Getting Things Done

Product Description

In today's world, yesterday's methods just don't work. Veteran coach and management consultant David Allen recognizes that time management is useless the minute your schedule is interrupted; setting priorities isn't relevant when your e-mail is down; procrastination solutions won't help if your goals aren't clear. Instead, Allen shares with readers the proven methods he has already introduced in seminars and at top organizations across the country. The key to Getting Things Done? Relaxation.

Allen's premise is simple: our ability to be productive is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve stress-free productivity. His seamless system teaches us how to identify, track, and-most important-choose the next action on all our tasks, commitments, and projects and thus master all the demands on our time while unleashing our creative potential. The book's stylish, dynamic design makes it easy to follow Allen's tips, examples, and inspiration to achieve what we all seek-energy, focus, and relaxed control.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #20955 in Books
* Published on: 2001-01-08
* Released on: 2001-01-04
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 288 pages

Editorial Reviews

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

From AudioFile
Productivity trainer and consultant David Allen offers a crash course in basic time management and personal organization. While Allen's reading is a little stiff, his enthusiasm for the topic and his passion for systems comes across loud and clear. Allen's message is concise: Organize yourself to free your mind for greater pursuits. And this simple production makes that daunting task seem possible. It's a quick glimpse at setting goals, clearing clutter, and staying focused. Allen's reading, although one dimensional, suits the nature of the topic, making this worth the time for the effort it will save down the road. H.L.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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
Customer Reviews

GTD is helpful for getting organized, less so for time management...3
There are some really good ideas on how to get more organized and less stressed out due to disorganization in this book.

However, I have to say that this book isn't going to really help you deal as effectively with time management or procrastination. It's more a book on how to get organized and stay that way.

For dealing with procrastination and perfectionism, I would highly recommend "The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore (rev. 2007 edition). It ultimately ended up being a much more useful book for me than GTD - although the systems described in both books can easily work together.

Great Book! Even for the Over-Organizers!!5
"Getting Things Done" is a great motivator, as it speaks volumes for the simplicity of how we individually require a set way of organization to really make it flow for our daily interruptions.
This book was a recommendation, and I would also recommend it for both people "on task" and those that are flailing to keep the paper tiger in order. I will use this book over and over to recalibrate both home, work, and electronic devices whenever I am once again needing to regroup and set new goals.

I'm finally able to get things done5
Work: Anything that exists in your world that you look at and 'wish' was different from current reality. In that case, most of what we see around us could be considered work; in today's world, it seems to be work that necessitates knowledge. How much we know, and how we apply that information is the cutting edge between high productivity and burn-out. Real advice for real "knowledge workers." Do you feel overwhelmed by the "problem" of infinite opportunity? How good could that next project be? How prepared for that meeting could your direct report be? When do you stop working on one project in light of the value-add that would come in beginning another? For those of you with "too much to do, and not enough time to do it in," productivity guru (as Fast Company magazine has labeled him) David Allen provides a no-nonsense, fire-tested system that will make sense of your open loops. The Getting Things Done methodology offers a practical yet elegant solution to staying on top of your work, whether it's a personal project like landscaping your yard, to that new B2B site that you're launching next week. David Allen's approach to managing yourself and your world may well be the best advice you'll ever receive. Included are tips and tricks that lead the readers toward learning, practicing and developing techniques for improving personal productivity and individual satisfaction. The behavior sets you practice will prove useful, and add a "sustainable" element to your work/life style. Buy this book, read it, and watch your productivity AND energy go up!

My other favorite productivity book is Squawk! - How to Stop Making Noise and Start Getting Results

A Survival Guide for Working With Bad Bosses: Dealing With Bullies, Idiots, Back-stabbers, And Other Managers from Hell

Joyce Lain Kennedy, nationally syndicated columnist
"Packed with hands-on advice[...]to achieve professional success." Review

""Consider this to be the guide of all guides to dealing with bad bosses; it’s both an easy book to read, and one that is very thorough….If you are having trouble dealing with your boss, this book will be well worth its price in helping you find solutions."

--Houston Chronicle


""Packed with hands-on advice to keep frustrated employees from shrieking and running naked towards a cliff, and living to achieve professional success. Good tips!"

----Joyce Lain Kennedy, nationally syndicated columnist



Review

" ""I wish I had A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses ten years ago when I went through three bad bosses in a row, and thought I was the only one at fault! As a career and business coach, I will definitely recommend this book to my clients because it has no-nonsense, practical tips on what to do. It also helps new bosses avoid these pitfalls themselves. I love this book!""---Susan Urquhart-Brown, M. A.; author of The Accidental Entrepreneur; Principal of CareerSteps123 Coaching in Oakland, California

""For Gini's sake, I hope she hasn't personally had to deal with the entire array of ""bosses from hell"" she describes in her new book! Most employees, unfortunately, will be able to relate to at least one of the vignettes she's compiled. Blessedly, they will also find tried-and-true solutions to whichever situation they're currently facing. Thanks to Gini for telling it like it is!"" -- Shari Dunn, Managing Principal, CompAnalysis

""Gini Graham Scott has done it again! This is a terrific book with some great hands-on advice. As always, Gini combines practical sense and fun. Pick it up -- laugh and learn!"" -- Dale Marie Golden, Vice President, Private Banking, Wells Fargo Bank

""With examples from real work situations that resonate, Gini Graham Scott’s new book offers pragmatic ways to respond for anyone who has a difficult boss, and who wants to exert influence and a degree of control."" -- Claire Kinlaw, Ph.D.; Developmental Products, Inc.; project team development consultant

""Everyone should add this book to their HR library!"" -- Joe Haraburda, President, Chief Executive Officer, Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce"


Book Description
Being saddled with a terrible supervisor can turn even the best job into a nightmare. Unfortunately, not every boss is the great symbol of managerial perfection one would hope for. In fact, more people than not consider themselves stuck with a "bad boss." But short of remaining miserable or quitting a job, what can be done about it? "A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses" provides readers with savvy, practical advice for coping with managers and supervisors who are mean, incompetent, unethical, and worse. The book includes powerful strategies for not only working with -- but thriving under -- such bad boss types as: * The Great Betrayers -- how to defend yourself against a corporate backstabber * The Know-Nothing Bosses -- what to do when a boss is clueless * The Bad Communicators -- how to respond when a boss is consistently unclear Whether a boss is high-strung, incompetent, or a power-mad tyrant, this book has the solution.

Book Description

"Being saddled with a terrible supervisor can turn even the best job into a nightmare. Unfortunately, not every boss is the great symbol of managerial perfection one would hope for. In fact, more people than not consider themselves stuck with a ""bad boss."" But short of remaining miserable or quitting a job, what can be done about it?

A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses provides readers with savvy, practical advice for coping with managers and supervisors who are mean, incompetent, unethical, and worse. The book includes powerful strategies for not only working with -- but thriving under -- such bad boss types as:

* The Great Betrayers -- how to defend yourself against a corporate backstabber

* The Know-Nothing Bosses -- what to do when a boss is clueless

* The Bad Communicators -- how to respond when a boss is consistently unclear

Whether a boss is high-strung, incompetent, or a power-mad tyrant, this book has the solution."


About the Author

"Gini Graham Scott, Ph. D. is the founder and director of Changemakers

and Creative Communications & Research. She is the author of more than 40 books,

including A Survival Guide for Working with Humans. She has written the syndicated

""Work it Right!"" column for The Oakland Tribune and other newspapers. She lives in Oakland,

California."

Selected chapters from prepublication version of Investment analysis and portfolio management, fifth edition

Rest Content

Selected chapters from prepublication version of Investment analysis and portfolio management, fifth edition

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

Amazon.com Review
On September 23, 1998, the boardroom of the New York Fed was a tense place. Around the table sat the heads of every major Wall Street bank, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and representatives from numerous European banks, each of whom had been summoned to discuss a highly unusual prospect: rescuing what had, until then, been the envy of them all, the extraordinarily successful bond-trading firm of Long-Term Capital Management. Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed is the gripping story of the Fed's unprecedented move, the incredible heights reached by LTCM, and the firm's eventual dramatic demise.

Lowenstein, a financial journalist and author of Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, examines the personalities, academic experts, and professional relationships at LTCM and uncovers the layers of numbers behind its roller-coaster ride with the precision of a skilled surgeon. The fund's enigmatic founder, John Meriwether, spent almost 20 years at Salomon Brothers, where he formed its renowned Arbitrage Group by hiring academia's top financial economists. Though Meriwether left Salomon under a cloud of the SEC's wrath, he leapt into his next venture with ease and enticed most of his former Salomon hires--and eventually even David Mullins, the former vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve--to join him in starting a hedge fund that would beat all hedge funds.

