Organizations Books

The book focuses on working with clients - any one with whom you work. Discusses partnering with others, and building trust and commitment. Covers the skills and techniques that make up the consultative approach, managing interpersonal relations with clients, and considers several types of partnering roles. Includes a glossary, resources and references. Our review finds that this is an informative book that offers considerable value to anyone working in an organization. Recommended.

It's really refreshing to read a "business" book in language that speaks in a balanced way to both the practicality of tools AND the more conceptual threads that weave the tools together. But then, this book is all about balance, and how we can begin to create balance in the workplace for our clients (and ourselves!).

This book offers great tips and ideas for all professions who want to provide fabulous service and be more of a business partner

This is a very practical guide for consulting work. There are some usual forms that are free to be used by individuals but unfortunately there was no accompanying CD so they need to be copied or re-typed.

I loved this book. It was written for consultants who provide (or will provide) various kinds of help to nonprofits. More specifically, the help provided falls into two broad categories: help for nonprofit programs, and help with organizational issues like management structure, finances, fundraising, etc. And the help one can get from reading this book will definitely help strengthen the quality of their consulting to nonprofits.

The book was split into just four chapters. I would have liked it better if it had been split into the following nine chapters (each of which received a summary in the book):

1. Consulting roles, dynamics, and ethics
2. Consultation and the nonprofit sector
3. Contracting
4. Gathering and analyzing data
5. Planning the work
6. Implementing and monitoring
7. Sustaining change and evaluating impact
8. Terminating the consulting project
9. Managing your consulting practice

For two years I worked as a consultant to nonprofits. I worked for a firm that provided capital campaign direction to nonprofits involved in multi-million dollar capital campaigns. So much of what I lived and experienced during those two years I found written about in the pages of this book. I found the blurbs interspersed througout the book covering quotes from 30+ consultants from across the US made the book special. Without them I think the book might have gotten a 3-star rating from me.

Since the 1970's the hiring of consultants by nonprofits has become part of doing business in the US. And this book does a wonderful job answering what the most common kinds of consulting are. I can say that when I made the move to nonprofit consulting for two years I was not prepared for the culture shock. For-profit consulting is all about getting the job done quickly and competently. Little sugar coating of the services is required. But in nonprofit consulting people skills exuded by the consultant are so critical and important. And this book explains the difference in the consulting styles. The writing of this book was necessary because of the people skill factor in nonprofit consulting.

Dealing with a nonprofit executive director is not equivalent to dealing with a for-profit CEO. In the nonprofit sector the real power is usually held by the nonprofit Board. A savvy consultant will always keep this in mind. And after reading this book they won't forget it. Deal with the Board! And at page 29, Diane Brown is quoted as saying that if she bid on a whole project with a nonprofit that she usually took a bath. Why a bath? I say because she was dealing with a nonprofit. You have to approach nonprofits differently as a consultant than you would a for-profit.

I would have liked the book better if the title of the book had been "Consulting to Nonprofits." Consulting "with" a nonprofit makes me think of someone going to a nonprofit for advice. And the instant book is about consultants providing advice to nonprofits. 5 stars!

Not only is Lukas's book easy to read and engaging, it has gotten me very excited about my career. Lukas draws not only on her own wealth of experience, but also on the experience of countless other consultants. This adds a depth to the book that I never expected. Instead of reading about one person's style of consulting, I am privy to expertise and stories from the trenches of the pioneers in the field. The worksheets, examples, appendices and bibliography will serve me well in my career. I anticipate that this book will be a constant resource for me - it will look dog-eared and well-used in no time at all!

The Corporate Intranet by Ryan Bernard covers every crucial point necessary to "create and manage an internal web for your organization." The language used is easy to understand, gets to the point quickly, and moves from subject to subject with ease

If you don't have a clue where to start when speaking about Intranets read this book. From A to Z, explaining everything in a very simple way

Ryan Bernard's book (published title "The Corporate Intranet"), is one of the best technical books I read lately. It is very clear, useful, well written and practical. The book answered many of my lingering questions. Its "cookbook" approach, well selected and presented examples make it very easy to follow. Unlike in many other books, no new terminology is used before it's explained. I highly recommend it to anyone starting to build an Intranet. Susan Farkas, NYLCare Healthplans, N.Y.C.

