Book Description

How did you feel after your last interaction with another person? Did that person-your spouse, best friend, coworker, or even a stranger -fill your bucket" by making you feel more positive? Or did that person "dip from your bucket," leaving you more negative than before? The number one New York Times and number one Business Week bestseller, How Full Is Your Bucket? reveals how even the briefest interactions affect your relationships, productivity, health, and longevity. Organized around a simple metaphor of a dipper and a bucket, and grounded in 50 years of research, this book will show you how to greatly increase the positive moments in your work and your life-while reducing the negative. Filled with discoveries, powerful strategies, and engaging stories, How Full Is Your Bucket? is sure to inspire lasting changes and has all the makings of a timeless classic. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Once again using an astutely written fictional tale to unambiguously but painlessly deliver some hard truths about critical business procedures, Patrick Lencioni targets group behavior in the final entry of his trilogy of corporate fables. And like those preceding it, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an entertaining, quick read filled with useful information that will prove easy to digest and implement. This time, Lencioni weaves his lessons around the story of a troubled Silicon Valley firm and its unexpected choice for a new CEO: an old-school manager who had retired from a traditional manufacturing company two years earlier at age 55. Showing exactly how existing personnel failed to function as a unit, and precisely how the new boss worked to reestablish that essential conduct, the book's first part colorfully illustrates the ways that teamwork can elude even the most dedicated individuals--and be restored by an insightful leader. A second part offers details on Lencioni's "five dysfunctions" (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results), along with a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings. Like the author's previous books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, this is highly recommended. --Howard Rothman ... Read more

Reviews (51)

Help for Dysfunctional Teams
Patrick Lencioni has written an exceptionally interesting fable on optimal team performance. He has prescribed guidelines for team success and applied them in an interesting, easy to read story with a twist. He has defined easy to follow principles that with practice can lead any group or team, large or small to be great.
The book begins with a story of a potentially great company with a dysfunctional executive staff. Even though this company assembled some of the best executives and attracted top tier investors (compared to their closest competitors), the company was on a downslide. Morale was slipping and key employees were leaving. The CEO (and co-founder) was relieved of his title by the board and the search for his successor began.
This company, Decision Tech, was a high profile, two years old company with much at stake. The chairman of the board pushed for hiring Kathryn, an ancient fifty-seven years old by Silicon Valley standards. Employees and the executive staff were stunned with the news of the new hire.
The story develops by weaving Lencioni's team dysfunctions into its web. The fable is enticing and not typical of your "how to produce" guidelines book. The author keeps your interest while at the same time introducing and teaching his methods.
At the end of the story, Mr. Lencioni reviews all levels of team dysfunctions and summarizes and reiterates each. Therefore reinforcing his principles and eliminating confusion.
This is the first book I have read by this author. I found it entertaining, yet very informative. I enjoyed the novel format while receiving important informational steps for success in a team or group.
I would highly recommend this book to any person or group seeking to improve or turn around the team in which they belong. It would be a great tool for corporate teams or even the local high school basketball team. All teams would greatly benefit from Mr. Lencioni's advice.

Insight Made Easy
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni attracts and captures your attention with his intriguing business story. Before going into thorough details of the five dysfunctions, Lencioni tells the story of a fictitious executive team working to revive a technology company near Silicone Valley. The characters are as realistic as can be and extremely easy to relate to. The story is quite simple to understand and keeps a quick pace. Typically, I have found educational books to drag on and only share stories that few people could relate with. However, this book leads readers through a reasonable, professional journey. The dysfunctions are practical and truthful. Often teams and groups feel that they have all of the possible resources necessary in attaining and mastering their goals, when in fact, they have a plethora of various hidden problems holding them back. Lencioni breaks apart each of these difficulties and explains how it will deny the team of their full potential. I felt that Lencioni's method of applying knowledge prior to teaching a lesson was much more effective than the traditional method of teaching then applying. When the author is finally "teaching" the lessons towards the end of the book, it seems as if you have already learned the information. Patrick Lencioni also provides a useful team assessment and a thoroughly detailed model of the dysfunctions. Insightful suggestions on overcoming the dysfunctions are included as well. Overall, this short, quick book is packed full of invaluable knowledge that can be applied to teams at all levels.