LTCM began trading in 1994, after completing a road show that, despite the Ph.D.-touting partners' lack of social skills and their disdainful condescension of potential investors who couldn't rise to their intellectual level, netted a whopping $1.25 billion. The fund would seek to earn a tiny spread on thousands of trades, "as if it were vacuuming nickels that others couldn't see," in the words of one of its Nobel laureate partners, Myron Scholes. And nickels it found. In its first two years, LTCM earned $1.6 billion, profits that exceeded 40 percent even after the partners' hefty cuts. By the spring of 1996, it was holding $140 billion in assets. But the end was soon in sight, and Lowenstein's detailed account of each successively worse month of 1998, culminating in a disastrous August and the partners' subsequent panicked moves, is riveting.

The arbitrageur's world is a complicated one, and it might have served Lowenstein well to slow down and explain in greater detail the complex terms of the more exotic species of investment flora that cram the book's pages. However, much of the intrigue of the Long-Term story lies in its dizzying pace (not to mention the dizzying amounts of money won and lost in the fund's short lifespan). Lowenstein's smooth, conversational but equally urgent tone carries it along well. The book is a compelling read for those who've always wondered what lay behind the Fed's controversial involvement with the LTCM hedge-fund debacle. --S. Ketchum --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In late September 1998, the New York Federal Reserve Bank invited a number of major Wall Street investment banks to enter a consortium to fund the multibillion-dollar bailout of a troubled hedge fund. No sooner was the $3.6-billion plan announced than questions arose about why usually independent banks would band together to save a single privately held fund. The short answer is that the banks feared that the fund's collapse could destabilize the entire stock market. The long answer, which Lowenstein (Buffett) provides in undigested detail, may panic those who shudder at the thought of bouncing a $200 check. Long-Term Capital Management opened for business in February 1994 with $1.25 billion in funds. Armed with the cachet of its founders' stellar credentials (Robert Merton and Myron Scholes, 1997 Nobel Prize laureates in economics, were among the partners), it quickly parlayed expertise at reading computer models of financial markets and seemingly limitless access to financing into stunning results. By the end of 1995, it had tripled its equity capital and total assets had grown to $102 billion. Lowenstein argues that this kind of success served to enhance the fund's golden legend and sent the partners' self-confidence off the charts. As he itemizes the complex mix of investments and heavy borrowing that made 1994-1997 profitable years, Lowenstein also charts the subtle drift toward riskier (and ultimately disastrous) ventures as the fund's traditional profit centers dried up. What should have been a gripping story, however, has been poorly handled by Lowenstein, who obscures his narrative with masses of data and overwritten prose. Agent, Melanie Jackson. Author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This is a marvelous, unauthorized chronicle of the rise, fall, and re-emergence of Long-Term Capital Management, a private hedge fund that in September 1998 benefited from a Federal Reserve-orchestrated $3.6 billion bailout. Based primarily on interviews with key players from the six banks that participated in the rescue of the firm, Lowenstein, who previously wrote Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, presents a well-crafted, easy-to-follow text. Readers will better appreciate the inner workings of the firm; the nuances of the individual partners; primary differences among investing in stocks, bonds, and derivatives; the fallacy of the efficient market hypothesis; the impact of computers on financial trading; and the importance of moderation. Recommended for both academic and public libraries.
-DNorman B. Hutcherson, Kern Cty. Lib., Bakersfield, CA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The Economist
"This book is story-telling journalism at its best." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Praise for Roger Lowenstein's national bestseller Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

"A delightful portrait . . . Mr. Lowenstein has done a masterly job."
-- The New York Times Book Review

"A significant contribution to the craft of biography as well as an illuminating and comforting story for investors everywhere."
-- Chicago Tribune

"The singular achievement of Lowenstein's excellent biography... is that it burnishes the Buffett myth while deconstructing it with heavy doses of reality."
-- Barron's

"Lively, smoothly written, and elaborately researched, Buffett is likely to stand as the definitive biography."
-- Business Week

"Thoroughly researched and perceptive . . . a highly readable account."
-- Financial Times

"Lowenstein has accomplished something remarkable."
-- Los Angeles Times -- Review

Review
Praise for Roger Lowenstein's national bestseller Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

"A delightful portrait . . . Mr. Lowenstein has done a masterly job."
-- The New York Times Book Review

"A significant contribution to the craft of biography as well as an illuminating and comforting story for investors everywhere."
-- Chicago Tribune

"The singular achievement of Lowenstein's excellent biography... is that it burnishes the Buffett myth while deconstructing it with heavy doses of reality."
-- Barron's

"Lively, smoothly written, and elaborately researched, Buffett is likely to stand as the definitive biography."
-- Business Week

"Thoroughly researched and perceptive . . . a highly readable account."
-- Financial Times

"Lowenstein has accomplished something remarkable."
-- Los Angeles Times

Review
Praise for Roger Lowenstein's national bestseller Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

"A delightful portrait . . . Mr. Lowenstein has done a masterly job."
-- The New York Times Book Review

"A significant contribution to the craft of biography as well as an illuminating and comforting story for investors everywhere."
-- Chicago Tribune

"The singular achievement of Lowenstein's excellent biography... is that it burnishes the Buffett myth while deconstructing it with heavy doses of reality."
-- Barron's

"Lively, smoothly written, and elaborately researched, Buffett is likely to stand as the definitive biography."
-- Business Week

"Thoroughly researched and perceptive . . . a highly readable account."
-- Financial Times

"Lowenstein has accomplished something remarkable."
-- Los Angeles Times

Product Description
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
In a decade that had seen the longest and most rewarding bull market in history, hedge funds were the ne plus ultra of investments: discreet, private clubs limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. They promised that the investors' money would be placed in a variety of trades simultaneously--a "hedging" strategy designed to minimize the possibility of loss. At Long-Term, Meriwether & Co. truly believed that their finely tuned computer models had tamed the genie of risk, and would allow them to bet on the future with near mathematical certainty. And thanks to their cast--which included a pair of future Nobel Prize winners--investors believed them.
From the moment Long-Term opened their offices in posh Greenwich, Connecticut, miles from the pandemonium of Wall Street, it was clear that this would be a hedge fund apart from all others. Though they viewed the big Wall Street investment banks with disdain, so great was Long-Term's aura that these very banks lined up to provide the firm with financing, and on the very sweetest of terms. So self-certain were Long-Term's traders that they borrowed with little concern about the leverage. At first, Long-Term's models stayed on script, and this new gold standard in hedge funds boasted such incredible returns that private investors and even central banks clamored to invest more money. It seemed the geniuses in Greenwich couldn't lose.
Four years later, when a default in Russia set off a global storm that Long-Term's models hadn't anticipated, its supposedly safe portfolios imploded. In five weeks, the professors went from mega-rich geniuses to discredited failures. With the firm about to go under, its staggering $100 billion balance sheet threatened to drag down markets around the world. At the eleventh hour, fearing that the financial system of the world was in peril, the Federal Reserve Bank hastily summoned Wall Street's leading banks to underwrite a bailout.
Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.

Download Description
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.

From the Inside Flap
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
In a decade that had seen the longest and most rewarding bull market in history, hedge funds were the ne plus ultra of investments: discreet, private clubs limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. They promised that the investors' money would be placed in a variety of trades simultaneously--a "hedging" strategy designed to minimize the possibility of loss. At Long-Term, Meriwether & Co. truly believed that their finely tuned computer models had tamed the genie of risk, and would allow them to bet on the future with near mathematical certainty. And thanks to their cast--which included a pair of future Nobel Prize winners--investors believed them.
From the moment Long-Term opened their offices in posh Greenwich, Connecticut, miles from the pandemonium of Wall Street, it was clear that this would be a hedge fund apart from all others. Though they viewed the big Wall Street investment banks with disdain, so great was Long-Term's aura that these very banks lined up to provide the firm with financing, and on the very sweetest of terms. So self-certain were Long-Term's traders that they borrowed with little concern about the leverage. At first, Long-Term's models stayed on script, and this new gold standard in hedge funds boasted such incredible returns that private investors and even central banks clamored to invest more money. It seemed the geniuses in Greenwich couldn't lose.
Four years later, when a default in Russia set off a global storm that Long-Term's models hadn't anticipated, its supposedly safe portfolios imploded. In five weeks, the professors went from mega-rich geniuses to discredited failures. With the firm about to go under, its staggering $100 billion balance sheet threatened to drag down markets around the world. At the eleventh hour, fearing that the financial system of the world was in peril, the Federal Reserve Bank hastily summoned Wall Street's leading banks to underwrite a bailout.
Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.

