Organizations Books

This book is well grounded and strategically linked to the very existance of organizations in the future. The authors discribe a dynamic process based on values to move any bureaucracy toward cutomer focused success. Read any chapter and reap the benefits, read the whole and fly

This book is the first to explain how information flow and the management of corporate knowledge changes the nature of business. Unlike business process reengineering and other management fads which treats individuals as cogs in the business machine, this book advances the notion that the intelligence and expertise of the people in an organization define success--and that such intelligence and expertise can be amplified by information technology.

I'm a technologist, and this book is the first to adequately explain the relationship between information technology and business organization--David M. Kalman

What a great book! Beautiful pictures of children and dogs from all around the globe appeal to people of all ages (my 8-month old son as well as myself), and large text appeals to those beginning to read. The message of the book itself is simple and respectful, and doesn't talk about the imminent purchase of a dog (thank goodness!).

This is a delightful little book full of beautiful pictures of children from all over the world with their dogs. When I sit down to read the book with my daughters (5 and 3 years old) they delight at the colorful pictures.

A Kid's Best Friend is effective on many levels. Convinced that dogs are sentient beings, I especially love that the pictures show a relationship between human and canine. The pictures capture my daughters' attention and are clear illustrations of the symbiotic relationships in which both child and dog benefit. Additionally, many different cultures are represented and each time we read the book, the girls ask about different children and their lives so far away.

This book has quickly become my daughters' favorite bedtime read. They request it by name each night after calling Sadie our sweet shepherd mix up on the bed to cuddle with them.--L.P.Watkins

Being a dog lover, I thought this was an absolutely wonderful book. The pictures are amazing, and I love the fact that they are of children and their dogs from many different countries. I don't even think I read the words the first two times I looked at the book!! I just looked at all the pictures of the doggies...and loved seeing the children in their different environments. I hope you enjoy this book as much as my Infant Room children and I did!!!:)

It mainly focuses on information systems as a core of living organizations. I liked and I recommend this work to everybody who likes original works on organizations.

"This book brings together", Chun Wei Choo writes, "the insight developed from research in organization theory and information science into a generel framework for understanding the richness and complexity of information use in organizations. Research in organization theory suggests that organizations create and use information in three strategic arenas. First, organizations interpret information about the environment in order to construct meaning about what is happening to the organization and what the organization is doing. Second, they create new knowledge by converting and combining the expertise and know-how of their members in order to learn and innovate. Finally, they process and analyze information in order to select and commit to appropriate courses of action...The book has the following objectives. First, it analyzes and compares the principal modes by which an organization uses information strategically to make sense of its changing environment, create new knowledge for innovation, and make decisions that reflect past learning and ongoing adaptation. Second, it examines the structure and dynamics of information seeking...Third, it proposes a new framework of the knowing organization (from the Preface)."

In this context, Chun Wei Choo divides his book into seven chapters, and he:

* introduces the theories of organizations as sense-making communities, knowledge-creating enterprises, and decision-making systems, and show how the three modes of information as sense making, knowledge creating, and decision making use complement each other by supplying some of the missing pieces necessary for each mode to function.

* identifies and relates the major elements that influence the behavior of the individual when seeking (starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, extracting, verifying, and ending) and using (selection and processing of information) information.

* shows how organizations, as social systems of people, structures, and processes, use information to make sense of the environment, create new knowledge for learning and innovation, and make decisions that enable action.

* examines the theory and process underlying the knowing organization.

* describes the tensions as tensions in sense making, tensions in knowledge creating, and tensions in decision making that are inherent in the knowing processes, and how the dynamics of balancing these tensions enable the knowing organization to be effective in the short term, and adaptive over the long term.

This book is highly recommended for HR and IT professionals.

A highly informative examination of a type of organization that is successful by using information strategically to make sense of its changing environment, creating new knowledge for innovation, and making decisions that reflect past learning and adaptation. Provides a general model for understanding information use and many other models. Filled with references to research and other publications. This is an informative, information-packed book! Excellent.

