Business Life Books - Page 6

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace

Gordon MacKenzie

Amazon Price: $14.96 List Price: $22.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Viking Adult Amazon Marketplace: 90 new & used starting at $4.88

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 107 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Creativity is crucial to business success. But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a "giant hairball"--a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past--that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit--to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius.

Originally self-published and already a business "cult classic", this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work.

Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions

John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, Howard Raiffa

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Broadway Amazon Marketplace: 63 new & used starting at $6.03

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Have you ever hired someone only to regret your decision two months later? Or looked at your financial portfolio and wondered why you bought the stocks you did? In Smart Choices, authors John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa take the guesswork out of the decision-making process and offer a systematic approach to making the right choice. Most of us have problems making decisions, because we've never learned how. The authors write:

Despite the importance of decision making to our lives, few of us ever receive any training in it. So we are left to learn from experience. But experience is a costly, inefficient teacher that teaches us bad habits along with good ones. Because decision situations vary so markedly, the experience of making one important decision often seems of little use when facing the next.

Smart Choices outlines eight elements involved in making the right decision, from identifying exactly what the decision is and specifying your objectives to considering risk tolerance and looking at how what you decide on today influences what you may decide in the future. The book is full of real-life situations and scenarios that effectively illustrate each element of a good decision. If you think the topic of making the right choice is mundane or a simple matter of common sense, then think again. Smart Choices will relieve you of the regret that so many of us carry because we didn't know how to "think it through." --Harry C. Edwards

The Art of Speed Reading People: How to Size People Up and Speak Their Language

Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron-Tieger

Amazon Price: $12.23 List Price: $17.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Little, Brown and Company Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $6.93

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Skills -> Communications
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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Relationships -> Interpersonal Relations

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Do you communicate ineffectively with some people and powerfully with others? The reason may be a difference in personalities and communication preferences. The Art of Speedreading People is a crash course in communication strategies, showing you how to observe behavioral clues to gain valuable insights into people's personalities and communication styles. The result: you become a more effective and convincing communicator, and you are more likely to receive the response you want.

This book is like a practical communications seminar based on the psychology model called Personality Typing, which is focused on identifying key personality traits in order to communicate most effectively. First, you analyze your own personality type and determine your placement on the scales of extrovert/introvert, sensor/intuitive, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. The book then teaches you about the clues that indicate other people's personality type, including speaking style, body language, and occupation. You test yourself by reading a few scenarios and personality typing the characters described. You put the system to work by learning approaches to "speedreading" people in person and on the phone using skill-building exercises. Finally, you learn how to communicate effectively with people who are a different type or temperament than you. The Art of Speedreading People is intriguing and useful, especially for those who work in a sales, service, teaching, or managerial position, or any job where effective and positive communication is paramount.

Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life

Larry Winget

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $6.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 90 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Shut Up, Stop Whining & Get a Life

This is not your typical self-help book. You won't find any motivational platitudes or cute business parables here. This is more of a "get off your butt and get to work" approach that can help you achieve more success, make more money, improve your business, and have more fun.

Larry Winget doesn't pull any punches here. He believes that business gets better when businesspeople get better through personal growth. And it works the same way in your personal life-husbands and wives improve each other when they improve themselves, and kids improve when their parents do. In other words, everything in life gets better when you get better, and nothing gets better until you get better.

This book can make you better, but it will probably tick you off. Winget is direct, caustic, and controversial. You won't like or agree with everything he has to say. Yet his advice is full of wisdom and truth that can't easily be argued with.

Words from Shut Up, Stop Whining & Get a Life that prove that this book is anything but typical:

"If you don't have much going wrong in your life, then you don't have much going on in your life."

"When you work, work! When you play, play! Don't mix the two."

"What you think about, talk about, and do something about is what comes about."

"When it quits being fun-quit."

"Time management is a joke."

And that's just the beginning!

The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth (or Anything Else) from the Inside Out

Joe Vitale

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $6.24

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 228 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A very good book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I have read many books about the Law of Attraction, and thought I was doing everything exactly as suggested to manifest my life at the summit. Yet, the results were not what I was visualizing. The attractorfactor helped me get clear on what I was and wasn't doing. What I love about this book is Joe shares real feelings and real struggles that I could relate to, and it helped me find feelings I have been surpressing. Once found, they have been easy to release. Getting me closer and closer to inner peace, freedom and abundance. Thank you Joe, for putting it all out there. This is a book I will read again...and soon. Note to Joe: You don't need all of the testimonials at the beginning, We bought the book, let us start reading it sooner.

Editorial Review:

In The Attractor Factor, Joe Vitale combines principles of spiritual self-discovery with proven marketing concepts to show how anyone can live a happy life in and outside of business. He shares his own quest for wealth and success while leading you through the five simple steps that will make all your aspirations, professional and personal, a reality.

The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do

Mark Sanborn

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Doubleday Business Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $7.29

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Whether you want to win that new account or inspire your family and friends, bestselling author and acclaimed speaker Mark Sanborn shows us how to make every performance count.

Every day, we are called to perform— at work, at home, in our communities. But is it possible to make every performance outstanding, the kind that leaves people applauding for an encore?

