BOOKWORM.PH

Description:
A Passion For Excellence is the single most existing, inspiring, career-transforming book ever published for people who want to get ahead. It takes you behind, the scenes in some of the most successful organizations and analyzes what makes them distinctive.Here are real people, real companies, real numbers. Here is what you need to know about the crucial elements of success: constant innovation, staying in touch with customers, encouraging the contributions of everyone in the company, and maintaining the integrity that is basic to leadership. Here are the secrets of building excellence.

From the Inside Flap
A Passion For Excellence is the single most existing, inspiring, career-transforming book ever published for people who want to get ahead. It takes you behind, the scenes in some of the most successful organizations and analyzes what makes them distinctive.Here are real people, real companies, real numbers. Here is what you need to know about the crucial elements of success: constant innovation, staying in touch with customers, encouraging the contributions of everyone in the company, and maintaining the integrity that is basic to leadership. Here are the secrets of building excellence.

Description:
A Passion For Excellence is the single most existing, inspiring, career-transforming book ever published for people who want to get ahead. It takes you behind, the scenes in some of the most successful organizations and analyzes what makes them distinctive.Here are real people, real companies, real numbers. Here is what you need to know about the crucial elements of success: constant innovation, staying in touch with customers, encouraging the contributions of everyone in the company, and maintaining the integrity that is basic to leadership. Here are the secrets of building excellence.

From the Inside Flap
A Passion For Excellence is the single most existing, inspiring, career-transforming book ever published for people who want to get ahead. It takes you behind, the scenes in some of the most successful organizations and analyzes what makes them distinctive.Here are real people, real companies, real numbers. Here is what you need to know about the crucial elements of success: constant innovation, staying in touch with customers, encouraging the contributions of everyone in the company, and maintaining the integrity that is basic to leadership. Here are the secrets of building excellence.

Product Description

Everyone has creative tendencies, but not everyone knows how to set that potential free. This program of seven proven techniques--all with real-life examples, exercises, and self-assessment quizzes--is the key to unlocking those powers. Every page has essential advice: how to use both sides of the brain effectively, how self-hypnosis hones sharper thinking, and how brainstorming and encouraging streams of consciousness can break through rigid patterns of thought. Cleanse the mind with meditation, relaxation, and visualization practices. Learn how both libido and mortido (the destructive side) can fuel imaginative thought. See why health, diet, exercise, and even listening to music affects the creative process. And to keep the creative boost going strong, there's advice on managing time, structuring a project, and presenting the work to others.

About the Author
Robert Allen is a former director of Mensa Psychometrics - a company that provided psychometric services to members of the high IQ society. Robert has written a number of books in the field of popular psychology, including the Mind Workout Book and Improve Your Memory, both for C&B. He is currently CEO of the Mensa Foundation for Gifted Children.

Amazon.com Review
In their 2002 bestseller, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan identify why people don’t get results: they don’t execute. Bossidy and Charan are back with another stellar study on organizational behavior that shows how companies can succeed if they return to reality and examine every part of their business. Confronting Reality is based on a simple concept, but many companies approach strategy and execution in a surprisingly unreal manner and even the simplest of measurement methods, like the business model, are not applied correctly.

Cisco, 3M, KLM, Home Depot, and the Thomson Corporation are just a few of the companies that Bossidy and Charan examine. To demonstrate how to examine a business using the business model, Bossidy and Charan map out external variables, financial targets, internal activities, and an iteration stage (defined as a time to "make tradeoffs, apply and develop business savvy") to prove how a dynamically evolving business model will help improve performance.

"The version of the business model we have developed is a robust, reality-based process for thinking about the specifics of your business in a holistic way. It shows you how to tie together the financial targets you must meet, the external realities of your business and internal activities such as strategy development, operating tactics, and selection and development of people."