Un folleto con muchos ideas para compartir y discutir con sus compañeros y compañeras de trabajo y de escuela. Presenta perspectivas que animan a uno estudiar al fondo cuestiones sociales y políticas. Da confianza en nuestra capacidad para entender la historia y organizar para cambiar la socieded.
¿Cual es la relación entre educación y salarios? ¿Porque la educación no se mejora en una sociedad capitalista, aún en una sociedad tan rica como Estados Unidos, a pesar la las muchas pláticas de presidentes y congresistas? ¿Porque hay tantos debates sobre educación pública y escuelas privadas? ¿Cual es la relación entre la crises en educación y el empeoramiento de salarios y condiciones de trabajo?
El autor explica que los ricos necesitan empleados obedientes, no trabajadores con la confianza y capacidad para cuestionar, leer, estudiar y organizar. Toma como ejemplo los ideas de Che Guevara y la revolución cubana, y cita ejemplos de luchas obreras hoy en día. Explica la necesidad de promover la educación como proceso social y con la meta de estudiar y aprender durante toda la vida. "No hay mejor razon para hacer la revolución socialista."

La educación dentro del sistema del dólar todopoderoso no tiene nada que ver con el
aprendizaje ni con la cultura.El sistema de educación existe para regimentar a los jovenes
obreros e inculcar en los jovenes de la clase media y de los superricos de que son
superiores a nosotros los trabajadores. Cuba socialista brinda educación de por vida y una
campaña de televisión llamada ' La Universidad Para Todos.' Tiene esas cosas porque allí
hicieron una revolución. ? Cómo podimos hacer una revolución aqui, en el estomago de la
Bestia Imperial ? ? Cómo podremos cambiarnos nosotros mismos en el proceso ? Estos
son los temas de este folleto excelente.

This pamphlet really opened my eyes. I have been all the way through education to a final degree and teach college. However, this little pamphlet tells more about education, real education, than anything I have read before.

What is called education in this society is fitting you into the slots that this exploitative, oppressive society has for us, not providing us with knowledge, blaming us for our grades and putting some people in 'good' jobs and some people in bad, all to mask a system that exploits us all to benefit the big business rich? I have been to graduate school and have friends with Ph Ds and hung with several Poet Laureates of the US and people saturated with what this society calls education, but I have coworkers at the bus garage smarter than most of them.

This pamphlet explains why this is, and how we can fight for real education. Real education is learning the tools to understand this system, learn to fight, learn to do real things in a real world, real education can come only through mass struggles against this system. Real education can't be separate from work, from life, from struggle.

While Amazon may report this book is unavailable from time to time, it is always available from the Pathfinder Amazon partner z store that you can reach by clicking on new and used at the top of this page/

Au moment où plusieurs de mes amis essaient de payer leurs prêts étudiants gigantesques et que je m'embourbe dans des débats chauds avec mes compagnes de travail pour essayer de les convaincre de cesser de harceler leurs enfants à propos des soi-disant bénéfices de continuer leur éducation, cette petite brochure tombe à point. Écrite de toute évidence par quelqu'un qui aime lire et penser, et qui sait ce que c'est se faire abrutir par un système scolaire qui vise des objectifs tout autres, cet œuvre place la lutte pour une éducation véritable dans le contexte de la lutte pour une société plus humaine. Met fin à toute illusion qu'on puisse séparer les institutions scolaires dans une société inégale des inégalités mêmes. Un plaisir à lire et à y réflêchir.

By HolyAtlanta

This booklet was published during the phony debate between Gore and Bush on "education reform" in the 2000 election campaign. It explains why education cannot be "reformed" under capitalism. Barnes talks about how capitalist education from grade school through college socializes us to become docile worker bees and why we have to unlearn a lot of the junk they teach in school in order to become effective fighters for workers' rights today and for a socialist future.