Highly Recmmended!
Patrick Lencioni offers a satisfactory fable about an executive wrestling to take hold of a company and create a smoothly functioning executive team. The narrative moves right along as he addresses the problem of feckless teamwork with the fictitious Decision Tech company as a test case. The novel is interesting, and you can read through it easily, getting to know the characters and participating in their business decisions. However, if you just want to learn about better teamwork quickly and leave, skim to the final chapters. Here, the author outlines a detailed model for diagnosing the five dysfunctions of a team and provides exercises and techniques to ameliorate those dysfunctions. The advice is complete and concrete. We recommend the meat and potatoes diagnosis and solutions as well as the cake and ice cream story, but how much narrative you want to read may depend on what shape your team is in when you start, as well as on your taste for tales.

Things to look for and fix on teams at all levels
This book is great because the simple narrative makes the 5 different disfunctions more concrete by showing exactly how they can manifest in a team. These are common issues not only executive-level teams, but also teams of lower-level folks like myself, working on individual features of a product. Some of the higher-level concepts like understanding what your 'first team' are a little bit less relevant, but most of the book is still very pertinent and easy to directly apply.

The worksheets and exercises he has in the back are also great, no-nonsense ways to bring your team back on track. The only things I might've liked to see are some more information around what can go wrong when you try to "correct" the particular issues and maybe some more concrete details on what it means to be a leader by his definition. It's a bit vauge in places and seems to be more a matter of reporting structure than technical / feature leadership (i.e. a team of all true peers but where one person is the technical / business expert), though he works to call out some of the details at the end.

Inspirational
According to Lencioni, "the ultimate test of a great team is results," and in this fable told in the style of similar books, such as The Goal, and The Present, the author discusses how to build and profit from teams. This book is not about teamwork, so much as the deliberate creation of teams to analyze and resolve problems within an organization. The book is highly readable and informative for any executive aspiring to learn about teams or share an inspirational book with his or her workforce.

Lencioni identifies 5 reasons teams fail: lack of commitment, failure to embrace conflict, lack of results focus, lack of accountability, and lack of trust. The author concludes his book and his philosophy with the statement success is a matter of "embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence."

Read this book and share it with your fellow employees. I would also recommend you read Goldratt's book The Goal (ISBN: 0884270610) in conjunction with this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Introduction read by the author
4 cassettes: 0-553-52595-6
6 Hours

Peter Senge's national bestseller, The Fifth Discipline, revolutionized the practice of management by introducing the theory of learning organizations.Now Dr. Senge moves from the philosophical to the practical by answering the first question all lovers of the learning organization ask: What do they do on Monday morning?

The Fieldbook is an intensely pragmatic guide.It shows how to create an organization of learners where memories are brought to life, where collaboration is the lifeblood of every endeavor, and where the tough questions are fearlessly asked. The stories here show that companies, businesses, schools, agencies, and even communities can undo their "learning disabilities" and achieve superior performance.If ever a work gave meaning to the phrase hands-on, this is it.Senge and his four co-authors cover it all including:

        Reinventing relationships
        Being loyal to the truth
        Building a shared vision
        Organizations as communities
        Designing an organization's governing ideas

The Fieldbook is designedto have you creating a learning organization right from the very beginning!Listen to it anywhere: in meetings, planning sessions, during reflections, or anytime a conflict or challenge arises. Listen to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, take notes, and watch your own guide to mastering the disciplines of organizational learning evolve. ... Read more

Reviews (16)

A second dose of Inspiration...
Senge's second serving of the Learning Organization is filled with practical tips and real-life examples from companies and organizations that have embraced the teachings of the Learning Organization successfully.