Larry Bossidy, retired chairman and CEO of Honeywell International and Ram Charan, author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business, have once again shed industrial-strength light on how to run a successful business- E. Brooke Gilbert

Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan

From Library Journal
Pacetta, who helped turn around the sales team at Xerox, shares his secrets to sales success in this motivational treatise aimed specifically at sales leaders. There are some excellent ideas on customer service and commitment to exceeding customer expectations that will relate to businesses of all types. Pacetta's leadership ideas also fit well in the current business climate. However, his views regarding sales commissions and especially his ideas about compensation and rewards for individual sales success have been replaced with entirely new methods of rewarding team success. The elimination of sales commissions altogether is a part of this transformation, since commissions encourage internal competition among team members who are supposed to be working toward the success of the entire organization. Pacetta narrates the program, which is recommended for large business collections where there is demand for this sort of thing.
- John Farris, Groves, Tex.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Publishers Weekly Superb observations about leadership, teamwork, success, and customers, along with shining comments on time management, goals, evaluating problems, and cultivating sales personnel. -- Review

Product Description:

Disciplines like strategy, leadership development, and innovation are the sexier aspects of being at the helm of a successful business; actually getting things done never seems quite as glamorous. But as Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan demonstrate in Execution, the ultimate difference between a company and its competitor is, in fact, the ability to execute. Execution is "the missing link between aspirations and results," and as such, making it happen is the business leader's most important job. While failure in today's business environment is often attributed to other causes, Bossidy and Charan argue that the biggest obstacle to success is the absence of execution. They point out that without execution, breakthrough thinking on managing change breaks down, and they emphasize the fact that execution is a discipline to learn, not merely the tactical side of business. Supporting this with stories of the "execution difference" being won (EDS) and lost (Xerox and Lucent), the authors describe the building blocks--leaders with the right behaviors, a culture that rewards execution, and a reliable system for having the right people in the right jobs--that need to be in place to manage the three core business processes of people, strategy, and operations. Both Bossidy, CEO of Honeywell International, Inc., and Charan, advisor to corporate executives and author of such books as What the CEO Wants You to Know and Boards That Work, present experience-tested insight into how the smooth linking of these three processes can differentiate one company from the rest. Developing the discipline of execution isn't made out to be simple, nor is this book a quick, easy read. Bossidy and Charan do, however, offer good advice on a neglected topic, making Execution a smart business leader's guide to enacting success rather than permitting demise. --S. Ketchum

Amazon.com Review
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman expose the fallacies of standard management thinking in First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. In seven chapters, the two consultants for the Gallup Organization debunk some dearly held notions about management, such as "treat people as you like to be treated"; "people are capable of almost anything"; and "a manager's role is diminishing in today's economy." "Great managers are revolutionaries," the authors write. "This book will take you inside the minds of these managers to explain why they have toppled conventional wisdom and reveal the new truths they have forged in its place."

The authors have culled their observations from more than 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. Quoting leaders such as basketball coach Phil Jackson, Buckingham and Coffman outline "four keys" to becoming an excellent manager: Finding the right fit for employees, focusing on strengths of employees, defining the right results, and selecting staff for talent--not just knowledge and skills. First, Break All the Rules offers specific techniques for helping people perform better on the job. For instance, the authors show ways to structure a trial period for a new worker and how to create a pay plan that rewards people for their expertise instead of how fast they climb the company ladder. "The point is to focus people toward performance," they write. "The manager is, and should be, totally responsible for this." Written in plain English and well organized, this book tells you exactly how to improve as a supervisor. --Dan Ring

From Booklist
The authors, both management consultants for the Gallup Organization, use the company's study of 80,000 managers in 400 companies to reach the conclusion that a company that lacks great frontline managers will bleed talent, no matter how attractive the compensation packages and training opportunities. With this in mind, they sought the answers to the follow-up questions: "How do great managers find, focus and keep talented employees." Using case studies, diagrams, and excerpts from interviews, Buckingham and Coffman guide us through their findings that discipline, focus, trust, and, most important, willingness to treat each employee as an individual are the overall secrets for turning talent into lasting performance. The book concludes with suggestions on how to become a great manager, including ideas for interviewing for talent, how to develop a performance management routine, and how to get the best performance from talented employees. Although this is clearly an infomercial for the Gallup Organization, it nevertheless offers thoughtful advice on the essential task of developing excellent managers. Mary Whaley