I have been all the way through education to a final degree and teach college now. Yet, this little pamphlet ells more about education, real education, than anything I have read before. It discusses how we need real education not just the way schools just fit us into the slots that this society wants, blaming our grades for giving people in 'good' jobs and some people into "bad," all to mask a system that exploits us all to benefit the big business rich? This pamphlet explains why this is, and how we can fight for real education. Real education is learning the tools to understand this system, learn to fight, learn to do real things in a real world, and it can't be separate from work, from life, from struggle. Check out Capitalism's World Disorder, the book this is excerpted from.

While this book is not always available on Amazon, it is always available from BooksfromPathfinder, an Amazon Z store that you can get to by clicking on New and Used further up this page!

This is a great book for the professional leader that is looking to understand multiple faceted problems.

This book forms the text for a one week residential training course. The course was a life changing event for me, game me confidence in my abilities and changed my whole attitude to the workplace. Instead of trying to get around conflict in the workplace I now have the tools to tackle it head on. Learn about the skill to critique everything you do in a way that is non-threatening and based on fact and not emotion. Everyone in the workplace should read this book.

Most management texts try to deal with how you as an individual can influence how other people behave so that you come out on top. This book goes under the skin of different personality types to show what it is that motivates them in the way they behave. Instead of showing how to "use" people to get what you want, it shows how to get the best out of everyone, yourself included, to get what is best for the Company / family / business whatever you need to improve. Instead of results driven management being the be-all and end-all it is clear that results are only one side of the equation. To be a good manager you need to bring people along with you, not drive them in front of you. This book forms the text for a management training course that can only be said to be revolutionary. I have three university degrees and I would gladly trade the lot for what I learned in the one week course! Everyone who works for a living should read this book.

Ray Salemi provides concise, step-by-step techniques to assist managers and supervisors deal with the aftermath of running a business or department after a layoff has occured. This book is specific in it's approach to what's helpful and what's not in dealing with issues such as communication, morale, next steps, etc. for the leader responsible for picking up the pieces. A good read, not just for managers and supervisors, but anyone who may be concerned about the effects of layoffs.

Leading After A Layoff is a well-crafted book that will prove particularly useful to company leaders looking to keep their company and staff focused and energized after they have gone through a resizing, rightsizing or even downsizing.

The information is delivered with clarity and from experience. Ray Salemi's background and experiences come through in the book and I suggest this book for anyone anticipating a layoff in their company's future.

Author Ray Salemi's neat little book offers excellent advice on how to get through "the worst of times." Management treads thin ice after layoffs. Everyone is sensitive and even the smallest error in dealing with colleagues can be magnified. When productivity drops, frustration naturally sets in. Salemi points out the most serious land mines managers should avoid. He focuses on the needs of mid-level managers and project team leaders, rather than those higher up the executive food chain. The book's advice, while sometimes basic, will substantially bolster the emotional intelligence quotient of the average manager coping with the awkward post-layoff period. We strongly recommend this book to managers who have avoided the layoff purge and now need to rally the stunned survivors.

Why even go to college when you can get an entire education on leadership by just reading one book? Bill Robinson is a visionary leader focused on carrying-out constructive dialogue about the important issues faced by the leaders of our modern, complex organizations. He brings years of experience to light in this easy-to-read and often entertaining (can a leadership book be entertaining?) book. A great choice for those who are seeking to answer the tough questions that riddle our minds when faced with challenges in our lives as leaders.

Bill Robinsons book on leading from the middle puts into perspective the real spiritual, moral, and ethical attributes of what a good leader is all about. It is refreshing to read a book that blends the Christian faith with everyday life. Really following in the foosteps of Jesus at work and at home is what we all should aspire to do and Bill's book gives a great guideline to follow. This is truly the book of all books that leaders in any walk of life should read to gain the basis for their leadership roles.