From the Back Cover
Praise for Roger Lowenstein's national bestseller Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

"A delightful portrait . . . Mr. Lowenstein has done a masterly job."
-- The New York Times Book Review

"A significant contribution to the craft of biography as well as an illuminating and comforting story for investors everywhere."
-- Chicago Tribune

"The singular achievement of Lowenstein's excellent biography... is that it burnishes the Buffett myth while deconstructing it with heavy doses of reality."
-- Barron's

"Lively, smoothly written, and elaborately researched, Buffett is likely to stand as the definitive biography."
-- Business Week

"Thoroughly researched and perceptive . . . a highly readable account."
-- Financial Times

"Lowenstein has accomplished something remarkable."
-- Los Angeles Times

About the Author
Roger Lowenstein, author of the bestselling Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, reported for The Wall Street Journal for more than a decade, and wrote the Journal's stock market column "Heard on the Street" from 1989 to 1991 and the "Intrinsic Value" column from 1995 to 1997. He now writes a column in Smart Money magazine, and has written for The New York Times and The New Republic, among other publications. He has three children and lives in Westfield, New Jersey.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is perched in a gray, sandstone slab in the heart of Wall Street. Though a city landmark building constructed in 1924, the bank is a muted, almost unseen presence among its lively, entrepreneurial neighbors. The area is dotted with discount stores and luncheonettes-and, almost everywhere, brokerage firms and banks. The Fed's immediate neighbors include a shoe repair stand and a teriyaki house, and also Chase Manhattan Bank; J. P. Morgan is a few blocks away. A bit further, to the west, Merrill Lynch, the people's brokerage, gazes at the Hudson River, across which lie the rest of America and most of Merrill's customers. The bank skyscrapers project an open, accommodative air, but the Fed building, a Florentine Renaissance showpiece, is distinctly forbidding. Its arched windows are encased in metal grille, and its main entrance, on Liberty Street, is guarded by a row of black cast-iron sentries.

The New York Fed is only a spoke, though the most important spoke, in the U.S. Federal Reserve System, America's central bank. Because of the New York Fed's proximity to Wall Street, it acts as the eyes and ears into markets for the bank's governing board, in Washington, which is run by the oracular Alan Greenspan. William McDonough, the beefy president of the New York Fed, talks to bankers and traders often. McDonough especially wants to hear about anything that might upset markets or, in the extreme, the financial system. But McDonough tries to stay in the background. The Fed has always been a controversial regulator-a servant of the people that is elbow to elbow with Wall Street, a cloistered agency amid the democratic chaos of markets. For McDonough to intervene, even in a small way, would take a crisis, perhaps a war. And in the first days of the autumn of 1998, McDonough did intervene-and not in a small way.

The source of the trouble seemed so small, so laughably remote, as to be insignificant. But isn't it always that way? A load of tea is dumped into a harbor, an archduke is shot, and suddenly a tinderbox is lit, a crisis erupts, and the world is different. In this case, the shot was Long-Term Capital Management, a private investment partnership with its headquarters in Greenwich, Connecticut a posh suburb some forty miles from Wall Street. LTCM managed money for only one hundred investors, it employed not quite two hundred people, and surely not one American in a hundred had ever heard of it. Indeed, five years earlier, LTCM had not even existed.

But on the Wednesday afternoon of September 2-3, 1998, Long-Term did not seem small. On account of a crisis at LTCM, McDonough had summoned-- invited," in the Fed's restrained idiom-the heads of every major Wall Street bank. For the first time, the chiefs of Bankers Trust, Bear Stearns, Chase Manhattan, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Salomon Smith Barney gathered under the oil portraits in the Fed's tenth-floor boardroom-not to bail out a Latin American nation but to consider a rescue of one of their own. The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange joined them, as did representatives from major European banks. Unaccustomed to hosting such a large gathering, the Fed did not have enough leather-backed chairs to go around, so the chief executives had to squeeze into folding metal seats.

Although McDonough was a public official, the meeting was secret. As far as the public knew, America was in the salad days of one of history's great bull markets, although recently, as in many previous autumns, it had seen some backsliding. Since mid-August, when Russia had defaulted on its ruble debt, the global bond markets in particular had been highly unsettled. But that wasn't why McDonough had called the bankers.

Long-Term, a bond-trading firm, was on the brink of failing. The fund was run by, John W. Meriwether, formerly a well-known trader at Salomon Brothers. Meriwether, a congenial though cautious midwesterner, had been popular among the bankers. It was because of him, mainly, that the bankers had agreed to give financing to Long Term-and had agreed on highly generous terms. But Meriwether was only the public face of Long-Term. The heart of the fund was a group of brainy, Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs. Many of them had been professors. Two had won the Nobel Prize. All of them were very smart. And they knew they were very smart.

For four years, Long-Term had been the envy of Wall Street. The fund had racked up returns of more than 40 percent a year, with no losing stretches, no volatility, seemingly no risk at all. Its intellectual supermen had apparently been able to reduce an uncertain world to rigorous, cold-blooded odds-they were the very best that modern finance had to offer.

Incredibly, this obscure arbitrage fund had amassed an amazing $100 billion in assets, all of it borrowed-borrowed, that is, from the bankers at McDonough's table. As monstrous as this leverage was, It was by no means the worst of Long-Term's problems. The fund had entered into thousands of derivative contracts, which had endlessly intertwined it with every bank on Wall Street. These contracts, essentially side bets on market prices, covered an astronomical sum-more than $1 trillion worth of exposure.

If Long-Term defaulted, all of the banks in the room would be left holding one side of a contract for which the other side no longer existed. In other words, they would be exposed to tremendous-and untenable-risks. Undoubtedly, there would be a frenzy as every bank rushed to escape its now one-sided obligations and tried to sell its collateral from Long-Term.

Panics are as old as markets, but derivatives were relatively new. Regulators had worried about the potential risks of these inventive new securities, which linked the country's financial institutions in a complex chain of reciprocal obligations. Officials had wondered what would happen if one big link in the chain should fall. McDonough feared that the markets would stop working, that trading would cease; that the system itself would come crashing down.

James Cayne, the cigar-chomping chief executive of Bear Stearns, had been vowing that he would stop clearing Long-Term's trades which would put it out of business-if the fund's available assets fell below $500 million. At the start of the year, that would have seemed remote, for Long-Term's capital had been $4.7 billion. But during the past five weeks, or since Russia's default, Long-Term had suffered numbing losses-day after day after day. Its capital was down to the minimum. Cayne didn't think it would survive another day.

The fund had already gone to Warren Buffett for money. It had gone to George Soros. It had gone to Merrill Lynch. One by one, it had asked every bank it could think of. Now it had no place left to go. That was why, like a godfather summoning rival and potentially warring- families, McDonough had invited the bankers. If each one moved to unload bonds individually, the result could be a worldwide panic. If they acted in concert, perhaps a catastrophe could be avoided. Although McDonough didn't say so, he wanted the banks to invest $4 billion and rescue the fund. He wanted them to do it right then-tomorrow would be too late.

But the bankers felt that Long-Term had already caused them more than enough trouble. Long-Term's secretive, close-knit mathematicians had treated everyone else on Wall Street with utter disdain. Merrill Lynch, the firm that had brought Long-Term into being, had long tried to establish a profitable, mutually rewarding relationship with the fund. So had many other banks. But Long-Term had spurned them. The professors had been willing to trade on their terms and only on theirs-not to meet the banks halfway. The bankers did not like it that now Long-Term was pleading for their help.

And the bankers themselves were hurting from the turmoil that Long-Term had helped to unleash. Goldman Sach's CEO, Jon Corzine, was facing a revolt by his partners, who were horrified by Goldman's recent trading losses and who, unlike Corzine, did not want to use their diminishing capital to help a competitor. Sanford I. Weill, chairman of TravelersSalomon Smith Barney, had suffered big losses, too. Weill was worried that the losses would jeopardize his company's pending merger with Citicorp, which Weill saw as the crowning gem to his lustrous career. He had recently shuttered his own arbitrage unit-which, years earlier, had been the launching pad for Meriwether's career-and did not want to bail out another one.