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Blessings to Procter & Gamble—or, more exactly, its chairman and CEO, A. G. Lafley. Together with Charan, author of Know-How (2007) (and the most probable successor to management guru Peter F. Drucker), he defines, describes, draws examples of, and delineates how innovation became a part of not only the behemoth consumer-packaged-goods company but also part of Lego and Nokia (among others). Lafley is remarkably candid; the story of his “surprise” ascent to CEO-dom in 2000, taking over from Durk Jager, is the story of transformation. A number of commandments accompanied the company’s innovationcentric strategy: the consumer is boss, inside and outside cocreation is encouraged, the innovation process is tangible (and must be followed), and risks can be managed. Most important is his emphasis on human interaction as the key; even better, the last section focuses exclusively on developing a culture of innovation, from promoting the rules of brainstorming to the desired attributes for employees and leaders: courageous, connected and collaborative, curious, open. Sidebars are worthy of posting on a bulletin board; in fact, this is a sustainable reference on innovation that will be hard to beat. --Barbara Jacobs

Review
“A. G. Lafley has made Procter & Gamble great again.”
—The Economist

“Of all the firms on the 2007 ranking of the ‘World’s Most Innovative Companies,’ few are more closely associated with today’s innovation zeitgeist than . . . Procter & Gamble . . . now famous for its open approach to innovation.”
—BusinessWeek

“Lafley brought a whole lot of creativity and rigor to P&G’s innovation process.” —Fortune magazine

“A. G. Lafley has reenergized a venerable giant . . . with a style and energy that will be the subject of business school cases for years to come.” —Chief Executive magazine

“The proof of Lafley’s approach is plain enough. . . . P&G has not only doubled the number of new products . . . but also more than doubled its portfolio of billion-dollar brands and its stock price.”
—U.S. News & World Report

“Ram Charan is the most influential consultant alive.”
—Fortune magazine

“Ram has this rare ability to distill meaningful frommeaningless.”
—Jack Welch

“Among the world’s most sought after CEO advisers.”
—BusinessWeek

“Ram Charan is my ‘secret weapon’ . . . constantly providing depth to issues, not just answers.”
—Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications

“Ram Charan knows more about corporate America than anyone.”
—Dick Harrington, CEO of The Thomson Corporation

Amazon.com Review
With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, "flow," "mind like water," and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you'd almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance.

Not quite. Yes, Getting Things Done offers a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-do's clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists--all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you're working on. However, it still operates from the decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really organized, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines. (To wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible Fast Company has dubbed "the personal productivity guru," suggests that instead of meditating on crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should unsheathe that high-tech saber known as the cell phone and attack that list of calls you need to return.)

As whole-life-organizing systems go, Allen's is pretty good, even fun and therapeutic. It starts with the exhortation to take every unaccounted-for scrap of paper in your workstation that you can't junk, The next step is to write down every unaccounted-for gotta-do cramming your head onto its own scrap of paper. Finally, throw the whole stew into a giant "in-basket"

That's where the processing and prioritizing begin; in Allen's system, it get a little convoluted at times, rife as it is with fancy terms, subterms, and sub-subterms for even the simplest concepts. Thank goodness the spine of his system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart that you can pin over your desk and repeatedly consult without having to refer back to the book. That alone is worth the purchase price. Also of value is Allen's ingenious Two-Minute Rule: if there's anything you absolutely must do that you can do right now in two minutes or less, then do it now, thus freeing up your time and mind tenfold over the long term. It's commonsense advice so obvious that most of us completely overlook it, much to our detriment; Allen excels at dispensing such wisdom in this useful, if somewhat belabored, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to soccer moms (who we all know are more organized than most CEOs to start with). --Timothy Murphy --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Allen, a management consultant and executive coach, provides insights into attaining maximum efficiency and at the same time relaxing whenever one needs or wants to. Readers learn that there is no single means for perfecting organizational efficiency or productivity; rather, the author offers tools to focus energies strategically and tactically without letting anything fall through the cracks. He provides tips, techniques, and tricks for implementation of his workflow management plan, which has two basic components: capture all the things that need to get done into a workable, dependable system; and discipline oneself to make front-end decisions with an action plan for all inputs into that system. In short, do it (quickly), delegate it (appropriately), or defer it. While an infomercial for the author's consulting practice, this road map for organizational efficiency may help many who have too much to do in too little time, both professionally and in their personal lives. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The most accessible guide to the essential ideas of “the inventor of modern management”.