As an organizational communication scholar and college president for the past 16 years, Dr. Bill Robinson writes with authority about the serious leadership demands of 21st-century organizations. But he never takes himself too seriously.

This highly readable book is filled with colorful, and often humorous, stories of the author's own rich experience practicing the paradoxical leadership that is necessary to effectively lead today's more federated, adaptive and highly connected organizations.

After an interesting survey of leadership theories and how they relate, or don't relate, to the changes in organizations over the past century, Dr. Robinson zeroes in on the essential traits of 21st-century leaders: paradoxical, secure, inspiring, communicative, virtuous and driven. He ends the book with two helpful chapters on how leaders can successfully change their leadership styles to adopt some of these traits.

The title hints at what sets the book, and Dr. Robinson's vision of leadership, apart: Leaders succeed when they connect with the mission and the people at the heart of their organizations and when they join with those they lead in moving the organization forward rather than insisting on being out front or above.

This is a hot book! I coached a team of manufacturing managers who worked in a large traditional factory. Our job was to study manufacturing operations in companies that had adopted Toyota's productivity methods and policies. While the men and women on the team had read about lean production, they were disquieted and perhaps even disturbed by obviously highly performing plants that were organized and operated according to principles foreign to their beliefs. At each plant we visited their discomfort deepened. Then, somewhere between the second and fourth visit, each manager had an epiphany. There was some kind of logical reorganization of the manufacturing furniture in their minds and they "got it", as they described the event. Others said, "the light came on." They saw the fundamental logic and sense underlying each lean factory even though each facility assembled pieces of Toyota's productivity methods and policies into its own unique manufacturing system. Interestingly, each member of the visit team became a passionate believer of lean manufacturing. The greatest skeptics became the most outspoken advocates. They called it "getting religion."

People who successfully implement lean manufacturing must be strong believers and must have a personal mental model of lean that functions at the level of a craft - a creative skill for assembling productivity methods and policies into powerfully efficient manufacturing machines. As the great Japanese coaches from Toyota teach Westerners, there is no cookbook, lean is a way of thinking.

The literature on lean production is disappointing. Lean manufacturing books tend to be long dreary laundry lists of productivity methods and technical techniques for quality. There is little available that gives insight into how the great master craftsmen and craftswomen put together marvelous lean machines of production - until now.

This book by Richard McCormack finally brings us face to face with the creative processes of great designers of production systems. Imagine yourself as a novice artist sitting down for a conversation with Auguste Renoir, Vincent Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec or Michelangelo. That is what McCormack brings us in this book - chats with the virtuosos of lean production. Forget those paint-by-numbers books. Either go see the real thing or read "Lean Machines".

A lot has been written about lean, but nothing yet compares to what this book has done.... It's the first time anyone has provided straight answers about the true nature of lean. The author asks the right questions and gets surprising responses. Having spent 20 years in the automotive business, I found this book extremely useful.

This is a hot book! I coached a team of manufacturing managers who worked in a large traditional factory. Our job was to study manufacturing operations in companies that had adopted Toyota's productivity methods and policies. While the men and women on the team had read about lean production, they were disquieted and perhaps even disturbed by obviously highly performing plants that were organized and operated according to principles foreign to their beliefs. At each plant we visited their discomfort deepened. Then, somewhere between the second and fourth visit, each manager had an epiphany. There was some kind of logical reorganization of the manufacturing furniture in their minds and they "got it", as they described the event. Others said, "the light came on." They saw the fundamental logic and sense underlying each lean factory even though each facility assembled pieces of Toyota's productivity methods and policies into its own unique manufacturing system. Interestingly, each member of the visit team became a passionate believer of lean manufacturing. The greatest skeptics became the most outspoken advocates. They called it "getting religion."

People who successfully implement lean manufacturing must be strong believers and must have a personal mental model of lean that functions at the level of a craft - a creative skill for assembling productivity methods and policies into powerfully efficient manufacturing machines. As the great Japanese coaches from Toyota teach Westerners, there is no cookbook, lean is a way of thinking.

