Business Books

It took me a while to read but I was sad when it ended.
I came upon this book one day and saw the reviews and
decided I needed to read about this man.
A very well written biography of one of our Great American
business men. I enjoy reading biographies and this one
really kept my interest. The art work Mellon purchased
is outstanding. I must go to the museum in Washington
and view this outstanding art work. Mellon lived a very
intriquing life. I truly enjoyed this biography.

It is a complete history of the Mellon family from their immigration from Ulster in 1815 to the death of Andrew Mellon. It absolutely shows the vindictiveness of Franklin Roosevelt in his attempt to convict Andrew of tax evasion and the generosity of Andrew with his gift of the National Gallery of Art and its original paintings to the people of the United States.

This beautifully written and fascinating portrait of Andrew Mellon is the single most compelling biography I can ever remember reading, as well as the most interesting history lesson I've ever had. An amazing piece of work.

Cannadine exceeded expectations on a number of fronts with this definitive biography of Andrew Mellon. It has everything you'd expect from a grade-A biography, laying out where Mellon's family came from (both physically and philosophically), how Mellon grew up, his rise, peak, eventual fall from grace, death and legacy. Not only that, but Cannadine does all of this exceedingly well, giving his reader a sense of the nuances and subtleties of Mellon's personality and life. If Cannadine had done nothing else, he'd still have written a five-star book.

This book goes beyond most rock-solid biographies that I've read in Cannadine's sensitivity to the larger meaning of the events in Mellon's life, his place in history and his impact even after his death. While this sensitivity is present throughout Cannadine's book, it really comes together in in his three-part epilogue, which you will absolutely not want to miss, it is the highlight of the book.

The first point Cannadine develops is that Mellon's life straddled the line between two different eras in American history. He shows how Mellon, without changing his behaviors, was perceived one way for much of his life, then a totally different way at the end of his life. Through his awareness of this point, Cannadine really demonstrates to the reader how radical the shift in sentiment was in America in the 1930s.

The second point Cannadine is aware of, as any successful biographer of a great historical figure must be, is the idea that Mellon was a human being with some great strengths and some great flaws. In my experience, people who have the strengths to accomplish the most often have corresponding weaknesses to go with them; Cannadine really makes this point clear in his epilogue, doing a "balance sheet" of positives and negatives of Mellon's character and accomplishments. I've never seen an author take even-handed analysis to a similar place, and it really helped bring together the books ideas at the end.

Finally, Cannadine captures a truth about life, society and politics that imbues the book with a sense of sadness. It becomes obvious that many (though certainly not all) of the good things that happen to Mellon happen out of chance. Similarly, when bad things happen to Mellon, most (again, not all... his divorce comes to mind as an obvious exception) of them are undeserved. Mellon dies near the low point of his public popularity, suffering primarily for sins he did not commit.

I highly recommend this book for lovers of biography and history, it is truly a step beyond a really good biography.

What I found interesting about this book is that is a history lesson in American business and early regulatory policies that shaped the landscape we see today. At the same time, it is a story of classic love and betrayal. I found the author doing a great job when the story focused on Mellon's marriage and the demise of such, but he tended to become a bit lost in the details when describing all of the political ups and downs. Overall, a fine book and great American story

I loved this little book! Not only was it a quick read, but it was also filled with a variety of solidly helpful information for new and experienced screenwriters. I found the "10 Point Checklist for Completed Scripts", the "Big Eight" and the section on pitching particularly useful and now put the information to use on every project. The book is certainly worth more than you pay for it!!

After writing my first screenplay, I was stuck on how to sell it. I have ran my own business for over tens years and have a natural flare for marketing - thinking that selling a script would be commonsense WRONG! After reading The Script Selling Game I was blown away by the fantastic real life tips and jargon given. It's motivated me more than ever to see my projects on the silver screen. IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT breaking into Hollywood - You MUST BUY THIS BOOK! It's easy-to-read and only an insider would know how to write it's contents.