In late 2003, ninety-four-year-old Peter Drucker invited Jeffrey Krames to his home for an unprecedented day-long interview. He spoke candidly about his seminal management principles, his enormous body of work (thirty-eight books over six decades), and the leaders he had advised over the years (including Jack Welch).

Krames used the insights he gained that day to create Inside Drucker’s Brain--a compact guide to the great man’s wisdom. Krames had no intention of writing a biography, but rather a book that would showcase Drucker’s most important ideas and strategies, and explain why they are just as useful today as they were decades ago.

Drucker’s biggest contribution was a mind-set, not a methodology. He focused on prodding managers to ask the right questions, to look beyond what they thought they knew, and to focus on tomorrow rather than yesterday. If anything, this mind-set is more valuable in the digital age than it was in the industrial age.

This user-friendly book will help readers grasp all of Drucker’s key ideas on leadership, strategy, innovation, personal effectiveness, career development, and many other topics.

From Publishers Weekly
Throughout his storied Silicon Valley career, Apple CEO and Pixar Studios founder Steve Jobs has been labeled, among other things, an egomaniac, a Zen Buddhist, a business mastermind, a sociopath and a music mogul. Blogger, author and Wired News editor Kahney, who has chronicled Apple in previous books (The Cult of Mac), attempts to plumb the depths of Jobs's prodigious mind in this engrossing biography. The author devotes much time to the sensational aspects of Jobs' life, including his demeaning and ferocious interactions with employees, his relentless high-mindedness and fanatical attention to detail, clearly demonstrating how his tyrannical and perfectionist impulses have have shaped the award-winning designs and consumer-friendly products that have made Apple a juggernaut. Though it doesn't penetrate the Mac man's psyche too deeply, and sections on tangential figures like Apple design guru Jonathan Ive and Apple Store visionary Ron Johnson can meander, those searching for a telling portrait of Jobs's management style and its impact on Apple will not be left wanting.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The latest book about the success of Apple is from an avid fan, journalist, and author of two other Apple-related books (including The Cult of Mac, 2004); it is an in-depth profile of CEO Steven Jobs. It is a tale of two Steves: a perfectionist, charming, charismatic executive but also a man who’s known as an elitist, manipulator, and sociopath, all in search of a dream: providing easy-to-use technology for individuals. Kahney begins with Jobs’ return to the company, changes made to save it from bankruptcy, and then the CEO’s attributes as manifested in products, in people, in corporate directions. Take, for example, Steve’s perfectionism, shown through the three years of work to design the Mac; through the hiring of Hartmut Esslinger, of Frogdesign; and through employee perspectives. Every chapter is headlined by specific personality traits, from Focus to Control Freak, and concludes with Lessons from Steve, bullet-point summaries of key chapter learnings. Written and intended for a wide general audience. --Barbara Jacobs --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Kingdomality involves the story of a mythical king presiding over a chaotic kingdom in which nothing seems to get done because the subjects are unhappy, unreliable, and in constant conflict. Much like many nonperforming workers today, they have been assigned tasks that they are completely unsuited for. A visiting wizard grants the king one wish to straighten the whole mess out, delivering management consultant Lady Elizabeth, who introduces the book's theory on 12 personality types and the jobs that make them happy. To participate in the fun, readers are invited to take an online test at http://www.kindomality.com and discover their personality types. The results may be quite revealing and not necessarily what you might expect!

David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
'By nature, by instinct, by personality, people react differently and use different techniques and ways of dealing with a situation. Success in the future will come to those who see people as unique individuals, with unique talents. Rather than just selecting people with the right skills, winning organizations will be those that also focus on selecting people with the skills who are also suited by temperament to complete the task successfully. How do you discover who you really are? Who your team members really are? What role you're best adapted to play? Many systems have been devised based on the great psychologist, Carl Jung's teachings. But the best may well be a system called Kingdomality, created by Richard and Susan Silvano of Career Management International. Kingdomality links an understanding of personality - the natural/instinctive way we act and react - with role models that clearly define the whole sweep of personality types. By matching personality types to roles played by citizens in a medieval kingdom and developing a simple test - blind to issues such as gender, race, education, economic circumstance - the Silvanos have created a way of discovering who you are. By knowing your own role, and the essence of the roles of others around you, you'll understand why certain people see problems and opportunities differently. To know who you really are brings power and mastery to your life.' From the foreword by Ken Blanchard, bestselling co-author of The One Minute Manager