The literature on lean production is disappointing. Lean manufacturing books tend to be long dreary laundry lists of productivity methods and technical techniques for quality. There is little available that gives insight into how the great master craftsmen and craftswomen put together marvelous lean machines of production - until now.

This book by Richard McCormack finally brings us face to face with the creative processes of great designers of production systems. Imagine yourself as a novice artist sitting down for a conversation with Auguste Renoir, Vincent Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec or Michelangelo. That is what McCormack brings us in this book - chats with the virtuosos of lean production. Forget those paint-by-numbers books. Either go see the real thing or read "Lean Machines".

This is an excellent book for students, parents and especially teachers.
It is a great story written by an amazing woman who REALLY cared about the education of her children. It also provides an extensive reference list for reading material for teachers.
This is proof that one person CAN make a difference. Rock on Ms. Meehan !

You know how people say, "I don't have kids so I'm not really qualified to offer an opinion," Learning Like A Girl makes you feel qualified to start a school, join your condo association or coach your kids' soccer team. That's the big story here. I loved it.

The reason that private girls' schools are important is that girls are important. Yes, "children are our future," but if past is prologue, girls represent a much better future than boys.

Traditionally, boys are taught to win (and, often, win at any cost). You have only to raise your eyes from this screen to see a world powered by such dog-eat-dog ethics, disguised as a concern for "shareholder value". Another generation or two of boys being raised to emulate their fathers, and the greatest Empire of the modern world may crumble in our lifetime.

Girls, in contrast, tend to be collaborators. They look less for the win than the win-win. And when they achieve, they look to share and mentor.

Or so says Diana Meehan, co-founder of the Archer School in Los Angeles, where girls go to class only with girls and are the better for it. You have heard the reasons why elsewhere: As boys and girls hit adolescence, the boys become classroom gods and the girls fall silent. The boys achieve; the girls support. And when it comes to science and math, guess who gets called on first?

Meehan and two friends decided to start a school --- "where the best teachers could do their best teaching and the girls would have the tools, the risks, the chances to fail and to succeed" --- without having any experience launching a business or serving on a school board. Just as well. "New schools are models of chaos theory," Meehan writes.

The story of how Meehan and her view actualized their "dream in a hurry" will be inspiring to anyone who's ever started any enterprise. You'll become an Archer booster early on, and the school's growing pains will make you wince. Granted, Meehan cherry-picked her anecdotes, but the girls you'll meet along the way are inspiring --- they're everything you'd want your own kids to be. And it all works out; although Archer girls don't grind and compete, they do amazingly well on tests and get into any college they want.

How do you know if your town could use a new school? If the private schools turn away two-thirds of their applicants, there's a need. And an opportunity. But even if you read this book without a new school in mind, it's a great resource. There's a terrific appendix of summer programs for girls that, alone, is worth the cost of the book.

There are aspects of this book that make me grimace. The introduction is by Tom Hanks, obviously an Archer parent and, by every account, a terrific human being --- but not likely to be coming to your town to help a struggling girls' school make a fortune at the Spring Benefit. And that's just the start of the specialness. The Archer board is a Who's Who of female Los Angeles. And then there is language that resides primarily on LA's West Side --- like Meehan saying she wrote the book, in part, to "share the journey." Only in LA can anyone say that with a straight face, and even then, it's better coming out of the mouth of a none-too-clever actress on Oscar night.

But in the end, you come back to the girls. "We'd go into a burning building for one another," one says. My eyes misted. I went to great schools, but I didn't have that. I doubt you did. And as I get on in life, I'm starting to think that kind of bonding is the most important lesson a school has to teach.

If you have a daughter with potential --- or know the parents of a girl who could be somebody --- "Learning Like a Girl" just might be more valuable than braces.