As McDonough looked around the table, every one of his guests was in greater or lesser trouble, many of them directly on account of Long-Term. The value of the bankers' stocks had fallen precipitously. The bankers were afraid, as was McDonough, that the global storm that had begun so innocently with devaluations in Asia, and had spread to Russia, Brazil, and now to Long-Term Capital, would envelop all of Wall Street.

Richard Fuld, chairman of Lehman Brothers, was fighting off rumors that his company was on the verge of failing due to its supposed overexposure to Long-Term. David Solo, who represented the giant Swiss bank Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), thought his bank was already in far too deeply, it had foolishly invested in Long-Term and had suffered titanic losses. Thomas Labrecque's Chase Manhattan had sponsored a loan to the hedge fund of $500 million; before Labrecque thought about investing more, he wanted that loan repaid.

David Komansky, the portly Merrill chairman, was worried most of all. In a matter of two months, the value of Merrill's stock had fallen by half-$19 billion of its market value had simply melted away. Merrill had suffered shocking bond-trading losses, too. Now its own credit rating was at risk.

Komansky, who personally had invested almost $1 million in the fund, was terrified of the chaos that would result if Long-Term collapsed. But he knew how much antipathy there was in the room toward Long-Term. He thought th...

Bringing Out the Best in Yourself at Work: How to Use the Enneagram System for Success by Ginger Lapid-Bogda

Product Description


A proven system for improving your own work and for working better in a team

Used by such organizations as the Walt Disney Company, Silicon Graphics, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the CIA, the Enneagram is a proven psychological system based on nine number types that helps people achieve self-awareness and develop strategic approaches to interpersonal interactions. In Bringing Out the Best in Yourself at Work, Enneagram teacher and business consultant Ginger Lapid-Bodga shows professionals how to apply this popular tool to their work as a way to improve their productivity and help them build positive relationships among coworkers. This practical guide explains how to use the Enneagram to:
Communicate more effectively
Provide constructive feedback
Prevent and resolve conflict
Bring out their strongest leadership skills
Discover methods for professional development
Work better in teams
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #160597 in Books
Published on: 2004-07-01
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
288 pages
Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Acclaim for Bringing Out the Best in Yourself at Work

"This is the first Enneagram book that I have endorsed. The Enneagram is a powerful tool for self-understanding--the gist of emotional healing and a major factor in personal evolution. Here is a good book undertaking to bring the Enneagram to the business world at a time when it has become apparent that the business world controls the world and that our fate depends on the psychospiritual condition of those in it."
--Claudio Naranjo, M.D., Enneagram pioneer and author of Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View

"This solid, well-written book can be used by those new to the Enneagram and those who already know the system and want ways to apply it in the business world."
--Don Riso and Russ Hudson, founders of the Enneagram Institute and authors of the bestselling The Wisdom of the Enneagram

"User-friendly. . . . Ginger Lapid-Bogda's explanation and interpretation of the Enneagram way of learning more about one's self is unsurpassed."
--W. Warner Burke, Ph.D., author of Organization Change: Theory and Practice

"A must-have for your 'go-to' bookshelf."
--Beverly Kaye, Ph.D., co-author of the internationally bestselling Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay

The Enneagram is a popular, proven psychological system for determining personality types as a path for self-improvement. Now, Enneagram teacher and organizational consultant Ginger Lapid-Bogda gives clear, easy-to-follow instruction for using this powerful tool in the workplace, including techniques for bringing out your strongest leadership skills, improving your weaker areas, and preventing and resolving conflict. You'll work better, increase the effectiveness of your teams, and build relationships with your coworkers.

About the Author

Ginger Lapid-Bodga, Ph.D. (Santa Monica, CA), is the president-elect of the International Enneagram Association for 2004. As a business consultant, she frequently speaks to companies such as CBS, Disney, GE, P&G, McDonald's, and Time Warner as well as at professional conferences. She is also an internationally recognized Enneagram teacher.
Customer Reviews

A great complement to any management course!
I have managed teams for the past 15 years, and I recently read several books about the enneagram. This one is definitely a must read for all managers but also for anyone working! It gives great pointers on communicating effectively, tips on how to give feedback, how to resolve conflicts, how to create high-performing teams... Beyond the real-life examples, there is also a summary of what you can do that will work well with all types, since we don't always know what type our team members or coworkers are. I also liked the recommended daily activities.

Very easy to read, and yet exhaustive on the subject, it has become one of my favorite management books.

Finally...
The genuine nugget in this book is its use of the Enneagram to move forward the original Center for Creative Leaderhip research about what derails successful professionals. Lapid-Bogna's gift is to communicate the most profound and deeply thoughtful insights with deceptively casual language. I agree it needs to be read twice: Once to understand the techniques it describes, and a second time to appreciate how she builds on her hard-earned understanding of what works and doesn't work in OD and career development. Then, consider reading it a third time to appreciate the Enneagram for the doors it opens to truly deep personal growth. Not just another book written as a practice-building marketing piece for the author. It contains enough material for at least two books.

The most practical enneagram book out there for business applications
I love this book. I am an executive coach and I find this very useful for helping my Enneagram-aware clients apply the model directly and quickly to work situations -- to help debug relationships, communications, conflilct, etc.

I especially like Lapid-Bogda's distinctions and examples around "Pinch" and "Crunch" for each of the types.

I don't know of any other books except Michael Goldberg's "The Nine Ways of Working" that fill this business-application niche quite so well.

Highly recommended for those who need a practical, hands-on way of using the Ennegram in day to day work interactions.

What Every New Manager Needs to Know: Making a Successful Transition to Management by Gerard H. Gaynor

Product Description

Companies depend on the ability of managers to fulfill organizational vision and meet crucial objectives. But without a firm grasp of critical management competencies, new managers' own futures -- as well as the company's -- can be at serious risk.

What Every New Manager Needs to Know gives readers the skills they need to excel in their new responsibilities, such as managing the relationship between individual and team performance, making key people decisions like hiring, coaching and evaluating, developing budgets, and mastering the skills of project management. The book explores the key roles managers must take on in different situations, and answers fundamental questions like:

* What does it mean to be a manager? * What work can be delegated to others? * When is it -- and isn't it -- appropriate to take on an active leadership role?

Featuring examples and stories, What Every New Manager Needs to Know shows newly appointed managers how to think outside the cubicle and excel in their new roles.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #150968 in Books
Published on: 2003-11-14
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
256 pages
Editorial Reviews

Book Info
Guide to tackling the tough and complex job of being a manager. Topics include making critical people decisions, managing individual and team relationships, managing projects, and more. Softcover. DLC: Management.

About the Author

Gerard H. (Gus) Gaynor (Minneapolis, MN) has more than 45 years’ experience as a manager, including 24 years at 3M. He is the author of Innovation by Design(0-8144-0696-3).

Customer Reviews

A great introduction to the realities of management
I read WHAT EVERY NEW MANAGER SHOULD KNOW: MAKING A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION TO MANAGEMENT by Gerard H. (Gus) Gaynor so that I could evaluate it for use in a course I'm teaching next semester. Since one of my coures objectives is to switch the mindset of students from that of tacticians to that of managers, I thought this would be a good way to start.

The book is an easy 229-page read, and with bulleted summaries and lists in larger type, the book is also easily scannable, especially for those who might read it "from the back" primarily (through indexed entries on specific topics).

Gaynor begins the book with a likely scenario for the reader: YOU have just been promoted at your organization to head a team or division, and you have until Monday morning to prepare yourself for the work of a manager. He stresses that management is a profession, with necessary core knowledge areas and skills and abilities, just as is the speciality from which you were promoted. The chapters of the book include:
1. Getting Started as a Manager
2. The Seven Management Hats
3. Making the Critical People Decisions
4. Managing Individual and Team Relationships
5. Project Management
6. Finding the Time and Doing the Work
7. Leadership and Communications
8. Thinking your Way to Success
9. Measuring your Chances of Success
10. Managing your Career

Several main ideas of Gaynor's focus on the ethical and people-oriented aspects of management. He states several times that managers do not manage people; they manage activities. Also, when writing about promotion and job assignments, he states that a manager can ruin someone's career by giving him or her the wrong assignment. Change agents aren't good at maintenance and vice-versa. If you give such a person responsibilities their natural talents don't lend themselves to, you could be dead-ending a perfectly good, contributing member of the organization. He also deals with leadership issues interestingly, and the notes sections at the end of each chapter offer other interesting reads, such as Senge's The Fifth Discipline and Henry Mintzberg's "The Manager's Job: Folklore and Fact," from the Harvard Business Review.

