...You can expect this book to recognize and reinforce important distinctions between an organization's strategic core competencies and its individual competencies and skills. Although these distinctions are obvious to business strategists, they are a source of confusion for many in human resources who want to use competencies to reflect vision, culture, and values" (from the Preface).

In this context, Paul C. Green divides his book into two main parts:

I. Clarifying Competencies: In this part;

* He argues that "robust competencies help you define what was done, what is being done, and what needs to be done." And hence, he sets the stage for building robust competencies by identifying the ambiguities, challenges, and rewards of using competencies.

* He explores the different meanings of competencies that are used in organizations and research. And he argues that "HR competency system must be job related and should reflect core competencies, capabilities, core values, and priorities."

* He discusses operationalizing performance skills to enable you to use behavioral observation, description, and inference to communicate clearly what a person needs to do to do a job well. Here he says that "a behavior is an action that you can observe, describe, and verify."

* He explores how the identity of an organization can become the target for alignment, and discusses how an organization's identity can be reflected in and reinforced by interviews, appraisal, coaching, and training.

II. Linking Competencies to Human Resource Systems: In this part, after briefly discussing perception-driven, experience-driven, attribute-driven, and behavior-driven approaches, he offers behavioral approach to link interviews, appraisals, coaching, and training to the identity of an organization. It emphasizes a systemic, job-related approach to support the effectiveness and defensibility of an HR system. He argues that "the linkage of HR applications is easier when the organization consistently uses a behavioral approach. Once behavioral language is used in one part of an HR system, it can be expanded to other applications."

Finally, he says that "the best answers to questions about core competencies, capabilities, core values, and priorities come from real experiences in applying them. Today, each answer is just an opinion at one point in time. However, the big question for the future will be: How can I link HR systems to my organization's identity? At present the most useful answers are those that emphasize a behavioral approach, job relatedness, nimbleness, and open mindedness."

Highly recommended.

Dr. Green demonstrates that the job analysis which is the basis of behavioral interviews, is also the cornerstone upon which competencies, PD's, interviews, coaching, performance measurement, and training are all built. Once the use of behavioral thinking is understood by the manager, the development of the tools and methods for selecting, developing, and managing successful people will flow from the analysis of the behaviors needed for success in any specific job.

Dr. Green goes beyond the individual in applying behavioral understandings and tools, taking them to the organizational level as well. He clearly demonstrates the linkage between high performing individuals, and high performing organizations.

A must read for any manager using Behavioral Interviewing, any trainer teaching Behavioral Interviewing, or any manager tired of spending a disproportionate share of their time and energy dealing with poor performance, low productivity, and poor morale.

While you can easily read it in a few days, you will want your own copy to highlight, make notes in, and refer to from time to time as you grow as a manager.

Based on Igor Ansoff award winning study, this book is an invaluable reference for all executives who are interested in strategy and living organizations of the 21st century.

This exceptional book presents an in-depth, scholarly examination of flexible organizations. It provides a framework (or strategic approach) to guide decision makers in developing an organization able to quickly adapt to hyper-competitive challenges. The author shows that to be successful, organizations require a paradoxical balance between flexibility (viewed as the managerial task) and sufficient stability to exploit change (seen as the organization design task). In other words, firms need to balance creativity, innovation, and speed with clarity of focus, coordination and control. This is an extraordinarily thoughtful work that delves deeply into this complex strategic challenge. It includes a comprehensive questionnaire for measuring the environment and the organization in terms of turbulence, flexibility and other dimensions. Highly recommended to all executives engaged in organizational design and strategic planning, and who are willing to tackle an intellectually! demanding book that is well worth the effort.

When I first picked up this book, I was afraid that I wouldn't understand the topic very well. However, I found that I was hooked from the start. The issues of dysfunction that come from working in corporate america have at times been devastating for me, yet the book helped me heal the internal rifts in my own thinking AND CREATED AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND MY OWN ABILITY TO BALANCE ME IN CONJUNCTION WITH MY PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL LIFE CHOICES.

The dual process paradigms were helpful to me and I found that it empowered me, my team, my life partner.

Thank you for the book.

You might want to try the other books by this man, they are just as good.

Theme of this work is the need to bring together the decisions of organizations and the choice making of people to avoid dysfunctional behavior. Using research, the author delves into the psychology of the relationships between people and organization. This is a thoughtful, highly informative book.

99.5% of illustrators are now self employed. At one time there were full-time employed illustrators on staff in most advertising agencies, but now that has drastically changed, and an illustrator has to learn how to start his/her own business just like any other entrepreneur. This book is great in giving you realistic advice and guidelines. I strongly disagree with the person that wrote that an illustrator needs a rep for their business. Your statement was correct, you are not an illustrator. I am a career advisor that also helps students with placement at an art college. (As well as being in the art field as a graphic designer and illustrator for 20 years.) The business of illustration is supply and demand. You must promote and market yourself, just like any other business. You also have to be good, fast and learn how to develop good communication skills. Yes, an artist can learn those skills if they choose to. Art as a profession demands the same respect as any other field. It is not a hobby when you are making a living at it. A rep is always an option, but never a must. My advice to any student who wishes to pursue illustration as a career is, you have to be serious, dedicated and willing to put your heart and soul into it. The art field as a profession is probably one of the most demanding fields. It is extremely deadline oriented and does not have 9-5 hours. As a self-employed business, you will have peaks, sometimes working 7 days a week, 12 plus hours a day. You have to learn how to deal with different personalities, understanding you may not have ownership of your work. Not every artist is cut out or willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make art their career. It is very rewarding though, if you don't let your ego get in your way.

