Teams Books

This is a great book about a great coach. Recommend!

Spike Dykes is a West Texas legend. While attending Texas Tech from 1988-1990, one of life's simpler pleasures was watching Spike coach his group of less than famous football fanatics. The book presents few surprises but does offer telling insights into coaching strategy and human relations. West Texas is a very unique place and Spike had to use every ounce of guile, energy, wit, and wisdom, in dealing with the principles. I'm not speaking of the team, but the fans. Any coach who can survive 13 years as a head coach in football crazy West Texas ("Friday Night Lights" takes place only 90 miles south of there in Midland, TX), deserves praise immeasurable and this book is his monument.

This book is WONDERFUL!!! I come from a family of history buff who are also Cardinal fanatics. Put the two together and you have got a family of true Cardinal fans!!! I bought this book as a gift for my 88-year old grandmother - the smartest Cardinal fan I have ever met!! She is a walking Cardinals Encyclopeadia. But this book even had her saying "I didn't know that!". Now I have to get one for myself to keep up with her and my father in our endless trivia session that seem to drown out every ballgame.

What a fun book for the true Redbird fan. A 142-page history of the club, followed by a section with photos of every single player, coach, and manager to ever wear the Birds-on-the-Bat, profiles of every Redbird Hall of Famer, pages of statistics, and color reproductions of antique scorecards and memorabilia. It's a great book to leaf through while listening to KMOX or to end arguments over trivia. A Cardinals fan's delight. The only downside is that it's getting dated. It came out in 1998, so it doesn't include McGwire's 70, or Edmonds and Pujols. It needs another edition, and it's good enough and comprehensive enough that the publishers should seriously think about coming out with a fresher edition.

In researching USC's football history for a series of books I am writing about the Trojans' storied history, I found this to be easy to read, highly informative, and well written. Jim Gigliotti has done a fine job here!

Fight On!

STEVEN TRAVERS, author of
THE USC TROJANS: COLLEGE FOOTBALL'S ALL-TIME GREATEST DYNASTY
TROJANS ESSENTIAL: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO BE A REAL FAN!
SEPTEMBER 1970: ONE NIGHT, TWO TEAMS, & THE GAME THAT CHANGED A NATION
BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN

USCSTEVE1@aol.com

To call this an "almanac" of USC football may be going too far, but it is packed with a lot of great information in a very easy to read layout. There are game by game summaries of the '72 season, as well as treatments of other major games in school history. All of the traditions are discussed, and there are lots of statistics cited. I own "Conquest" and the DVD History of USC Football and this Stadium Stories is more informative and comprehensive. I wish they'd made the DVD parallel this book. The only drawback to the book is that the pictures are black and white. But I gave it 5 stars anyway because of the great price. A must have for Trojan fans, and a great value.

This book was excellent. The concepts were well-defined and clearly explained. Upon completion, I am more enlightened and aware of the field of statistical analysis.

One of the finest books on problem solving that I have ever encountered. Great for solving chronic problems.

Strategic Action Planning NOW! provides a mix of practical suggestions, real-life examples, and inspiring ideas to jump-start and guide the planning process. Gable's style is conversational and encouraging. I especially appreciated the step-by-step planning exercises: they allowed us to use the information right away.

If you think reading this book will be a chore - you are mistaken. The writing style is enjoyable; and the analogies and examples of the various planning steps make the task of strategic planning seem effortless.

Easy to read, work at your own pace, fill in the blank examples; that is what makes this book a great buy. This book was written in a workbook style manner, so you can take as long as you want filling in all of your information, making it seem as if you had hired your own personal strategic consultant for a fraction of the cost.
If your organization needs guidance and results, Strategic Planning Simplified is the way to start.

"becoming architects of the future, not defenders of the decline," completely sums up my feelings about this book. My company has been using the SWOT analysis for years; unfortunately, we've had a high turnover rate which has affected our productivity and our profit. We were desperately looking for a new approach to deal with our problems and I found this book while searching Amazon. The language is comprehensive and the examples and worksheets make it so much easier to customize your particular goals and solutions. We are still in the process of planning, but I can definitely say that our small business has a "clearer" picture of where we want to be and what we need to do to get there.

Striking the Match is a well written and well researched work that displays the effectiveness of short term missions. Dr. Robinson proposes a time tested yet fresh approach to short term missions in that the goal is to train nationals to do the work of the ministry. It is not a book that encourages short term missions for the sake of going and coming but that discipleship and church planting would multiply to the nations through indigenous peoples.

Robinson's book is extraordinarily helpful for anyone leading short-term missions. That said, I think anyone interested in missions should read this book. The trends that Robinson has identified are critical for understanding how to make short-term missions have a long-term impact.