The book never forgot who was reading it. If you are at a point in your career where you need guidance in what to do and what's important, this book offers you that. Kathie Yoneda, I feel, just got the balance right between fact, figures and emotion. Kathie actually cares.

The Script-Selling Game is your "Biedecker's", your "Fodor's", or your "Lonely Planet" guide to the exotic, exciting, sometimes confusing, sometimes dangerous yet ultimately rewarding territory of Hollywood Script Sales.

Kathie Fong Yoneda has not only explored this territory, she has actually carved out, tamed, and settled a lot of it in her years as a studio executive. Her expertise in the special jargon, the specific tools, and the appropriate approaches will help you craft an effective presentation of your unique creative project, be it a feature film, a TV series, or any other media production.

Read Kathie's book. Smile, frown, gasp.... Yes, Hollywood can be just as she says. It's a closed world unless you have an interpreter and a guidebook. Thank goodness hers is accessible, informative, specific, and comforting. Well then, follow her guidelines, learn to speak the language, do the currency exchange from creativity-to-commerciality, and watch the barriers go down and the doors open up for you.

An industry veteran of 25 years, Kathie Fong Yoneda is both a story analyst at Paramount and a script consultant. Her background as a development executive gives her an excellent perspective for helping screenwriters can break down the gates to Hollywood. And this book aims to do just that.

The book is divided into four major parts: working on the script, meetings and pitches, submissions and relationships. It is a very clearly structured guide to the do's and don'ts for writers looking for their breakthrough (hint: the first step is to WRITE A GREAT SCRIPT!).

Yonada includes advice on how to behave towards executives, how to find an agent, the special vocabulary used in Hollywood, how to start a writers group, even how to prepare for a conference. All of this is written in a clear manner, making the book a very useful reference.

The downside to this is that most of this information is out there already. If you read screenwriting magazines and keep up with recent books on the business side of screenwriting, there will be very little here you don't know already. Moreover, the book is very "pro-system" -- there is no criticism of the way things are done, and the advice is very much "mainstream" common knowledge.

I don't think this book has very much to offer veteran writers who are already well acquainted with the vagaries of getting their scripts through the Hollywood maze. For writers who are starting out, however, the book will serve very well to inform them about the basics of getting your script sold to Hollywood.

Sometimes a book title can be misleading, but not so in this case. In fact, this book delivers what it offers, with a giant bonus - PR advice that works.

SELL YOURSELF WITHOUT SELLING YOUR SOUL is a guide to succeeding in business and in public life, without losing the essence of who you are...without selling out. Susan's book is filled with wisdom, humor, kindness and realworld PR savvy.

This is a wonderful book for the person who wants more success and more visibility for herself or her cause, within her ethical construct. I highly recommend this book.

Susan Harrow is a media coach and marketing consultant. In "Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul" she explores the ways you can share your passion with the world. If you are looking to promote a product or a cause she explains how to become a polished interviewee. She also shows you how to:

Build name Recognition
Avoid Costly Mistakes
Get Media Attention
Become Mediagenic
Create a Winning Press Kit
Find People who Need Your Product or Service
Get on Oprah!
Wear the Right Clothes for a TV Interview

Throughout this book there are many success stories and Susan Harrow gives helpful and practical applications. Simple things like practicing answers before an interview becomes key to success.

If you have a product to sell this is one of the most important books you may ever read. I've been interviewed numerous times and the advice is excellent. The only book I think you need after reading this book is Feeding the Media Beast: An Easy Recipe for Great Publicity.

~The Rebecca Review

Having read a good number of the reviews of this superb book by Susan Harrow, I'll skip points I am happy to see others have covered so well. I also won't take time to summarize what's in the book so much as what I see pervading it and coming through it.