I don't know that I will have my students read every chapter. The section on project management may be a little too detailed and contextual for students in a seminar, but I think the last chapter on self-assessment of managerial abilities is a good way to start them off on their consideration of their own strengths and weaknesses. I wished I had had this book when I first became the boss of people! It underscored some of my instincts (like never to be disrespectful to your employees) and provided sound reasoning for alternate points of view.

If you want more applied knowledge for new managers, want to improve your management skills or want to teach a class for new managers, I recommend this book, published by the American Management Association. Gaynor, who lives in Minneapolis, worked as a manager for more than 24 years at 3M and now has his own consulting firm.

http://rapidshare.com/files/19511691/What_Every_New_Manager_Needs_to_Know_-_Making_a_Successful_Transition_to_Management.rar

Big Secrets by William Poundstone

Product Description


The Book That Gives the Inside Story on Hundreds of Secrets of American Life --Big Secrets.

Are there really secret backward messages in rock music, or is somebody nuts? We tested suspect tunes at a recording studio to find out.

What goes on at Freemason initiations? Here's the whole story, including -- yes! -- the electric carpet.

Colonel Sanders boasted that Kentucky Fried Chicken's eleven secret herbs and spices "stand on everybody's shelf." We got a sample of the seasoning mix and sent it to a food chemist for analysis.

Feverish rumor has it that Walt Disney's body was frozen and now lies in a secret cryonic vault somewhere beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit at Disneyland. Read the certified stranger-than-fiction truth.

Don't bother trying to figure out how Doug Henning, David Copperfield, and Harry Blackstone, Jr., perform their illusions. Big Secrets has complete explanations and diagrams, nothing left to the imagination.

Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #605499 in Books
Published on: 1985-06-26
Released on: 1985-06-26
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
232 pages
Customer Reviews

A great book, and never mind the haters...
I'm a librarian with over fifteen years' experience in my profession, and this is one of my favorite reference books. I find it more amusing than irritating that this book's rating has been driven down by, variously, a magician, a bitter would-be know-it-all, and a couple of Freemasons. The way that they respond to this book is probably one of the best testimonials to its relevance and quality.

The "big secrets" that Poundstone reveals are, in large part, not that difficult to discover on one's own. With all of the Masons walking around, there are bound to be a few that will blab about the sooper-seekrit initiation ceremonies. With all of the minimum-wage fast food workers, it has to be pretty easy to get a sample of the KFC chicken coating for analysis. With all of the magic books that have been written and published... you get the idea.

The real secret that Poundstone reveals in these instances is that they really aren't secrets, but have been promoted as such by those who benefit from the illusion of secrecy. The whole myth behind Coca-Cola, for example--that the formula is secret, that there's a secret ingredient "7X", that only two people know the formula, and they each only know part of it, and that they can't travel on the same plane--is pure corporate hogwash. The recipe for the syrup has been part of the public legal record for decades. The centuries-old initiation rites of the Masons are pretty much like the ones that you made up for your neighborhood "No Gurls Alowd" clubhouse when you were eight, only with somewhat better props. Stage magicians are still flogging the same tired tricks that were old when Houdini was a kid in Appleton, Wisconsin. And so on.

Naturally, some of the same people who want the general public to believe that these things are unknowable, save only to an initiated few, are upset that Poundstone stuck them between covers for anyone to read. But for the rest of us, who delight in discovery and the puncturing of myths, the book is a sheer blast.

Speculation about mostly irrelevant things!
I enjoyed other, more recent, books by William Poundstone and I decided to try this. I was very disappointed. I am sure the fact that the book was written twenty years ago contributes to my disappointment: many subjects present only nostalgic value for some people and mostly outdated. Don't look for revelations - the author is mostly speculating on the subject (secrets mostly will stay secrets). In our time much more and better information could be found on the Internet. I gave it two stars just for some historical data that I found sometimes interesting.

Psst! Wanna hear a secret?
Did you know that the seductive essence of KFC's secret blend of herbs and spices is nothing more than pepper and MSG? Yikes, no wonder I can chow down the 12-piece box in one sitting!

Author William Poundstone provides a wide variety of esoteric knowledge in BIG SECRETS - everything from an analysis of Coca Cola, an explanation of bar codes and the Rorschach (inkblot) Test, an interminable listing of "secret" radio frequencies, the truth about subliminal shots in movies and ostensibly secret messages in popular song tracks, and an answer to the question "Is Walt Disney's corpse frozen?".

The range of topics in this book is wide, and for that I'd award five stars. However, though I'm reasonably intrigued by the arcane technology of printing currency, the magician's technique of sawing a woman in half, and whether or not there's two-year old fish in Worcestershire Sauce or a secret bank in Beverly Hills, I couldn't care less about the secret ingredients in high-end perfumes, the details of Freemason initiation rites, the method behind the Amazing Kreskin's feats of telepathy, or how playing cards are "marked". And that's the book's biggest problem. While there's likely to be something of interest for everyone in its pages, not everything will be of interest to the individual reader. Therefore, since I read for entertainment, BIG SECRETS is, for me, only a three-star entertainment vehicle. Also, since the book was originally published in 1983, twenty-one years ago - it's woefully outdated. I mean, nothing is mentioned about a secret email address for Bill Gates or what Martha Stewart does when she goes slumming.

According to Poundstone, 7-Up is the only major soft drink with no "secret" ingredients. Maybe that's why the beverage is so boring.

Cost Reduction and Control Best Practices: The Best Ways for a Financial Manager to Save Money (Wiley Best Practices) by IOMA

Product Description

Cost Reduction and Control Best Practices provides financial manages with no-nonsense, balanced, and practical strategies that are being targeted and used nationwide for controlling costs by thousands of companies in areas such as human resources, compensation, benefits, purchasing, outsourcing, use of consultants, taxes, and exports. These best practices are based on the trenches experience, research, proprietary databases, and consultants from the Institute of Management and Administration (IOMA) and other leading experts in their fields.
* Provides best practices and techniques for controlling costs within a company
* New chapters focus on outsourcing costs, downsizing, consultants' costs, and business tax costs
* Provides the latest strategies companies re using to control costs
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #74044 in Books
Published on: 2005-11-04
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
544 pages
Editorial Reviews

Download Description
The official IOMA source for tips, techniques, strategies, and best practices in corporate cost-cutting This book is an authoritative and comprehensive collection of the best strategies and techniques being used to control costs across virtually every business function. Each chapter focuses on a different department or function and is built around original research, the latest strategies currently being used, and dozens of practical tips and tactics from managers around the country. Case studies and real examples illustrate this expert guide from the only truly definitive source-the Institute of Management and Administration.

From the Inside Flap
If the past few years have taught financial managers anything, it's that there will always be changes and challenges in the economic environment. Boom or bust, bull or bear, upswing or downturn, more and more companies are realizing that an ongoing commitment to cost reduction and control is the best way to weather the inevitable turmoil in today's global economic climate. Being proactive and implementing practical cost control measures now can lessen the likelihood of having to take drastic actions later—actions that can imperil a corporation's direction and future.

First published in 2002, Cost Reduction and Control Best Practices quickly became a trusted resource for financial managers in companies large and small. Expanded and extensively updated, this edition includes the latest strategies companies are using to control costs, plus new chapters focusing on outsourcing costs, downsizing, consultants' costs, and business tax costs. It gives controllers, managers, and financial managers informed guidance on the most successful cost control strategies across the entire spectrum of business functions.

Within this book, the Institute of Management and Administration (IOMA) presents the best practices, techniques, and proven ideas to help control cost. It helps financial managers make decisions using a scientific method rather than relying on intuition or the latest management fad. Detailed case studies show how other companies have successfully cut or controlled costs in various areas of administration and operations.

From the Back Cover
The official IOMA source for tips, techniques, strategies, and best practices in corporate cost-cutting

This book is a totally updated, authoritative compilation of the best strategies and techniques being used to control costs in various industries and across virtually all business functions. Each chapter focuses on a different department or function and includes the latest best practices and dozens of practical tips and tactics from managers around the country. In-depth case studies and examples show how diverse cost reduction and control measures work in the real world.