Mark Sanborn, leadership expert and bestselling author of The Fred Factor, says that anyone can achieve remarkable performance time after time—no matter what their personality, strengths, or weaknesses. In The Encore Effect Sanborn demonstrates, through his own experiences as well as those of the people he’s worked with in his career, how you can cultivate the traits shared by remarkable performers and achieve extraordinary results in all aspects of your life. The secrets lie in five steps:

Passion: The fuel for remarkable performance
Prepare: How remarkable performance begins
Practice: It won’t make you perfect, but it will make you better
Perform: How to engage your audience
Polish: Making your performance shine

Whether your “stage” is an office, a sales floor, the boardroom, or your own home, Sanborn’s sound advice and rousing encouragement will help you shine in every situation where it matters most.

The Craftsman

Richard Sennett

Amazon Price: $18.15 List Price: $27.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Yale University Press Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $17.14

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than “skilled manual labor,” Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman’s work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world.

The Craftsman engages the many dimensions of skill—from the technical demands to the obsessive energy required to do good work. Craftsmanship leads Sennett across time and space, from ancient Roman brickmakers to Renaissance goldsmiths to the printing presses of Enlightenment Paris and the factories of industrial London; in the modern world he explores what experiences of good work are shared by computer programmers, nurses and doctors, musicians, glassblowers, and cooks. Unique in the scope of his thinking, Sennett expands previous notions of crafts and craftsmen and apprises us of the surprising extent to which we can learn about ourselves through the labor of making physical things.

(20080327)

Rich Dad's Advisors: The Advanced Guide to Real Estate Investing: How to Identify the Hottest Markets and Secure the Best Deals (Rich Dad's Advisors)

Ken McElroy

Amazon Price: $11.55 List Price: $16.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Business Plus Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $8.52

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Real Estate -> Investments

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

If you're interested in real estate investing, you may have noticed notice the lack of coverage it gets in mainstream financial media, while stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are consistently touted as the safest and most profitable ways to invest. According to real estate guru Ken McElroy, that's because financial publications, tv and radio programs make the bulk of their money from advertising paid for by the very companies who provide such mainstream financial services. On the other hand, real estate investment is something you can do on your own--without a large amount of money up front! Picking up where left off in the bestselling The ABC's of Real Estate Investing, McElroy reveals the next essential lessons and information that no serious investor can afford to miss. Building on the foundation of real estate investment 101, McElroy tells readers:

• How to think--and operate--like a real estate mogul
  
• "The Top Ten Real Estate Markets to Watch"
  
• How to identify and close expert deals
  
• Why multifamily housing is the best real estate investment out there
  
• How to surround yourself with a team that will help maximize your money
  
• How to avoid paying thousands in taxes by structuring property sales wisely
  
• Important projections about the future of real estate investment


• And more.

Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life

David Allen

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Not yet published By: Viking Adult

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Editorial Review:

The long-awaited follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Getting Things Done.

David Allen’s Getting Things Done hit a nerve and ignited a movement with businesses, students, soccer moms, and techies all the way from Silicon Valley to Europe and Asia. Now, David Allen leads the world on a new path to achieve focus, control, and perspective. Throw out everything you know about productivity-- Making It All Work will make life and work a game you can win. For those who have already experienced the clarity of mind from reading Getting Things Done, Making It All Work will take the process to the next level.

David Allen shows us how to excel in dealing with our daily commitments, the unexpected, and the information overload that threatens to drown us. Making It All Work provides an instantly usable, success-building tool kit for staying ahead of the game.

Making It All Work addresses: how to figure out where you are in life and what you need; how to be your own consultant and a CEO of your life; moving from hope to trust in decision-making; when not to set goals; harnessing intuition, spontaneity, and serendipity; and why life is like business and business is like life.

This eagerly awaited follow-up to Getting Things Done is guaranteed to find an audience in today’s competitive business environment and among David Allen’s many fans.

Images of Organization

Gareth Morgan

Amazon Price: $58.18 List Price: $66.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Sage Publications, Inc Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $43.96

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Organizational Behavior -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Organizational Behavior -> Organizational Change
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"What a "kick" I get out of teaching from Images of Organizations. What a head-snapping view of organizations it offers to my MBA students, as well as to the odd client/executive who is disposed to creep out of the practicality of business-as-usual and take in a vibrant thrilling view of organizations."
- Ariane David, Ph.D., Senior Advisor/President, The Veritas Group

Since its first publication over twenty years ago, Images of Organization has become a classic in the canon of management literature. The book is based on a very simple premise-that all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or metaphors that stretch our imagination in a way that can create powerful insights, but at the risk of distortion. Gareth Morgan provides a rich and comprehensive resource for exploring the complexity of modern organizations internationally, translating leading-edge theory into leading-edge practice.  

This new Updated Edition preserves Morgan’s renowned creative images and metaphors while refreshing the references and tables.  The addition of a preface situates this classic theory in today’s business environment while the instructor’s resources (now available on CD) aid classroom teaching.   Please contact SAGE customer service to order your copy.

Images of Organization challenges and reshapes how we think about organization and management in the most fundamental way. The new Updated Edition makes this monumental work available to a new generation of students and business leaders worldwide.

Listen to an interview with author, Gareth Morgan on The Invisible Hand podcast.
Go to http://www.theinvisiblehandpodcast.com/The_Invisible_Hand_Episode_38.mp3

(20061003)