As a spiritual teacher and "Heart-awakener" with a huge focus on personal integrity and realness, I loved finding these two qualities radiating off every page with a consistency, strength, and confident serenity that can only come from someone who's walking her talk. For me from the title on through to the index, the book is a huge sigh of relief. There's so much hype in the world of publicity and marketing. I have to confess that even as a successful teacher of self-awareness and personal and relational integrity it's a struggle for me to read the compass clearly as I attempt to bring my work forward into the clamor of the marketplace. It's a challenge to make both audible and intelligible sounds that still ring entirely true to who I am and who my wife and partner Linda and I are together in our work. Underneath and shining through every single detail, Susan is initiating us neophytes and, I'm sure, many veterans with her obvious mastery of that profoundly intimate craft. That's the main reason I call the book a "publicity with integrity bible." In our time mature trueness to our heart and soul is the necessary foundation of all real spirituality and religion, it's the core of faith more than ever before. Without making an untoward display of it--which would ring untrue for her--Susan has written, in this sense, an authentically sacred text on how to make a true personal and creative ritual of the spirit in bringing our hearts and our messages to the world.

There's that word "real" again. Susan's ear and eye for emotional realness, for how ordinary-human we all are no matter how famous, admired, accomplished, and remarkable, pervades the whole book. It helps us approach the often intimidating prospect of publicizing ourselves with at least one foot always firmly on the ground and the other moving straight forward at a sustainable pace--or, whenever it's necessary to pause and take a breath, able to come back to rest on the material and psychic earth right underneath us.

Quite a number of other men have commented on how the book speaks so directly to us too. I agree, and wish to add that I think that's entirely deliberate on the author's part. I hear Susan Harrow saying to everyone, and certainly to men, "If you want to know how to speak both literally to women in the marketplace--and the worlds of publicity, journalism, and PR--and also to 'the Feminine' principle that no one can any longer afford to fail to take into account in any of our undertakings in life, then don't just do the things I urge you to do in this book in your publicity efforts. All that is important, absolutely. But if you really want to get underneath the content and into the context I'm teaching you, then continuallly take a step back and see how I am myself doing exactly the things I'm urging you to do. Study how I frame my communications to you, how carefully and gently I take all of your possible feelings, fears, reactions, and concerns into account, much as I'm urging you to do with everyone in the world of publicity with whom you wish to communicate."

If I'm at all mishearing you, Susan, I do apologize. But I'm delighted to get this message in any case. You've written a most practical approach to a key project in the life-work I call, in one of my own book titles, "Healing the Spirit/Matter Split." I intend to follow your precepts faithfully in every sense of the word and to recommend your good news far and wide. Thank you! --

"Although Susan Harrow's book, Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul, has a subtitle that calls the book "a woman's guide," I highly recommend it for men, too. If you have a message that you want to spread to the masses, Harrow teaches you everything you need to know about publicity in full detail. Both the beginner and the experienced will benefit. I wish more authors read her book before contacting my magazine. They would certainly increase their chances of getting reviewed."
~ Bob Olson, OfSpirit.com Magazine editor

The title is a bit misleading in that this book is not solely for women. The author may have initially intended it for women, but this book is for everyone! The author's caring and compassion and her obvious intelligence and spirit come through in a way that makes the reader know that there is truth and solid application in it.

Read it, learn from it, apply it, and benefit from it. It's that simple.

This book works like a charm. I went to my first interview with a fire dept. and did horrible on my interview. I placed 42 on that hire list. A friend told me about this book so I bought it. My very next interview, with a different dept, which was only a month after the first dept. I aced the interview and I am now #2 on thier list. This is a must have book.

THIS BOOK WORKS/HELPS!!
Several of the questions on my interview were almost verbatim from this book. Having no previous fire service experience to draw from, this book gave me some insight into firehouse "psychology." I did very well on my interview and was hired on.
After reading this book cover to cover about 4 times in the month preceeding my interview, I feel it gave me an edge on the questions and what the interviewers were looking for.
I recommended this book to another candidate and he was hired also about a year later into our department.