The book includes specific techniques on cutting costs in the following areas:
Human Resources
Benefits
Compensation
401(k) Plan
Training and Development
Accounting
Accounts Payable
Credit and Collections
Purchasing
Inventory
Export Costs
Outsourcing
Downsizing
Consultants
Business Tax

Based on vast research by the Institute of Management and Administration, the premier resource for management professionals, this guide is ideal for managers and financial officers who need to implement cost reduction measures promptly, small business owners who need fresh ideas for cutting costs, and all executives who realize that ongoing cost control is vital for resiliency and competitiveness in fluctuating economic environments. Today, cost control must be integrated into corporate culture in order to preserve that corporate culture.
Customer Reviews

High Quality Book

In a highly competitive operating environment in which we live, it is often difficult for a company to raise prices, unless it can differentiate its products and services in such a way that customers are prepared to pay a premium price. Even then it is necessary to produce the best value at optimal costs.

Most companies are price takers and the only area that they have control may be their costs. This is where this book is very handy and it provides managers with effective techniques and tools that they can employ to control and manage costs. The book shows that all departments can adopt best practices to ensure that their costs structures are optimal. Other areas to target for cost control include outsourcing, rightsizing organisations, the use of consultants and elsewhere.

This is an excellent book that is essential reading for all managers who need to learn the techniques, strategies and best practices in reducing costs for organisations. The author reinforces their well presented arguments, proposals and solutions with case studies and real examples that should assist managers in implementing the tips that they would have learnt.

Manager
I found this book innovative and helpful. It provides informative examples best practices, case studies and the latest strategies & techniques that companies can use to control costs and maximize profitability. In a tough fiscal year, I will be reading this book over and over again to find more new ways to save money.

Six Sigma for Financial Professionals (Wiley Essentials) by D. H. Stamatis

Product Description

Praise for Six Sigma for Financial Professionals
"Dr. Stamatis has tackled an area that is just learning the tremendous value of the Six Sigma methodology and how to use it. The financial community is proving that Six Sigma can and will reduce errors and prevent mistakes from occurring. Dr. Stamatis lays out the formula for success by starting with the foundations of Six Sigma and then moving into its application in financial arenas. He has given numerous examples and references that will assist in developing this methodology into a reality for your organization."
-Roderick A. Munro, PhD
Business Improvement Coach
"A strong and thorough blueprint to follow for companies that are planning to implement Six Sigma. The book helps one understand how to focus on processes, not just projects, to help achieve business transformation."
-Tammy S. Mitchell
Vice President Controller
TRW Automotive
"Dr. Stamatis's approach to Six Sigma is insightful and would benefit readers outside the quality sector and quality professionals alike. The book is refreshing in truthfully identifying Six Sigma as a collection of proven methodologies, not a new 'silver bullet.'"
-William M. Harral, CQA, CQE, CQMgr, CRE, ASQ-Fellow
CEO, Arch Associates LLC
"As a rule, financial executives focus on the bottom line for directions and ultimate decision-making. Dr. Stamatis's manuscript is clearly written, easily followed, and absolutely describes the potential benefits of Six Sigma and the need to incorporate it for long-term survival in any industry."
-William P. Lianos
President and Treasurer
Michigan Rivet Corporation
"Amid the crushing time crunch to compete, effective leaders have found an important tool in the Six Sigma method. Yet the plethora of information in the field often generates a confusing light without generating the necessary heat. Dr. Stamatis has penned an important, coherent, and complete contribution without cheerleading a single-minded approach. If you only have the time for one book to help you plan, prepare, or advance your Six Sigma effort, this is it."
- A. J. Deeds
President
Team Quality Development, Inc.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #1605830 in Books
Published on: 2003-09-01
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
320 pages
Editorial Reviews

Download Description
Praise for Six Sigma for Financial Professionals
"Dr. Stamatis has tackled an area that is just learning the tremendous value of the Six Sigma methodology and how to use it. The financial community is proving that Six Sigma can and will reduce errors and prevent mistakes from occurring. Dr. Stamatis lays out the formula for success by starting with the foundations of Six Sigma and then moving into its application in financial arenas. He has given numerous examples and references that will assist in developing this methodology into a reality for your organization."
-Roderick A. Munro, PhD
Business Improvement Coach
"A strong and thorough blueprint to follow for companies that are planning to implement Six Sigma. The book helps one understand how to focus on processes, not just projects, to help achieve business transformation."
-Tammy S. Mitchell
Vice President Controller
TRW Automotive
"Dr. Stamatis's approach to Six Sigma is insightful and would benefit readers outside the quality sector and quality professionals alike. The book is refreshing in truthfully identifying Six Sigma as a collection of proven methodologies, not a new 'silver bullet.'"
-William M. Harral, CQA, CQE, CQMgr, CRE, ASQ-Fellow
CEO, Arch Associates LLC
"As a rule, financial executives focus on the bottom line for directions and ultimate decision-making. Dr. Stamatis's manuscript is clearly written, easily followed, and absolutely describes the potential benefits of Six Sigma and the need to incorporate it for long-term survival in any industry."
-William P. Lianos
President and Treasurer
Michigan Rivet Corporation
"Amid the crushing time crunch to compete, effective leaders have found an important tool in the Six Sigma method. Yet the plethora of information in the field often generates a confusing light without generating the necessary heat.

Review
“A clearly written book on the benefits of Six Sigma, this is an ideal book for those using or advancing this methodology.” (Accounting Technician, June 2004)

Download Description
Praise for Six Sigma for Financial Professionals
"Dr. Stamatis has tackled an area that is just learning the tremendous value of the Six Sigma methodology and how to use it. The financial community is proving that Six Sigma can and will reduce errors and prevent mistakes from occurring. Dr. Stamatis lays out the formula for success by starting with the foundations of Six Sigma and then moving into its application in financial arenas. He has given numerous examples and references that will assist in developing this methodology into a reality for your organization."
-Roderick A. Munro, PhD
Business Improvement Coach
"A strong and thorough blueprint to follow for companies that are planning to implement Six Sigma. The book helps one understand how to focus on processes, not just projects, to help achieve business transformation."
-Tammy S. Mitchell
Vice President Controller
TRW Automotive
"Dr. Stamatis's approach to Six Sigma is insightful and would benefit readers outside the quality sector and quality professionals alike. The book is refreshing in truthfully identifying Six Sigma as a collection of proven methodologies, not a new 'silver bullet.'"
-William M. Harral, CQA, CQE, CQMgr, CRE, ASQ-Fellow
CEO, Arch Associates LLC
"As a rule, financial executives focus on the bottom line for directions and ultimate decision-making. Dr. Stamatis's manuscript is clearly written, easily followed, and absolutely describes the potential benefits of Six Sigma and the need to incorporate it for long-term survival in any industry."
-William P. Lianos
President and Treasurer
Michigan Rivet Corporation
"Amid the crushing time crunch to compete, effective leaders have found an important tool in the Six Sigma method. Yet the plethora of information in the field often generates a confusing light without generating the necessary heat.

Protecting Your Wealth in Good Times and Bad By Richard A. Ferri

Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #703227 in Books
Published on: 2003-04-18
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
256 pages
Editorial Reviews

Download Description
Based on the highly successful Utterly Confused format, this guide introduces beginners, in a unique conversational style and format, to the basic pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary needed for effective communication.

From the Back Cover

Time-Tested Techniques for Building and Protecting a Solid Financial Foundation

Markets go up. Markets go down. And somehow in that never-ending cycle, you have to invest and save wisely enough to keep your family safe from financial worry. Protect Your Wealth in Good Times or Bad outlines an easy to understand, practical, and market-proven financial plan calculated to grow and protect your family's savings as it substantially eases your money concerns and crises--today, tomorrow, and throughout a long, happy, and healthy retirement.

Praise for Protect Your Wealth In Good Times and Bad:

"A comprehensive manual of sound advice for the investor who is serious about planning for the long term."--John Bogle, Founder, The Vanguard Group, Author, Common Sense on Mutual Funds and John Bogle on Investing

"Whether you are just beginning to save for the future, already in retirement, or somewhere in between, Ferri's new book is the best investment you will ever make."--Larry Swedroe, Author, Rational Investing in Irrational Times and What Wall Street Doesn't Want You To Know

"Rick Ferri tosses a precious lifeline to the millions of small investors battered by the bursting of the market bubble. Readable and comprehensive, his book lays out went wrong and what you can do about it."--William Bernstein, Author, The Intelligent Asset Allocator and The Four Pillars of Investing

"Rick Ferri is an outstanding teacher, writer and investment advisor. Protect Your Wealth in Good Times and Bad is an excellent financial information resource that I plan to use for many years to come."--Michael LeBoeuf, Ph.D., Author, How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life and The Millionaire in You

About the Author

Richard A. Ferri is president and senior portfolio manager of Portfolio Solutions and a professor of finance at Walsh College. He has written numerous books on personal investing, including Serious Money and All About Index Funds.
Customer Reviews

Excellent Primer with Detailed Examples
I was very impressed with this book and give it an A. Ferri's writing style is easy to read.