This is one of the best collections of papers I have seen! Top notch researchers of organizations contributing to one of the most novel ideas of modern study of organizations coming from an interdisciplinary perspective. I wish it was somewhat cheaper but for such a rare book I would definitely have our schools library get it.

As a student of social capital, I found this volume of invaluable help in understanding the positive and negative effects of networks in and of organizations. Especially the distinction the editors make between social capital and social liability is useful and makes so much sense. And all the big shots have a chapter in here. A great resource. The reference list alone is worth the money. I will keep reading these chapters.

This book is a winner. It provides a very useful and comprehensive overview of the field of social capital/social networks and organizations. By addressing the topic both from the level of individuals within organizations and from the level of orgs themselves, the book provides an excellent introduction to and theoretical deepening of the field. Moreover, the concept of 'Corporate social capital and liability' as suggested by the editors in the volume and their respective chapters provides a very useful framework for the study of networks and social capital within an organizational context. Especially their focus on social capital and liability as OUTCOMES of networks, rather than as networks themselves is a fundamental idea that definitely advanced my understanding of the topic of social capital. Their discussion that social structure may have social capital/liability outcomes at different levels of analysis was an eye opener to me. Read it! The only downside to the volume is its price. Make sure your library gets the book for you!

I will teach some concept about hospital accountiny at the Nursey School in my University, I think this book could help me to improve my knowledge about thgis topic. I

As an Information Technology consultant working w/health care professionals, I needed a standard reference to better understand my clients' needs.

I was working on my Masters of Accountancy after finishing my MBA, and I was lucky enough to find a Health Care Accounting course which used this text book.

I cannot recommend the book highly enough. If you take the time to read the different sections of the book, and read the (copious) scenario problems at the end of the section where the lessons are applied, you will acquire a much richer understanding of the accounting dynamics in health care.

I work in a health care administration postion and found the book to be very useful for refreshing me on basic accounting concepts as well as covering more complex topics of health care finance and cost accounting. I would highly recommend this book as a reference for health care institutions (especially hospitals) for orientation and as a way to educate their managers. The real-life examples and problems are invaluable for explaining the topics covered in each chapter.

This monograph is easy to read and packed with practical tips and techniques you can use RIGHT NOW to elevate the level of creativity in your organization. It's a "how-to" guide that offers a variety of simple yet highly effective strategies to ensure purposeful creativity- not just creativity for its own sake.

8 ingenious ways to promote creativity which translates into improving communications, productivity, and your organization's overall environement. The article is clear, concise, and gives examples to back up what they are saying. This article enabled me to take dysfunctional meetings and make them into functional, problem-solving events.

This short book is loaded with little gems of insight. I know a few "wildcards" and I agree that they have been difficult to work with, but were brilliant with ideas! I had never thought about them as a "type" or "role" before, at least not explicitly. This short, easy read gave me some new insights that I will be able to use on the job and in my personal life.

I highly recommend this book. Not that I could fully mine its wisdom in the short time I've owned it, but I think it is excellent.

It is simple and direct, and does not take years and years of customer service training to understand. It is grounded in sound theory about how museums, zoos, and other attractions actually work and how guests interact with those places (and each other in those places). Most importantly, the author approaches the entire work from the viewpoint of guests. I know that sounds simple, but her approach disarms some of the traditional barriers to building great guest service by framing the entire book the way she does.

The book is oriented toward action, versus often unfruitful and empty intellectual exercises.

It is by far one of the best works on the subject I've seen.

CREATING GREAT VISITOR EXPERIENCES is an easy-to-use handbook, providing structured steps for making museums (and like institutions) more welcoming and rewarding for all. Packed with inspiring examples and useful ideas, Stephanie Weaver's book is a must-read for staff and volunteers.