Management Cases, Revised Edition is a collection of thought-provoking case studies—each a timeless representative of a challenge that all managers will face at some point in their careers. Longtime Drucker colleague, collaborator, and eminent management professor Joseph A. Maciariello has organized the material to be used in conjunction with Management, Revised Edition, making the book particularly useful in undergraduate, MBA, and executive education classrooms.

It contains fifteen completely new cases written especially for this edition plus another thirty-five revised and updated cases, ensuring that the book provides comprehensive coverage of the most important management dilemmas and most timeless leadership wisdom. An essential resource for business students and working professionals alike, the book will help readers test and hone their management skills.
About the Author

Peter F. Drucker is considered the most influential management thinker ever. The author of more than twenty-five books, his ideas have had an enormous impact on shaping the modern corporation. Drucker passed away in 2005.

Product Description
There’s a crisis in business today," say corporate recognition consultants Gostick and Elton. "The rhetoric we’ve been using for years—about people being ‘our most valuable asset’—has actually come true. Without much warning, we woke up one day and realized that having the right talent in this competitive marketplace is the key to success . . . Go figure."
But there is a way to retain your best employees and win their loyalty and commitment: It’s called Employee Recognition. Managing with Carrots illustrates how to implement a strategic employee recognition program and presents case studies of how North America’s finest companies create powerful recognition experiences.

From the Author
There's a crisis in business today. The rhetoric we've been using for years-about people being "our most valuable asset"-has actually come true. Without much warning, we woke up one day and realized that having the right talent in this competitive marketplace is the key to success. Go figure.

Touted as the longtime business analyst's last book, this is a compilation of essays culled from previously published material. In these pieces, which are not arranged in chronological order, Drucker covers trends, emerging industries, and management and sociological changes that can adversely affect or expand the bottom line for businesses. Drucker tracks the U.S.' movement away from a manufacturing-based to a service-oriented economy specializing in industries such as technology, health care, and management. Drucker provides insight into the emerging industry of biotechnology and the new profession of knowledge management. What is the growth trend for biotechnology? Stocks for biotechnology are not expected to zoom to overinflated proportions, as dot-com stocks did, and Drucker tells us why. He also takes us back to past events that have shaped our current society, such as the Industrial Revolution and the evolution of the businessman from the gentleman to the technologist. For 60 years, Drucker has written expertly about what he knows best, and his wisdom shines through here. His loyal audience will line up for this one. Eileen Hardy
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description
Today’s customers demand service that isn’t just beyond the norm, but makes its mark in their minds and in their hearts. This updated edition of Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service provides readers with up-to-the-minute advice on how they can create world-class service both in their operations and through their people, whether they work with customers face-to-face, on the phone, or in e-space.

Revamped with new examples, stories, and research, and featuring cartoons by John Bush, the book gives readers practical, proven ways to:

* find and retain service-oriented people

* get to know customers intimately

* build a service vision

* train and coach

* create and maintain a service management process that aligns people, systems, and customers

* involve and empower employees

* recognize and reward good performance.

Filled with examples from service standard-setters such as Fed-Ex, QVC, and others, Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service shows how to create great service on a day-to-day, real-time, every-time basis.

Book Description

Today’s customers demand service that isn’t just beyond the norm, but makes its mark in their minds and in their hearts. This updated edition of Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service provides readers with up-to-the-minute advice on how they can create world-class service both in their operations and through their people, whether they work with customers face-to-face, on the phone, or in e-space.

Revamped with new examples, stories, and research, and featuring cartoons by John Bush, the book gives readers practical, proven ways to:

* find and retain service-oriented people

* get to know customers intimately

* build a service vision

* train and coach

* create and maintain a service management process that aligns people, systems, and customers

* involve and empower employees

* recognize and reward good performance.

Filled with examples from service standard-setters such as Fed-Ex, QVC, and others, Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service shows how to create great service on a day-to-day, real-time, every-time basis.