This book will be a great asset for anyone preparing for their panel interview or B-pad video test. Is a small price to pay for a good investment.

Just on the first couple of pages and so far I have learned so much wonderful information! This book is so helpful.

Deanna's Husband Jay says....Best book I've used to help candidates get promoted or hired. So far my rate with this book is 100%. Granted we live in a small community there has been ten who have used this book and have either been hired or promoted. This is a must have if your looking for a job as a Firefighter.

A great book that uses a gardening analogy to teach how to improve your sales ability. Even though I'm not a sales professional, this book gave me excellent ideas how to go about improving customer relationships in my consulting business. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to build relationships with other people.

Top sales performers are rare. They consistently exceed plan year after year. The secrets of consistent overachievement are clearly laid out in SPROUT! Having personally nutured some some of the top sales overachievers in the Medical Industry, I see those key success factors in this easy-to-read book. Sometimes the most simple things are the most powerful. SPROUT! is one of those things.

I read Sprout! in a couple of hours. Once I started I couldn't put it down. I loved the gardening methaphor, the simple elegance of the model and the meaningful insights from the discussions between the key characters. Already, I have reaped the benefits of implementing some of the actions recommended in my own job -- and I'm not even a sales person!

In Sprout!: Everything I Need To Know About Sales I Learned From My Garden, Alan Vengel (consultant, speaker, and educator in management training and organizational development) and Greg Wright (San Diego based business consult) collaborative in using the garden and gardening as a model to illustrate easy and practical ways for sales professionals and managers to generate peer support and motivation. Job burnout rates in professional sales is very high, as a result, the loss of employee talent, experience, and the consequent expenditures for rehiring and re-training replacements is a corrosively expensive drain on the corporate bottom line -- not to mention the emotional toll burnout represents in devastating so many men and women in their careers as sales professionals. By adhering to the "user friendly" steps outlined, explained, and illustrated in Sprout!, salespeople can beat "career blues" and successfully continue in their chosen profession with renewed vigor and appreciation. Very highly recommended reading!

The notion of growing your business like a garden may not seem particularly original, but the direction these authors take their sales advice in is quite fresh. In an unusual and welcome act of focus, they dwell on one aspect of the sales professional's life: how to prolong your career and stick with it, despite the weeds and rocks hurled continually at today's selling professional. Their advice is practical and couched in colorful anecdotes and garden metaphors. Sales advice blooms throughout the story of an imaginary sales professional, Marsha Molloy, who is struggling to get her professional groove back. Since burnout is an epidemic in the sales profession, this book is a valuable addition to the topic. It offers solid advice, or "sales seeds," in a colorful and engaging way. We strongly recommend it to all those who seek to do more than make a sale - and, rather, aim to build a sales career.

Transforming Performance Measurement by Dean Spitzer is recommended reading for anyone who attempts to change the culture of an organization. In a field (over)loaded with data as in education, Dean focused our attention only on the measures that will likely improve performance. Guided by measurements as opposed to intuition, the readers will often find themselves wondering how to measure their contributions toward the team's success.

The book reaffirms the notion that data without context is just isolated facts. Positive transformation occurs when more people within the organization converts data into information, knowledge and finally wisdom. For those who try to capture performance data through integrated technology, you will recognize the common pitfalls of measurement technology cited in the book (pg 160). Unfortunately, some pitfalls may be difficult to avoid even after reading this book.

Finally, the importance of measurement leadership cannot be overstated. Success of scorecards and dashboards depends largely on the "systemic" nature of the implementation. Organization that promotes open discussion about measurement deficiencies will foster the social context necessary to transform its performance.

I highly recommend this book not just for one-time reading. It has moved from my bookshelf to the desktop and remains a great daily reference as our organization moves through the process of transformation.

The code for a new level of performance measurements measuring organizational success has been broken and its secrets are revealed in this book! Dean Spitzer brilliantly helps readers transform performance measurements by combining technical aspects with the often overlooked social aspects of performance. This book is a must read for all who truly want to create and maintain a transformational performance measurements "cultural shift" within their organization.