A big, looming question after a short-term mission trip is: Did we make a difference or any impact at all? Robinson answers this question, and more helpfully, provides a framework to ensure that the short-term mission makes long-term impacts. He explains how they fit into a larger strategy. He also talks at length about how to blend what the local (field/national) leadership's vision for their country is, and our role as North Americans.

I think this book is ahead of the curve on short-term missions. I work in the short-term mission field. This book has been instructive, and now a nice reminder, of how to blend my world in the U.S. and my world overseas.

Exceptional photography of the 2000 Baseball World Series by The Sporting News highlights each action packed game of this memorable series. Included is a foreword by Presidential candidate Rudolph Guiliani.

I actually don't like either the Yankees or Mets, but this book caught my eye with great pictures and an overall analysis of the Yanks and Mets 2000 season and playoffs. All the exciting moments are in this book and I can't get over the great pictures this book has to offer. This is a great book for any baseball fan!

If you follow the principles outlined in this excellent book, you will realize that you need not be immersed in long winded "Guru" secret techniques. This man has done it from nothing to multimillionaire by followint these techniques. He is the real deal. Buy this book. Keep it with you. Have fun getting rich.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3V0KC4M707G0Y This is a review from the book signing with Mr. Tycoon!

This book captures the essential elements of the overall organizational strategy developed and applied in Silicon Valley over the past decades. The author captures and illustrates many of the sub-strategies that were originally used by many of the founders of Silicon Valley, such as David Packard (see: "The HP Way"). One of the primary benefits of the present book is the classification of these strategies in an easy-to-understand, numeric order, accompanied by excellent examples and quotes from people using these strategies. In addition, the inclusion of "quizes" and "points to ponder" at the end of each chapter help the reader to ascertain where their present organization is in relationship to the Silicon Valley high-growth company model. While the average Silicon Valley company is living the ecosystem described, the greatest value of the book may be its use as a teaching tool for the extension of a Valley company's culture to team members in non-Valley locations or subsidiaries, or as a teaching mechanism for other companies desiring to replicate the results achieved by Valley companies.

SUCCESS SECRETS FROM SILICON VALLEY is a thoroughly enjoyable book that takes a look at why Silicon Valley companies are so successful.

James' point-of-view is that these companies are able to win because they value their human capital and create jobs that provide scope for human ambition and expression for human creativity. They manage by lending support, not by imposing control, and they treat employees as peers, not children. Instead of asking "How can we get everyone to march in step?" they ask, "Do we have sufficient diversity to approach this market?"

The book could serve as a mandate for change management. It recounts numerous examples of companies given a run for their money by small start-ups. For instance, take IBM. In 1984, IBM completely dominated the computer industry. It had fanatically loyal customers, great management, and an enviable image. It had an enormous was chest with which to capture any market. And, it had just invented the personal computer. So how did an 18 year old freshman, a kid probably wondering what to do on Saturday night, in just thirteen years, grow a company to 8,000 people and end up selling more personal computers than the inventor? Michael Dell had no revenues, no customers, no capital, no experience, no image and no product to call his own. How he won is the story of how management vision and corporate culture has to change to stay competitive in the 21st century.

It does not matter that the examples come from Silicon Valley; the book could serve as an abridged change management manual for any company desiring to replicate the success culture of these upstarts. Size isn't the issue. Culture is. If, at times, James's points seem self-evident and appear to be the exaltation of common sense, then tell me, where is Digital Equipment Corporation today? Anybody ever hear of Wang? According to James, a company doesn't have to be small to organize into teams and autonomous workgroups. He makes the point that the PC was created within a huge corporation - but as far away from headquarters as possible. Unfortunately, after Don Estridge, the "father" of the IBM PC, was killed in a plane crash, IBM's bureaucrats descended on the PC division "like a plague of blue-suited locusts". They tried to implement strategies that had made sense in the past but were hopelessly outdated in the world where "quick to market" is key.

"Success Secrets" devotes a chapter to each of eight main change points: Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield; Corporations are communities, not machines; Management is service, not control; Employees are peers, not children; Motivate with vision, not fear; Change is growth, not pain; Computers are servants, not masters; Work is play, not toil.

Each chapter is organized in an easy to follow format : Silicon Valley mindset; traditional mindset; a case study; strategies; quiz (to determine "gaps" in an organization) and points to ponder which serve as good change management points to consider when we are with clients.

The book is entertaining in presenting computer history mingled with the "new" corporate thinking - thinking that began in 1939 (yes, that long ago) with Hewlett Packard and came to fruition with Microsoft, Dell, Compaq and Sun.