The Book is a collaboration of several writers who do a superb job of unraveling the web that is the learning organization. At times, it may seem to the reader that the book is a labyrinth of disjointed concepts and ideas. However, if you have read 'The Fifth Discipline' you will find no problems following the concepts introduced. In fact, you will even understand why the writers have chosen to introduce them in that fashion. If you have not read "The Fifth Discipline', do not despair, it will take a little longer to get 'the whole picture'.
The Book is divided into 8 main sections:

1) Getting Started addresses the basic concepts and ideas of the Learning Organization.
2) Systems Thinking (the fifth discipline) - Many people have argued that Senge should have delegated the fifth discipline until the end, however, without Systems Thinking, your vision is disjointed and incomplete.
3) Personal Mastery covers the area of individual development and learning. The chapters here are among the most valuable in the area of self-growth and self-improvement.
4) Mental Models - These are the pictures that you have in your head which represent reality.
5) Shared Vision - You've seen the whole picture, you've developed and you understand how you see the world. Now you need to find a common cause with the rest of the people in your organization, something that you all work for.
6) Team Learning - As you work with other people in teams or groups, you need to pass the stuff that you have learnt and the wisdom you've acquired to others. At this stage, the learning is no longer that of the individual, but the group.
7) Arenas of Practice - (Self explanatory)
8) Frontiers - Where do we go from here.

If you are interested in development, learning, growth, leadership, gaining a competitive edge whether at an organizational or personal level, then this book is for you. In fact, I'd venture to say that this is book is for everyone.

The Fifth Discipline
This book is a collection of theoretical summaries, reports, analyses, and strategies all quite useful to anyone interested in generating some thinking and action around change. The team of five writers (Peter Senge, Richard Ross, Bryan Smith, Charlotte Roberts, and Art Kleiner) provide some original work, but also serve as editors to a vast quantity of material drawn from practitioners, theorists, and writers in the field of organizational improvement. According to Senge, "great teams are learning organizations - groups of people who, over time, enhance their capacity to create what they truly desire to create." (p.18) This book is really about creating and building great teams. The learning organization develops its ability to reflect on, discuss, question, and change its current and past practices. To do this, people and groups in the organization need to meaningfully pursue the study and practice of the five disciplines - personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.

The learning organization - Senge's vision for the productive, competitive, and efficient institutions of the future - is in a continuous state of change. Four fundamental questions continuously serve to check and guide a group's learning and improvement (see page 49): (1) Do you continuously test your experiences? ("Are you willing to examine and challenge your sacred cows - not just during crises, but in good times?") (2) Are you producing knowledge? ("Knowledge, in this case, means the capacity for effective action.") (3) Is knowledge shared? ("Is it accessible to all of the organization's members?") (4) Is the learning relevant? ("Is this learning aimed at the organization's core purpose?") If these questions represent the organization's compass, the five disciplines are its map.

Each of the five disciplines is explained, and elaborated in its own lengthy section of the book. In the section on "Systems Thinking" (a set of practices and perspectives, which views all aspects of life as inter-related and playing a role in some larger system), the authors build on the idea of feedback loops (reinforcing and balancing) and introduce five systems archetypes. They are: "fixes that backfire", "limits to growth", "shifting the burden", "tragedy of the commons", and "accidental adversaries". In the section on "Personal Mastery", the authors argue that learning starts with each person. For organizations to learn and improve, people within the organization (perhaps starting with its core leadership) must learn to reflect on and become aware of their own core beliefs and visions. In "Mental Models", the authors argue that learning organizations need to explore the assumptions and attitudes, which guide their institutional directions, practices, and strategies. Articles on scenario planning, the ladder of inference, the left-hand column, and balancing inquiry and advocacy offer practical strategies to investigate our personal mental models as well as those of others in the organization. In "Shared Vision", the authors make the case for the stakeholders of an organization to continually adapt their vision ("an image of a desired future"), values ("how we get to travel to where we want to go"), purpose ("what the organization is here to do"), and goals ("milestones we expect to reach before too long"). The section offers many strategies and perspectives on how to move an organization toward continuous reflection. In "Team Learning", the authors rely mostly on the work of William Isaacs and others, and make a case for educating organization members in the processes and skills of dialogue and skillful discussion.