This book will be a real eye-opener to any business owner, not just museums, parks, zoos, etc. The customer is in your control, as the author aptly points out, from the time he gets out of his car in the parking lot and sees the first signs for your business until he leaves. Does he notice trash outside the door? Is the restroom clean...and, more importantly, is the restroom pleasing? Are your employees helpful, pleasant and not over-bearing? Can he easily use your signs to find his way around? Everything affects your customers' "experience" and the greater the experience, the more repeat business you will have. An entertaining read for anyone in business!

Lori Silverman is perhaps ahead of her time a few years with her organizational design and development insights. The book contains much information you can use right now, successfully, to develop organizations with quality and integrity.

Critical SHIFT is about as user friendly as a book can get. I can FIND things in here...and they are useful things that help me identify trends, understand my environment and take effective action.

I recommend Critical SHIFT to those who want to hit the ground running. No one subject takes forever to read. I can grab what I need and move on. I have already used pieces of Lori's value management approach in our strategic planning process. I plan to use more.

"Oh, no not another program!" "Don't use the "q" word around here!" There always seems to be something different, but quality has philosophically remained solid. Critical Shift describes the shifts that quality has made over the years and emphasizes the critical trends that face organizational and lifestyle issues in the future. Are you doing quality if you are using benchmarking strategies, mass customization, reengineering, environmental audits? The Starburst Model offers an integrative and multidimensional view of how organizations evolve and work toward high performance. For the practioner, this book is highly useful. Tools and strategies needed at various levels are described along with worksheets and questions for inner exploration. Critical Shift is a very fine combination of thought-provoking reading as well as hands-on application. Great job, Lori and Beth!

The title (although evoking unfortunate associations: "bees in the bonnet," "bats in the belfry," "birds in the bush") is an exact description of what you get in this little book. Written primarily for deacons, although invaluable to any person who's a member of the Episcopal Church USA or the Anglican Church of Canada, this little book is a how-to guide that spells out in great detail the liturgical functions of deacons. Different chapters focus on deacons in rites of Christian initiation, the Eucharist, ordinations, seasonal celebrations, daily office, and various pastoral liturgies (marriages, reconciliations, burials). If you're looking for a book that explores the theology and spirituality of the diaconate, this isn't the one. But it is an excellent guide for appropriate diaconal participation in liturgy--actually, the best--and it doesn't pretend to be anything else.

DEACONS IN THE LITURGY is written for Anglicans/Episcopalians in North America. As such, it will be of interest primarily to people of that communion. That does not stop it from having a wider appeal.

What this book does so well and so simply is explain the role of the diaconate in the various liturgies of the church. It tells what to do and when to do it providing an expansion to the rubrics of the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. It does not delve very much into history but does bring history up to justify certain acts. It explains the diaconal functions from an ancient and ecumenical context and then makes some provision for modern practice and usage. At all stages, the relevant passages from the BCP and other US and Canadian resources are referenced. It is a great guide for Anglican deacons but it has more potential as well.

Without explicitly saying so, the book describes many functions that have wider acceptance than just the Anglican Communion. Usually, these are evident by the lack of specific citations but they should be readily apparent to anyone with a passing knowledge of liturgy. This helps to differentiate denominational practice from wider practice and this book is simple enough, short enough and well written enough to be of use to others. This is especially true for United Methodists.

The United Methodist Church revived the permanent diaconate in 1996. Since the most recent BOOK OF WORSHIP was published in 92, it has no knowledge of deacons in liturgical functions. They are left to founder or make things up as they go along. The institutional United Methodist Church needs to address this problem but this book would be an excellent stopgap measure for UM deacons. This is especially true since UM liturgy is inherited from the Church of England.

A Must for Deacons!