This book is a 304-page introduction and description of its subject. It tells how and why most measurement schemes yield disappointing results. The author never gets around to telling us how to improve measurement.

This book is a classic example of Bad Business Writing: massive introduction of the subject, followed by interminable discussion of how we get it wrong, followed by enormous build-up for the wisdom we are about to receive. Are we there yet? Not on your life. Next we get a lexicon of the elements of transformational performance measurement: context, focus, integration and interactivity. You may want to write those down, as I won't return to them. Then more buildup:

"When all four keys are working together synergistically, amazing things can, and will, happen to enable the awesome power of measurement to make a real difference--a transformational difference--in your organization!"

I am so ready now.

In a last, desperate attempt to get a plan for actually measuring something, I skipped forward to the chapter with "Action Plans" in the title. Does he begin with action plans? No, more description, more build up, then finally, an actual suggestion, the first needle in this 304-page haystack:

"[A] restaurant staff assign a "mood rating" (from 1 to 10) to each customer party when they enter the establishment and throughout the meal. The goal is to raise the mood rating, with the standard that no one should leave the restaurant with a mood rating below a 9."

I will take this brilliant pearl of wisdom back to my major financial institution and transform our business. Thank you, Mr. Spitzer.

This has to be the absolute best book I have read in this field of performance measurement.

Spitzer goes straight to the heart of what performance measurement is all about - transforming organisational performance - and he makes it crystal clear why it is more about the social system (the people) than the technical systems (dashboards, analysis, data).

His writing style is engaging, filled with great examples and wonderful inspirational quotes and advice from leaders in the management and performance fields.

It isn't a step-by-step how-to book, but it is essential for anyone leading performance measurement and improvement - and anyone leading an organisation - to read, to study and read again.

This book is an excellent example of thought leadership. The concepts presented on performance measurement places a whole new lens on the subject. I congratulate Dr. Spitzer on an excellent piece of work.

As someone who has read dozens of management and leadership books I was curious to see how Tribal Leadership - Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization would be any different from the others. I was pleased to find that it is focused on leaders and the building blocks of any company, the workers. This book describes in detail how to identify where you are in one of five stages. The authors let you know what each stage looks like, sounds like, the pitfalls of and ways to move forward from each one. They do so from the basis of extensive research which is laid out at the back if you want to review it. I found the book to be funny, engaging and useful for any and all workers and levels of management. This is a must read if you want to improve your efforts in the work place and / or become a better leader to others.

Tribal Leadership is the next big idea for organizations looking to move to a higher level of productivity, passion and influence. The concepts and observations presented are easily observable in most organizations. One of the most interesting and challenging concepts seems to be that an organization can really move beyond a competitive mindset to a "greater good" mission or noble cause.

What an amazing book. Infact this is far more than a book it is a guide to creating and building great teams. If you have ever wondered why some team building events don't work this is a must read book. My sincere thanks to the team who put this together. This book will change the way Organisational Development/HR specialists and Performance Consultants go about their work. It is that influential. Like all the best material, simple to understand and powerful in the way it insightfully helps you to see things for what they are.

I have worked in organisational design/business performance and HR for over 20 years and this is one of the most imformative and best books I have ever read. It has reinforced my long held views about the need to understand the dynamics of what makes for a great team. If you also ever wondered why you felt automatically part of some teams and others almost rejected you before you even got started, then this is a 'must read' book. I have become a raving fan and will enthusiatically introduce the concepts and methods, as I have the fortune and privalage, in my day to day work, to make a difference to the lives and work of the thousands of people I come into contact with.