I hate to disagree with the other reviewer but, frankly, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Mr. Heller has written a wonderful book explaining the ins and outs of the illustration industry and it's crucial that ALL illustrators read it. The illustration industry is going through a terrible time at the moment with large corporations preying on the lonely illustrator, so it doesn't surprise me that the businessman below feels that illustrators shouldn't know their business!! Illustration IS a business, not a hobby and should be treated as such. Business and art can co-exist and illustrators can be some of the most creative business people I know.

Mr. Heller is a well respected Art Director/Author and you would do well to head his advice.

I have personally used the information in this book to buy two small businesses. Mancuso's advice was invaluable to me. If you have what it takes to run a business and want to do so, but don't know where to start, this book is for you.

I am reading it at present.....you can only read a few pages at a time...then you must stop to think and let the ideas formulate. There is so much content, so much useful information and frankly, in an area where frustration and fear of failure become frequent visitors, this book gives you the sense that it can be done, it is possible, and here's how the others did it..........I like this book because it tells you about Main Street not Wall Street, and how to use OPM to buy your business to operate...when so much is about fast-buck merchants flipping and spinning.

I think this book is really helpful and one of the very best I have read.......pity Amazon has deleted it from its catalogue

Wilkes' introduction to the Roman army may be near to three decades old now but it is still te standard text on the Roman army. Clearly written and well supported by the ancient evidence, it is an excellent book for both graduate and undergraduate student and a good beginning point for further research if one makes sure to review more current scholarship.

I have had an interest in the Armies of Imperial Rome for four years now, and have read a lot of different books about them. I bought this one more for the sake of a young family member who shares that interest, and it will suit that purpose well.

Though it is pretty dated, this text is still very accurate in its information. It focuses primarily on the Roman Army under Traianus (Trajan, 98-117) and Hadrianus (Hadrian, 117-138), but makes mention of soldiers and tactics from the 1st-4th Centuries AD. It is a pretty short book, and doesn't waste a lot of time on jargon. It does not really make an attempt to entertain the reader, but at the same time is not dull to read (I read it in less than an hour).

The author summarizes the equipment and recruitment of the legionaries and the auxiliaries, and also takes a useful look at Roman artillery. Included are a useful chart showing the command organization of a legion, and maps showing the main recruitment areas for the 2nd Century Empire. There are a number of black and white photos as well as some interesting and well-done line illustrations of the troops, and the front and back covers both show reenactors of the Ermine Street Guard.

Overall, I would reccomend this book for either a young reader (maybe about 8-14) or an older person who is just now getting their feet wet in the study of the Roman Army. For you veterans of Roman military history, however, this book probably doesn't have anything new for you.

Today, the difficulty for business leadership, especially in high technology fields is to lead a team towards a "vision". Kelly Johnson from the famed Skunkworks was a visionary with a way of getting his team to see the vision and develop a path towards solutions through his unique way of attacking the problems. Time and time again, he was able to bring to market his breakthrough products faster than everybody else. The process of "Solution Envisioning through Capability Cases" employs a disciplined method for taking a "vision" and getting a team to map through a solution space using capability cases.

Although primarily introduced as an IT domain, this method can be applied to the "hard" manufacturing as well. The difficulty for today's leaders is that the competitive landscape is changing so rapidly. The combination of Moore's Law & Metcalf's Law is yielding a competitive business enviornment that requires very agile development and careful investment of research and development funds. The timelines are so compressed, that a new paradigm for bringing new capabilities to market has to change. Those companies that can survive the near term will do very well and those that are stuck in their process domains will suffer the same fate as the dinasours. Similarly, as the budget for the DoD goes down and more emphasis is placed on NetCentric capabilities, those programs that can execute quickly and show wide benefit, through Capabilities Based Acquisition process will survive. Those that are narrowly focused will have more difficulties. Solution Envisioning will not solve all, but gives a quick method to sort out what is important to the project by being responsive to the 3 voices (business, customer and technologist). It's like starting with an enterprise architecture, it's a good tool to visualize what the enterprise is about. In this case, solution envisioning helps the team visualize the solution through 3 phases using capability cases as the vehicle.

This book is an excellent read but be prepared to take some time to get through it. It is designed to take the trip in "chunks". I found it very useful and informative and have combined it with other techniques that are outlined in the book such as enterprise architectures, UML Use Case models, influence diagrams, lean thinking, QFD, system engineering, business modeling and others. It has a nice "how to" feature for conducting phased events as well as some great examples of capability cases and envisioning events.

Frank C. Alvidrez, CEA

That the majority of larger system development projects fail to meet expectations is well known. Further, the futility of redoubling efforts to elicit customer requirements is now being recognized. What to do?

The more advanced system thinkers and a few simply lucky practitioners are discovering the value of capabiltiy cases as enablers of solution envisioning.

This book describes 36 aspects of system envisioning, including insights into the mysterious decision flow called system architecting. It provides a repertoire of 15 example Capability Cases. Further, it shows the reader how capability cases can be defined, thusly bootstrapping his/her repertoire. Moreover, it shows how new capability cases can be shared and vetted thus leveraging the 'wisdom of crowds.'

Invest in this book. Because it costs less than one wasted personhour of project effort your ROI can be very high.

I bought this book for myself when I owned a house that was built in 1930. I have since sold the house but the book was so helpful I now plan to give it as a gift.

Upon completing an historic preservation workshop at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest in Virginia this fall, a staff member recommended this book to me. It been a tremendous resource to me in my restoration of the Peter Elliott House.