Morehouse Press is one of the major publishers for things Episcopal, so it makes sense that Ormande Plater's book, 'Deacons in the Liturgy', would be published by them. This is a book designed to be used by those preparing to be (or who are) deacons in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition. It looks specifically at the role of deacons in the liturgical practice of the church - liturgy here defined as the order or worship; deacons do have roles (indeed, more important roles) outside of the worship-service-liturgical functions, but this book concentrates on the in-church-worship role.

This book grows out of a process begun in 1980 in response to the adoption of the new Book of Common Prayer version in the Episcopal church, and an expanding view of what deacons do. This is a specialised ministry, to be sure, but it is also an important ministry that serves as a bridge in some ways - 'by working together in liturgy, deacons and others symbolise the mission of the chruch in the world.'

After brief historical introduction, Plater covers many of the aspects of the diaconate - appropriate action and role in ministry of the Word and ministry of the sacrament; proper vestments and gestures, the relationship of deacons to other ministers, and the variations that take place in the different seasons, services, and occasions.

For being such a short text (a mere 70 pages of actual text), it is remarkably comprehensive in scope for the kinds of 'choreography' and activity of deacons in worship services. It is not intended to be a survey of theological questions of the role of the diaconate, nor an historical overview (though some of that does introduce the text) - for these topics, the reader will need to look elsewhere. However, for the task Plater set for himself - a full and useful description of the deacons' role, this text succeeds brilliantly.

Robert J. Lifton has dedicated his life to explaining the phenomenon of blind faith. However, to understand the Taliban world John Walker entered nine months ago one needs to add to the list of required reading, an eloquent memoir by someone not unlike the idealistic young Walker, Deborah Layton. Dr. Lifton and Layton's words together only broaden the scope of our possible comprehension of this difficult subject and make excellent reading for theologians and society at large.

Dr. Lifton's work gives us an excellent academic look into cult thinking. However, if you want to see how innocently these groups can start, if you want to understand the mind-frame of a believer, if you want to experience how it is that potent beliefs can skew one's morals then also include in your reading Seductive Poison. Anyone who has ever wondered how the unbelievable comes to pass Layton's memoir of cult life has the answers. Although three years old it remains a timely, intimate and enlightening look into a world that exists along-side our own. If you want a heart pounding visceral glimpse inside another world this book is it. It is not just evil that can do the things we've experienced since September 11. It can also be idealistic, devout folks like you and me. We are all more susceptible to fanatical beliefs since war has touched our soil. Would we now even question giving anthrax to "them"? Layton's work shows how it can go both ways.

Subjects like this are not always approached in the same way that someone might go to church, for example. An introduction to this book which depends entirely on a religious point of view might seem strange to the casual shopper, but it suggests the spirit in which this book might be brought into view with a certain humility.

I used to go to church a lot because it provided an opportunity to think. I have also gone to hear the author of this book speak for the same reason, but with much deeper results, because Robert Jay Lifton, at the time of the 50th anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima, was in a perfect position to accuse the American President who tried to explain the attack, Harry Truman, of confabulating when he combined the elements of the situation in a way which was not quite factual. My impression of Lifton at that time was that he was quite old, and not open to the perverse glee that a personal encounter with me might provide, so we didn't quite meet. Given the differences between us, it should be obvious that he has written a much better book on the topic of Apocalyptic Violence than I ever could, embracing a wealth of detail with relentless fascination. Early in the book, on page 16, typical psychological judgments are considered insignificant, as Freud's association with the resolution of the Oedipus complex is compared to the possibility of a guru who can face a real "call to greatness, and a series of ordeals and trials culminating in heroic achievement." Religious greatness can surpass the usual psychological norm when it is possible to demonstrate "the hero's achievement of special knowledge of, or mastery over, death, which can in turn enhance the life of his people." Most of this book reports on terrible events, including the creation of weapons. The guru who is the subject of this book was born in 1955, and the events are quite recent. I see no reason to dispute that the people involved were thinking in the manner that is reported in this book. Some readers might consider this excessively factual, but people with books ought to be able to get real like this once in a while, too.