Ferri wrote this book near the end of the biggest 3 year drops in the U.S. stock market since the Great Depression. Many investors were wiped out from jumping on the tech stock bubble of the late 90's.

Ferri does a great job of explaining the advantages of index funds and the theory of asset allocation. He offers several ways for investors to judge what their "real" risk tolerance is with regards to selecting the proper stock to bond asset allocation.

I enjoyed the later sections of the book where Ferri broke down his recommendations by age groups (from young people to retirees). He offers specific asset allocations and specific funds to achieve these asset allocations.

Ferri is also brave enough to publish his estimate of future returns of the major asset classes.

If more investors had followed Ferri's asset allocation advice in the late 1990's, they would not have suffered the loss of most of their retirement investments.

All-in-all, a good book for serious investors who manage their own portfolios. I would suggest companion books to supplement this book including The Richest Man in Babylon, Bogle on Mutual Funds, The Millionaire Next Door, The 4 Pillars of Investing, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Index Mutual Funds: How to Simplify Your Life and Beat the Pros, and the Coffeehouse Investor.

Message to Boomers: Save or Bust !
Americans are saving no more for retirement than they did twenty years ago. Bad advice from the brokerage community, the financial media, and mutual fund companies compound the difficulty of developing a sound strategy for accumulating sufficient wealth to achieve financial independence. All this is at a time when workers have more retirement options available to them. This book is written for people who want to do their own financial planning. Each of the chapters summarizes and list key points for easy back reference. Given the obstacles investors face from outside advisors and the author's conviction that the projected benefits from Social Security are "destined" to be reduced, the importance of financial planning is compelling.

Ferri's investment advice is straightforward: Save consistently. Diversify. Keep investment costs low. Use market tracking index funds. Many of Ferri's ideas can be found in other recently written books on the subject, but as a stand alone introduction, this is a good place to start. Some readers will take the author's suggestion and begin with the third and final part of the book where advice is given for readers at different stages of their investment lives. But it is in the earlier sections of the book the author builds his case for developing realistic return expectations, reducing risk by using different kinds of assets like foreign stocks and real estate, and keeping costs down. It is also in these sections that Ferri is especially hard, I think unfairly, on stockbrokers who are dismissed as undereducated and mercenary, but these traits are more representative of individuals than a profession. His criticism of the mutual fund industry is more objective with respect to hidden costs and strategies for inflating performance for public consumption. These criticisms echo the periodic comments of industry gadfly John Bogle whose book on mutual funds is recommended in an Appendix.

Not every investor - my guess is only a small minority - will have the discipline to learn to manage their own financial affairs without some outside guidance. However, sound information covering a broad range of topics of the kind Ferri has compiled in this book will greatly improve an investor's chances for success with or without outside help.

Great Resource for Do-It-Yourself Investors
As a fee-only financial planner, I really enjoyed this latest book by Rick Ferri. It provides a straightforward approach whereby anyone can construct a low-cost portfolio to build and preserve wealth. The book would be valuable to anyone who wants to understand why markets behave as they do, and to fashion a plan to invest in uncertain times. The author includes useful advice about how much money one needs to accumulate for retirement, and how much income can be withdrawn safely. Mr. Ferri offers plenty of technical information to support his ideas, but it is presented in an easy to read style. I particularly liked the guidelines for setting realistic expectations for investment returns in the future, and the practical advice for successful investing at different phases of life. Many of my clients are do-it-yourself investors who are looking for some guidance. This book provides it - and I plan to recommend it to clients as an educational resource.

Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management

Product Description

The Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management is the most comprehensive source of coverage related to the past, present, and emerging directions of knowledge management. The Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management provides a broad basis for understanding the issues, technologies, theories, applications, opportunities, and challenges being faced by researchers and organizations today in their quest for knowledge management. Over 170 contributors from 23 countries have conferred their expertise to this publication, and with 940 definitions and more than 3,600 references, this encyclopedia is the single source for reliable and modern-day research in the field of knowledge management.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #1452550 in Books
Published on: 2005-09-23
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
902 pages
Editorial Reviews

About the Author
David Schwartz, Ph. D. is a native of Toronto, is chairman of the Information Systems division, and an assistant professor at Bar Ilan University Graduate School of Business Administration, Israel. He serves as the editor of the Journal of Internet Research, published in the United Kingdom. Dr. Schwartz has published extensively on many aspects of software and information technology and his writings have been included in industry leading publications such as James Martin's Information Technology for the 21st Century Corporation and the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. He is the co-editor of the book "Internet-Based Organizational Memory and Knowledge Management", 2000, Idea Group Publishing.

Becoming an Extraordinary Manager: The 5 Essentials for Success By Leonard Sandler

Product Description

Nearly all managers dream of being inspiring leaders who elicit the most from their people. But while they may understand the skills needed to manage their teams, very few know how to put their knowledge into practice. Now, any manager can get exceptional results and make an important contribution to the organization. Becoming an Extraordinary Manager focuses not just on "understanding" principles of good management, but on taking action. Readers will learn the basic attitude and skills outstanding managers must know, including:

* why it's critical to be interested in, rather than interesting to, their people * the best ways to motivate their team * effective interviewing techniques * conducting a performance review * time management * introducing change * delegation * thinking and acting about their people positively (the self-fulfilling prophecy) * building a high-performance team * retaining top talent * handling performance problems * listening

Lively in style and thorough in content, this is the book that gives every manager a complete guide to avoiding the ordinary and becoming the best.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #125312 in Books
Published on: 2007-10-31
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
256 pages
Editorial Reviews

Review

“…A smart addition to an aspiring leader’s bookshelf.”

-Washington Business Journal

About the Author

Len Sandler (Westford, MA) is the President of Sandler Assoc. and has successfully developed and delivered more than 2,500 seminars for such clients as EMC, General Motors, Disney, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, General Electric, Hertz, Sun Microsystems, Honeywell, Citigroup, Lucent Technologies, Siemens, and Corning.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction


Extraordinary managers make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. They add value to their organization. They get extraordinary results from ordinary people. Average managers wind up with ordinary results no matter how good their people are. There are even managers who, unfortunately, drag their groups down so that they get ordinary results from extraordinary people. The whole, then, becomes less than the sum of its parts. These managers have little, if any, value. They don't really manage much of anything. They're "straw bosses." After the worthwhile stalks of wheat and other grains are harvested, straw is what's left over on the ground. It's used primarily for animal bedding. The term straw boss has come to mean a low-level manager who isn't good for much. Such managers have very little authority. They're leftovers. The term also connotes someone who is petty and makes things more difficult, not better, for employees. I know some companies that have more than their share of "straw bosses." I'm willing to wager that you do, too.


Overall, I've found there to be four basic kinds of people:

1. Those who make things happen. You can count on these people 100 percent of the time. No matter what the assignment, no matter what the obstacles to overcome, no matter what the deadline. They're always improving themselves. Their development curve looks like a skyrocket. I'm assuming you're this kind of person. Why else would you have bought this book?


2. Those who watch things happen. These people are the spectators. They sit up in the stands. They second-guess and play Monday-morning quarterback. You probably say the same things to them that I do: "If you can do better, you come down on the field of play where the action is." Of course, they never do. They don't want to get their hands dirty. They don't want to stick their necks out.


3. Those who wonder what's happening. These are the people who are always confused. Things are never clear enough for them. They're always waiting for something. They say things like, "I have the responsibility but not the authority." They want things to be given to them. On retirement day, they'll still be waiting for instructions and direction.


4. Those that everything happens to. These are the victims. The "Woe is me!" people. They claim they have such terrible luck. In truth, they make their own bad luck. You hate to even say "Hi!" to them. That's the only opening they need. They'll give you an hour's worth of their latest problems and their latest troubles. You wish you could hold a mirror up to these people. Maybe then they'd see themselves for the way they really are. Some of them have had fifteen or sixteen different jobs. They always say, "No one understood me. No one listened to me. They made promises they didn't keep. It wasn't fair." After that many jobs, you'd think they'd learn that their own behavior has a lot to do with their lack of success. But they just don't want to face the truth. So they play the "blame game."