This book is enlightening and informative. It has already found a place on my shelf for essential reference books.

A follow up to the legend
The Fieldbook attempts at making the esoteric concepts of the fifth discipline more down to earth and contains a treasure trove of strategies, tools, methods and explanations on how to make the learning organization into a reality.

Thus people who have read The fifth discipline will gain the most from this book. It's a must read for people who want to make their organizations transition into a 'learning organization'

Less than I expected!
Purchased this item used as it was recommended by a work colleague. The book arrived in an paper envelope with damage to the spine and a wrinkle on the paperback cover. Damage could have been avoided if seller had placed this heavy book into a padded envelope. Price was only slightly less than new purchase price. Beware when purchasing used items from 'vendors' stating "excellent condition"!

Absolute must for instructional designers
I do love this book. I constantly refer to it. I honestly can't imagine the world without Peter Senge's work. This book is very accessible. The format of the content is an excellent example of good instructional design. It is incredibly user-friendly. If you are involved in education, business, corporate training or anything remotely related and wonder how you can make a difference, read and use this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Facilitating with Ease! is an updated version of the best-selling resource that offers easy-to-follow instructions, techniques, and hands-on tools that team leaders, consultants, supervisors, and managers have used to learn the basics of facilitation. Complete with worksheets on CD-ROM that can be customized to fit your personal needs, it's a complete facilitation workshop in a take-home format. Facilitating with Ease! shows you how to run productive meetings with skill and authority and includes the information needed to train others in your organization to become confident facilitators as well. The book is filled with dozens of exercises, surveys, and checklists that can be used to transform anyone into an effective facilitator. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

COMPREHENSIVE, CLEAR AND CONCISE.
Details core facilitation tools and techniques. Chapters cover: understanding facilitation; facilitation stages; assessing and understanding participants; creating participation; effective decision making; facilitating conflict; meeting management; process tools for facilitators (e.g., visioning, exit surveys, brainstorming) and process designs. This is a well organized 'soup to nuts' reference including worksheets on CD-ROM that can be customized. Comprehensive, clear, and concise.

Insightful!
Companies that embrace work teams quickly discover a basic truth: More teams mean more meetings. Management experts laud the benefits of enlightened teamwork, but they spend much less time dwelling on the often long, sometimes pointless and nearly always inefficient meetings that teams breed. With teams fast becoming a fixture in the corporate world, meeting management, or facilitation, is becoming a critical skill for anyone with executive ambitions. Author Ingrid Bens' definition of a facilitator is quite specific - someone who guides a meeting without actually participating in discussion or decision making - but her book is filled with practical advice that any professional can apply when running a meeting. A host of charts, examples and worksheets (not to mention the accompanying CD) help illustrate her process for steering meetings without controlling or directing the outcome. We [...] recommend this hands-on how-to guide to anyone motivated to minimize the waste of meeting-creep.

Facilitating With Ease!
I have had the privilege of participating in workshops taught by Ingrid Bens: this is like having her in your own training room!The information in this book is both relevant and concise.I use the book to lead my facilitation team through all of their group dynamics training.The CD-ROM allows me the freedom to customize the worksheets to meet our needs. This is a great book that I highly recommend to all individuals who work in teams, lead meetings, or need assistance in group dynamics

From one facilitator to another...
As a failitator of a process using storyboards, I am always looking for new twists on facilitation in general. As a compact, to the point resource on facilitation and basic meeting management, I think Ingrid's is at thetop of the list. While, like any such work, you truly gain the value whenyou attend a workshop, this book is worth the price in things anyone canadapt and use in any organization. You can never become "goodenough" at facilitation and I am glad someone referred me to thisbook. Two thumbs up......Oh, and one other nice thing. Everything in hereis to-the-point instruction - no big ego trips with the author's namedropped into war story after war story... ... Read more

Book Description

107 interactive games and activities can be found in the pages of this easy-to-use book. Each game is fun, experiential, easy to lead, unique, and requires minimal resources. With 65 team challenges and 42 activities that help any team get to know one another, become comfortable with each other, and open up, there is something for every group.