Mark Pym
Director of Reward Matrix & Great Teams

1. Every organization is a small town or tribe.
2. A tribe is a group of 20 to 150 people
3. Tribes get work done
4. Tribes migrate towards excellent work or minimal work
5. Tribes seek the survival of their leader
6. What moves us is the people we met along the way
7. Tribes work because the build strong relationships of trust
8. Building trust depends on engineered experiences that form a frame of reference or a context of trust.
9. Strategy in the tribe becomes everyone's problem
10. Leaders build the tribe.
11. Every tribe has a dominate culture
12. Company gossip, networks feedback, and politics matter in an insecure environment. However, the cost of the information is enormous. Energy and time that could be focused on profits.
13. Leadership in the tribe is effortless to the viewer. Leader is working to recruit the right people and build the tribe culture.
14. Tribes can be classified into five stages: Stage 1: desperately hostile interacts 2. Antagonistic 3. Competitively hoarding resource and talent 4. Team greatness 5. Infinite potential believing the tribe is going to make history.
15. Many professional people reach stage three, saying to themselves, "I'm great and your not!", but find themselves alone and without recognition, in a broken and ungrateful system.
16. People at stage 1 think they are at stage 3 and people at stage 2 think they are at stage 4.
17. Stage 4, looks good but is vulnerable to competition. Companies that are run by people who all have the same background, temperament, personality, IQ, learning style are easy targets for competitors. Disequilibria is necessary to drive innovation and creativity. An awakening must happen. An epiphany is an awakening. Epiphany could be a series of insights leading up to a deeper understanding and vision of what needs to done. When measuring an epiphany, ask yourself two questions: What am I trying to accomplish? And How do I know if we were successful.
18. Look at what people do as a result of leaders efforts. What matters is tribal success. Stage 5, is doing things together that are greater than we could have done alone. Every employee deserves a friend and better a group of friends to accomplish breakway feats.

According to the powerful perspectives offered by this unique take on organizational development, a tribe is a group between 20 and 150 people. Tribes emerge from the language people use to describe themselves. Change the language, change the tribe. Executive coaches will love this resource.

The authors make the point that our first instinct to bring about change in organizations is often to tell people what to do differently. Such a strategy often enhances compliance, but reinforces a sense of powerlessness, and impedes change.

The authors describe five Tribal Stages (centers of gravity) that inform some groups.
1. About 2% of groups - "life sucks" Gangs of individuals who operate without social rules or values except absolute loyalty to the group.
2. 25% of groups- "my life sucks" passively antagonistic, quietly sarcastic and resigned. Seen it all before and watched it fail.
3. 49 % of tribes - "I'm great, and you're not." Knowledge is power. Winning is personal and based on "my" values.
4. 22% of group - "We're great, and they're not." "We" are greater than "me." The bigger the foe, the more powerful the tribe. Based on shared, "our" values. Leaders build the stage on which others perform.
5. 2% of groups - "life is great" Infinite potential of the group - not beat competitor, but make global impact. Based on "global" "resonant" values

Through language, leaders can move the group's center of gravity through progressive stages by focusing on the words people use and the types of relationships they form. Groups can't leap over a stage as they progress. Additionally, culling out `bad apples' is ineffective. If you fire the bottom 10% of performers, the people who remain redistribute to stages others leave.

The authors observe that people's language correlates to the specific tribal stage, nature and structure of their relationships. The book lays out strategies that coaches and leaders can employ to unlock greater productive potential.

To uncover someone's values, ask "What are you proud of?" and follow it up with three to five open-ended questions. Pride ties actions to values. For tribes at stage 2, ask "What ticks you off?" The tone of responses goes from passive to passionate as answers shift from chatter about the surface to their core values.

To progress a tribe to higher stages, the authors suggest finding values that unite and resonate with people in the group. Tribal leaders follow the core values of the tribe no matter what the cost. They keep looking for new ways to express the values. Authenticity is a key - avoid identifying values and then making decisions based on expediency. Such acting above the law disempowers the tribe.

As a coach, help clients set the noble cause by asking "For the sake of what?" Identifying values and establishing a noble cause is a process, not an event. It's more than printing values posters or inscribing a mission statement on employee badges. Instead, leaders talk about values, base decisions on them, and engage tribal members in discussions about what they mean. Most strategies are based on understanding of the external environment, not the highest aspirations of the tribe.