Because you're a "Make things happen" kind of person, I'm willing to share my experience with you. I spent sixteen years working in corporations, large and small, and the last eighteen years as a consultant for many of what are considered the very best Fortune 500 companies. I've seen my share of good managers. I've seen a whole lot of bad ones. Too many bad ones. I've been an observer. A note-taker. In this book, I'll report to you on those observations. I'll try to talk in simple, commonsense terms about what's done wrong and how it can be done right. Work should be more than just work. It doesn't have to be boredom, drudgery, and something to be avoided. People don't have to go around talking about "Blue Monday" and "Hump Day Wednesday" and "Thank God it's Friday." There are too many employees who just put in their time. Kind of like prisoners in a maximum-security prison. They're just waiting to get released for the weekend, a holiday, or vacation. It doesn't have to be that way. The truth is, there's no such thing as unmotivated people, just bad management.


When the cake comes out wrong, it's seldom the fault of the ingredients. The odds are the flour, sugar, and eggs were just fine. It's probably the fault of the baker. Some bakers are good and others aren't so good. Some managers are good and others aren't so good. The best have special recipes that they've learned. They take ordinary ingredients and incredible things happen. You can be like that, too. I'm not saying that the ingredients don't matter. Get good ingredients. But it takes much more than that to be a great baker.


I'm going to give you practical steps to follow that can help you become a better manager or prepare for a management position. I know you've got good intentions. Everyone has good intentions. The problem is that we judge ourselves based on our intentions. Others judge us on our actions. So, rather than focus on building an understanding of good management principles, we'll focus on actions you can and should take.


I've heard all the excuses that managers give as to why they don't manage. Excuses like, "I'm too busy," and "My boss won't let me," and "I'm not going to hold people's hands." To understand how ridiculous these excuses are, let's put them in a different context. Let's say you were having your house painted. The painting crew was doing a terrible job. The radio was blaring, they were making a mess out of your yard, and not much work was getting done at all. You call the crew chief over and say, "I'm very disappointed in the work your crew has been doing." He claims it's not his fault because he's "too busy" and the "boss won't let me" and he's "not going to hold people's hands." My guess is you'd be outraged. You'd probably call the owner of the painting company and demand that this crew chief be replaced. You wouldn't let him get away with saying those things. Why should we let our managers get away with it?


Recently I asked several hundred people in various training sessions a simple, straightforward question: "Do managers know how to motivate people?" A whopping 75 percent said, "No!" If we asked a different question—for example, "Do salespeople know how to sell?"—and 75 percent said "No," wouldn't someone be upset? What if 75 percent of the accounting people weren't good with numbers? Wouldn't someone want action to be taken? I asked those same people if would they fire their manager on the spot if they were able to. A full 25 percent of employees said, "Yes!" What does that tell you about their respect for the people they work for?


So, why aren't there more good managers? We've got many good programmers. Most programmers are very capable. There are a few bad ones, of course, but the vast majority are just fine. We've got many good accountants. Most accountants are very capable. There are a few bad ones, of course, but the vast majority are just fine. You get the idea. With management, it's just the opposite. There are some good ones. But many aren't very good at all. They cause more harm than good. They discourage, demotivate, and drive good people out of organizations. They negatively affect business results and cost companies untold amounts of money to repair the damage they cause.


I can't tell you how many hours I've spent captive in an office while the boss brags on and on about how wonderful he is. He'd tell stories about his vacation, his family, his hobbies, while I sit there thinking about how much work I have to do. The boss is going "Talk, talk, talk," while the clock goes, "Tock, tock, tock." You say the same thing has happened to you? And it drives you crazy, too? Okay, so you know what I mean when I talk about managers who "discourage, demotivate, and drive people out of the organization." Why a company would pay people in management positions to tell personal stories and build up their egos like mini-tyrants, at the expense of people's valuable time, is beyond me.


I talked to an employee recently who told me that her manager wanted to hold an individual development planning discussion with her. She was delighted. She said she had never had such a discussion and was thrilled that a manager would show that much interest in her. She did her research and prepared a lot of information for the meeting. Unfortunately, the meeting was postponed because the manager was too "busy." That meeting was postponed nine more times. She said she is now so disgusted that she deleted all the information she had prepared and said that, if and when the manager reschedules the meeting again, she purposely won't show up to try to get back at the manager. Employees should be treated with the same respect that customers are given. Imagine postponing a customer meeting because you're too "busy"?


Why Aren't There More Good Managers?


There are five main reasons why there aren't more good managers:

1. Most occupations require some demonstrated competence, but management doesn't. Many occupations require certification or a license, where you have to pass a test to demonstrate a certain level of knowledge and proficiency. To become a plumber or an electrician, for example, you've got to be licensed. Frankly, even a dog has to be licensed. What do you need to become a manager? Nothing. Nothing at all. You just have to be in the right place at the right time. Maybe you're the last one standing. Everyone else has quit and you've hung around the longest. It's the "Poof! You're a manager" process. Imagine if there were a "Poof! You're a heart surgeon" process...

The Management Bible by Bob Nelson

Product Description

The Management Bible is the most comprehensive book on the topic of management available anywhere. It offers in-depth coverage of the entire range of essential topics for today’s managers and supervisors—from beginners to seasoned veterans—and includes practical, effective solutions for the everyday problems every manager faces. In addition, the book also includes proven tips and tactics that help managers grow into more effective, efficient leaders. Authors Bob Nelson and Peter Economy reveal everything you need to know to keep up with today’s rapidly changing business environment, including such topics as hiring and firing, motivating employees, development and coaching, delegating authority, communication and teamwork, and much more.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #590312 in Books
* Published on: 2005-02-01
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 304 pages

Editorial Reviews

Download Description
The manager's best friend-and secret weapon The Management Bible is the most comprehensive book on the topic of management available anywhere. It offers in-depth coverage of the entire range of essential topics for today's managers and supervisors-from beginners to seasoned veterans-divided into five distinct sections: ? What managers do ? Key management skills ? Managing projects and money ? Management challenges ? The future of management Presenting the best information, the most effective strategies, and proven techniques for becoming a better manager, The Management Bible is the manager's definitive guide to everything he or she needs to know. From important general topics, to specific cures for common management problems, authors Bob Nelson and Peter Economy cover everything managers need to keep up with changing business times. Full of simple management tips and detailed cures for specific management problems, readers will find everything they need to tackle every kind of problem. Featuring interviews with noted managers and business thought leaders, case studies and real-world examples, helpful worksheets and questionnaires, and discussions of key management issues, this is the ultimate resource for managers in every industry. Bob Nelson (San Diego, CA) is founder and President of Nelson Motivation, Inc., an innovative management training and consulting firm headquartered in San Diego. He is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of management, motivation and empowerment, recognition and rewards, performance and productivity enhancement, and leadership. Peter Economy (San Diego, CA) is Associate Editor of Leader to Leader, the award-winning publication of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation. Nelson and Economy are also the authors (with Ken Blanchard) of Managing For Dummies (0-7645-1771-6).

Review
"...the most comprehensive book on the subject of management..." (Paper Clips, June 2006)

Download Description
The manager's best friend-and secret weapon The Management Bible is the most comprehensive book on the topic of management available anywhere. It offers in-depth coverage of the entire range of essential topics for today's managers and supervisors-from beginners to seasoned veterans-divided into five distinct sections: ? What managers do ? Key management skills ? Managing projects and money ? Management challenges ? The future of management Presenting the best information, the most effective strategies, and proven techniques for becoming a better manager, The Management Bible is the manager's definitive guide to everything he or she needs to know. From important general topics, to specific cures for common management problems, authors Bob Nelson and Peter Economy cover everything managers need to keep up with changing business times. Full of simple management tips and detailed cures for specific management problems, readers will find everything they need to tackle every kind of problem. Featuring interviews with noted managers and business thought leaders, case studies and real-world examples, helpful worksheets and questionnaires, and discussions of key management issues, this is the ultimate resource for managers in every industry. Bob Nelson (San Diego, CA) is founder and President of Nelson Motivation, Inc., an innovative management training and consulting firm headquartered in San Diego. He is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of management, motivation and empowerment, recognition and rewards, performance and productivity enhancement, and leadership. Peter Economy (San Diego, CA) is Associate Editor of Leader to Leader, the award-winning publication of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation. Nelson and Economy are also the authors (with Ken Blanchard) of Managing For Dummies (0-7645-1771-6).