If you work with youth, corporate groups, therapy groups, church groups, scouts, families, school groups, sports teams, at camp, or with any other group who must work together you will find helpful games and activities in this fun, energetic, and purposeful book! ... Read more

Reviews (11)

The best I've seen.
This book was exactly what I was looking for to build teams with my middle schoolers. Many activities would also be useful with high schoolers or adults. I have a lot of the traditional games and team building activity books, but none were as well arranged or easy to use. Activities that use few or no props or items that are easy to find are what work best for me! This book is full of them!

Team-Building Games
What a great book! I am a high school teacher, and I'm not only trying to teach my students about literature and grammar, but also about teamwork, cooperation, and communication skills. This book has lots of activities that are divided into 4 levels from learning peoples' names to really opening up and sharing personal stuff. The instructions are easy to understand, and most require little preparation and supplies that you usually have around (pens, paper, tape, chairs, etc.) The book is well-organized beyond the 4 activity levels as well; for each game, the author clearly states the objective, the needed materials, instructions, and variations on the activities. For the second two levels, she also includes excellent discussion questions. It seems to me that these activities would really work with ANY group. Well worth the investment.

Pretty Good stuff!
Good book with good activities. Some are more involved than others and require some hefty prep and set up (if that's a problem, check out Miller's Quick Teambuilding Activities book, it's similar, but only has short, quick activities for when you are on a time crunch). I especially liked the writing format here, easy to skim the activities and quickly grasp the essense so you can decide if this is the one you wanna use!

Great for Boy Scout Junior Leadership Training!
I purchased this book to supplement the team building games provided by BSA. I was extremely pleased with the games that are offered in this book. We decided to try "Cup Stack" at one of our first training sessions, and since then it has become a staple game for us. The variety of games available has enabled us to create a completely new variation of Junior Leader Training every time out. I have just ordered Alanna's second book to enhance our program even further.

Excellent
Not a bad book... it is easy to follow, very easily adapted to many different audiences and I cant wait to use it this summer. Activities are well organized and practical.

I am so pleased with this book, I am going to order more by Alanna Jones. ... Read more

Reviews (15)

Political Savvy - An Employee's Best Friend
Mr. DeLuca has written a wonderfully insightful manual for success in the work place. A lightning fast and enjoyable read, this book will soften the battle scarred heart of even the most jaded and cynical Dilbert fans. The topic is the politics of the workplace, which is undoubtedly the leading cause of employee dissatisfaction everywhere. Joel DeLuca provides a wonderful case for recognizing human nature, and making a positive change in one's outlook to cherish the irrationality of the human organization that presently causes so much frustration and angst for the vast majority. I believe this book will be most beneficial to those who are experienced with, and distrustful of, organizational politics. I could tell you that I wish I read this book years ago, but I'm not sure that it would have had the same impact on my life had I not already seen office politics at its worst. This book provides some practical relief from the pressure of organizational politics, as well as a toolkit to help the reader participate in the workings in a proactive and benevolent way. This book is the culmination of a very sincere scientific investigation, presented in a manner that is not overly academic. Enjoy.

Insightful. Practical. Ethical.
Even the best managers can sometimes feel frustrated at an inability to get things done in their organization. All too often they attribute "office politics" as the excuse for their failure. If you have every felt like this, or know someone else who is going through it, read "Political Savvy" by Joel DeLuca, Ph.D.

Through a series of case studies coupled with easy to understand explanations, DeLuca explains the ins and outs of office politics. DeLuca attributes names to types of people we may encounter such as Protector, Speculator, Advisor or Machiavellian. "Machs" are the bosses who rule by intimidation and believe life is a game to be won or lost at any cost.

The highlight of the book is the Organization Politics Map, which shows how you can evaluate folks within the organizations as supporters or non?supporters; in other words, you can figure out who's for you and who's against you. As DeLuca points out, many successful and insightful managers do this intuitively, the map simply makes the process accessible and explicit.