The authors identify five components of Tribal Strategy
1. Values - What we stand for
2. Noble cause - What we live for
3. Outcomes -What we want
4. Assets - What we have
5. Behavior - What we will do

Accountability - outcome vs. goal - a goal is off in the future, it implies a failure in the present. People are motivated by the goals in a crisis, but they lose their drive once the fire is out. An outcome is a present state of success. "We have already succeeded, and this is how it looks at this point in the process (succeeding now with an outcome)

The models and techniques offered by the authors have broad application for executive coaches and for leaders. Definitely well worth the read.

Review by Bruce Ervin Wood

Mark Albion explains a very contemporary balancing act: how to run a business based on values and still make a profit. Companies ranging from Starbucks and Ben & Jerry's to small bakeries and toy makers have prospered while supporting the social concerns of their founders and employees. Building such values-based businesses is not easy. They face the same profit-and-loss problems as other small companies, plus they take on an additional layer of social issues. Albion tells his personal story, buttressed by corporate examples and interviews with 75 owners of values-based businesses. getAbstract suggests this book full of practical advice to anyone who is willing to sign up for the challenge of running a values-based business.

This book gives good insight on how to build a successful business that goes beyond just profitability. Mark Albion describes how to strike a balance between personal values, profitability, corporate social responsibility, and environmental contributions by what he calls the "five values-based leadership practices". I do recommend this book to those interested in learning the characteristics of a values-based business leader.

Joseph Morgan
MBA Student at Loyola University New Orleans

Great information and I will use in my life. Thank you Dr. Mark Albion, you are the best!!!!

While most of my Babson classmates are pursuing jobs in the corporate sector, I am working on a business plan for a values-based business which I hope to start after graduation this December.

Mark, thank you for providing me with a guideline.

--Derek Marin

Poor. It consists of fillers and redundancies that could hypothetically be widdled down to a small pamphlet. Albion throws around trendy managerial phrases throughout, but fails to inform the reader as to how to seriously apply them.

I can't believe I was only introduced to this in a graduate level class, under the humble (and quite vague) disguise of "modern enterprise systems". That said, this book has tremendous applications beyond IE courses. Astonishing and empowering...and I hope it really catches on for those who can handle a transformation free of charge courtesy of Wheeler....I guess IE's have a strong advantage with this one, so it'll be our little secret in the meantime...

This is not for the Acacdemic, It doesn't explain the satistical mathematics behind the techniques, but it is a good solid recipe book with solid advice on understanding the nature of variation and application of process control. Get's right to the heart of the practice.
Good job.

While I agree with a couple of other reviews that this book is high-level and superficial, this is an excellent resource to start discussions about variation. In an organization where we are new to process improvement or even considering the impact or sources of variation, this book is essential. It is a quick read and great for management.

I learned statistics back in the university then never applied concepts and after some 10 years I was challenged to undertake basic statistics matters in the way of learning Six Sigma. This book is very focused on the variation and the graphical interpretation of data. Yuo may read this book over a weekend then attack Six Sima stats without pain.

This is not a book for people looking for the technical detail of data analysis or statistical process control. The pearl in this book is the message that interpreting your data (such as KPIs or performance measures) is about looking at patterns, not at individual points. It's a book that can be read by people not interested in the technical stuff (such as managers or executives) - and it *should* be read by these people. We have to move beyond the days of comparing this month to last month to judge business performance, and this book is a great step in the right direction!

This is a great book for anyone to read. Very practical and easy to understand for any age group or financial income. Everyone should read this book!

To be clear, I am not a friend or relative of the author, nor am I associated with his publishing house or anything. I am giving this a five-star review because it deserves it.