Dr, DeLuca also provides a handy summary at the close of the book about how to become a politically savvy. His two guiding principles are "Choose to be an active, ethical player" and "Work the human system." Good advice for anyone who cares about gaining influence the right way! I recommend this book highly.

A very good book, though perhaps not exciting reading
I just finished the book and I learned a great deal from it. I found it a little hard to get through, which is probably a good indicator that I needed it. I am one of those who have always had a basic distaste for organizational politics.

But what I found here would have helped me immensely had I read it earlier. Very little in the book does not pass the common sense test, and much of it causes you to look at things in a way that not only removes the 'politics? Yuck' factor but makes you realize that organizational politics is really how things are done, so you better at least have a working knowledge of it.

I thought the organization of the book was among the best I have seen and thought the summary sections were excellent.

A strategy for survival in the corporate world
Anyone involved in the leadership aspect of the business world would do well to read Political Savvy. It provides a fruitful strategy for survival in a macrocosmic world of never ending change and chaos. These winds of change have created a frontier of challanges and work environments that, before this time, never existed. The practice of Political Savvy can really make a difference in the effectiveness of an organization. It's excellent reading for anyone serious about surviving in the corporate world.
A ten star book!

Political Savvy - A Real Eye Opener
A profound and informative look into the corporate mindset of today. An ethical approach to the spirit that dominates a workplace. For anyone interested in surviving in the corporate world this book is "A Must." It is a handbook for success in the often frustrating and chaotic world of the corporation. I am grateful for the valuable insight it has given me. I found it, not only enjoyable reading, but most valuable as well.
My gratitude to Dr. Deluca for a very worthwhile and informative creation! ... Read more

Amazon.com

Organizational guru Ken Blanchard has long had a knack for writing management books that are easy and fun to read (The One Minute Manager, plus 11 other bestsellers). Now, in his latest, he becomes (with the help of three coauthors) something of a novelist, relating the saga of the Riverbend Warriors, a come-from-behind boys' hockey team, to teach a broader lesson about the importance of, and the key dynamics behind, good teamwork in organizations of every sort.

High Five! starts with otherwise exemplary exec Alan Foster losing his job because--you guessed it--he isn't a team player. Unemployed, bored, and demoralized, he decides to coach his fifth-grade son's failing hockey team into better shape. But it's not until he enlists the help of Miss Weatherby, an aging African-American retired teacher and champion girls' basketball coach that things really start to turn around. As we follow the struggle of the increasingly well-oiled Warriors machine as they drill, strategize, and bond their way through the season, we learn some of the fundamental lessons of what makes good teams--and good team-building by coaches and managers. Among them are "repeated reward and repetition," the guiding notion that "none of us is as smart as all of us," and four key traits that shall here remain undisclosed (hint: their acronym spells PUCK).

As fiction goes, don't expect high literature here. But to its credit, the book's ending isn't 100 percent happy, either. If you worry that the aged but whip-smart Weatherby might die at the end, don't--instead, she becomes perhaps the world's first octogenarian, black female management consultant. As books on teamwork go, Blanchard's latest is on the lighter side, but it still packs a fair share of commonsense wisdom when it comes to putting together, motivating, and sustaining work teams worthy of the Stanley Cup. And it may even have inaugurated a new fiction genre: the organizational tearjerker. --Timothy Murphy ... Read more

Reviews (28)