The author is great at disseminating the identities that people take on regarding finance- such as the Scrooge, the Traveler, etc. He makes it abundantly clear why we think and feel the way we do about money. He encourages us to go into our earliest memories regarding money(if they're anything like mine, that's not so pleasent). I was really impressed with this book. I just finished reading "Conscious Finance", and this was far better. It ezplores the belief systems behind our actions, and then tells us how to actually change those beliefs.

Finally, a financial advisor with the courage to tell us that financial magazines are nuts for telling us to switch around our portfolios every time there's a full moon! I always intuitively knew this, but I was grateful to have back-up from an expert.

This is not a get-rich-quick book. Hardly. I'd say it was refreshingly conservative and reaffirming- the author doesn't demand that you never take on student debt, assume that everybody reading his book must already make $100,000+ a year, or tell you that paying your kid's college tuition payment is your no. 1 priority in life. No. He speaks to those that don't make a fortune, don't have a degree in finance, and don't always have their s*** together. Finally! I can read a book on finance and not feel guilty!

That said, he makes great points about saving and consumer debt- nothing really new, but without a bunch of complicated, left-brained, holier-than-thou nonsense. I felt encouraged after reading his book. That is a new one for me. For anyone who reads Money magazine or the like and feels like a failure because they don't have $10,000 to invest in some new stock or mutual fund every month, may I respectfully suggest reading this book. It will be an eye-opener.

Is it me or are all these "reviews" obviously endorsements from the author's large network of friends and contacts? I can't find a single "review" in the 25+ here that gives even a single sentence of detail about the book -- not one! These are all generic "terrific finance book for everyone - 5 stars!" Plus, nearly all these reviews were posted within the first 6 days of the release and each gave 5 stars. Not plausible.

I don't blame the author for asking friends to put reviews up, but then have them actually read the book and put together a real REVIEW, not a vacuous endorsement. This is especially important since there is no "See Inside" capability with this book. I depend on Amazon reviews when making decisions on products I'm buying here. I don't appreciate an obvious attempt to subvert the process.

This is one book that I'll keep on my shelf and re-read, and refer to as reference. The author's 35 years of experience really shows in his analysis on financial personality types and risk tolerance. He had me pegged! Based on a short self-test, he predicted the kind of spender and investor I am with accuracy. The book does go into pretty good detail for the beginning investor; it can make your brain hurt. But, that's what's great about it- the amount of information packed into this short book makes it well worth buying and keeping on hand.
The reason I only gave 4 stars: I disagree with him about not paying your mortgage off as quickly as possible. He uses calculations to show that by getting tax breaks for mortgage interest, you'll come out ahead if you invest the extra money instead. There's one thing he, and other authors who advocate this, have never addressed- the Standard Deduction. If you have unusually high deductions such as medical bills that puts your itemized deductions above the standard, then his system make sense. But, if all of your deductions, including the mortgage interest, comes beneath the standard deduction the government gives to everyone, then you would take the standard. So, you wouldn't be getting any additional deduction for the interest than you would without it. This makes it highly impractical to pay three times the value of your mortagage, if you have the extra money to pay it off more quickly.
No, I'm not a financial expert; I'm actually a complete novice when it comes to investing. But I have worked as a tax preparer, and in my own returns, I've always taken the standard deduction, since I didn't have enough itemized to top it. So, for me his recommendation makes no sense at all. You would have to evaluate your own deductions, and if you itemize, your tax savings, to make an informed choice as to whether you'd be better off investing the money, instead of making additional payments on your house. But, I think it's irresponsible for him to make a blanket statement that no one should try to pay off their house early.
That's the only thing I found wrong with the book. Other than that it taught me alot, and is well worth the read.

I have to agree with Lapis' assertion that most of the reviews appear to be fraudulent. Click on "see my other reviews" and most of them have only one review...for this book. I'm sure most amazon.com users don't post only one review. It's difficult enough to not carried away reviewing books and other consumer goods. It is extremely suspicious and I agree with Lapis that I often make purchasing decisions based on user reviews.