I'm a Raving Fan for High Five
Typical. That may be the best word to describe Ken Blanchard's recent book, High Five. It's typically written and, as typical for Blanchard, easy to comprehend the point he is trying to make. The story is one of a displaced (fired) Alan Foster, a great performer but horrible team member. Foster has the incorrect notion that individual production is more important than company performance. Too often, people in business and sports begin to believe their production is essential to the team when in fact there production is breaking down the team. High Five takes you into the concept of teamwork with a look at Alan Foster's fifth grade son and his hockey team. They are the cellar dwellers and with good reason...no teamwork. With the help of an aged woman and a bit of introspection, Foster helps turn a band of underachievers into a team worthy of a championship. As a coach of elementary-aged students and a manager of people, High Five is a helpful, instructional tale that will benefit me greatly in both roles. There's a reason for the terms "team sports" and "sports teams". Football, basketball, hockey, baseball, soccer...they are all driven by a team. Michael Jordan is a great example of a star who shined the brightest when he adapted his individual talents to the goals and values of the team. This same concept works in your company, in your department and in your office. To beat the competition, it takes everyone working together...as a team. Ken Blanchard continues to underwhelm me with his style and overwhelm me with his message. You'll be a Raving Fan for teamwork when you read High Five.

High Five Ho-Hum
The management principles illustrated in this book are sound but could be more effectively displayed on a poster.Blanchard lists basic principles that have been the staple of many management books in the past decade: hire good people, define goals, provide the tools staff need, encourage teamwork, and reward achievement. Knowing what needs to be done is not the problem; knowing how to implement the principles is the challenge, and it's precisely that challenge that Blanchard ducks. My impression was that the book was not carefully written or researched. Take, for instance, the scene in which member of the boys' hockey team is rushed to the hospital with a closed head injury. The boy is unconscious, and Blanchard has an EMT administer codeine "so he won't wake up and thrash around." Sorry, Ken -- but how long the victim of a head injury is unconscious is a key diagnostic tool. Sedatives that prolong unconsciousness or supress the respiratory system would not be administered in an ambulance. This gaffe made me wonder how much care the author took with other information -- and whether or not the physician-author of "Who Moved My Cheese?" read the book carefully before writing his glowing endorsement. All in all, a disappointing work.

Sounds Good In Theory
I would love to go to work everyday as a member of a high performing team. The book has good ideas in theory, but it seems next to impossible to actually make them work. The real reason behind the book though is the fact that people will get farther when working together. I think that is what all the parable books are trying to tell us, to look at things from a different perspective.

Also check out the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey, it will show you how to look at the rat race fom a whole new angle -- what do you want in return for running the race?

Motivating quick read
This is a great book to share with your team members to inspire them and to help them learn how to work together more effectively. It's easy to read and will lead to great conversations.

Sounds good in theory
I would love to go to work everyday as a member of a high performing team. The book has good ideas in theory, but it seems next to impossible to actually make them work. The real reason behind the book though is the fact that people will get farther when working together. I think that is what all the parable books are trying to tell us, to look at things from a different perspective. Also check out the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey, it will show you how to look at the rat race fom a whole new angle -- what do you want in return for running the race? ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Good Textbook for the Subject
While the title implies this is a good book for college writing, I found it lacking in that area. But the workplace side is well represented and thoroughly documented with examples and sidenotes "From the Workplace."

It is a practical, if somewhat dry, text that is very good at teaching business writing and presentations. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (1)

A book worth buying and a book worth giving
Baseball and writing about baseball are my passions and being passionate about something is the heart and soul of the new book by Mike Veeck (and Pete Williams), "Fun Is Good: How to Inject Joy & Passion Into Your Workplace & Career" published by Rodale Press and to be released early next month. The book is part business philosophy, part autobiography, part confessional, part homage to his late father Bill Veeck, part salute to his 12-year old daughter who is fighting blindness as the result of retinitis pigmentosa, part a baseball love story and all fun. Because fun is what Mike, like all the Veecks, is all about.

Mike writes, "Somehow in our haste to seize the American dream, we've sucked the fun, passion, and creativity out of the workplace." How many of you feel that way? I guess that's why so many people say that work sucks. But as Mike points out, "Fun isn't just good; it's a necessity." "If you're not having fun, it's nearly impossible to project the upbeat, positive attitude necessary to service clients effectively."

We know that's the trouble with baseball, don't we? Somehow it has becoming way to much about greed. We could handle it if were about drugs, sex, and rock and roll, at least that's fun. Mike writes that when his father Bill Veeck died in 1986, "we had him cremated so he wouldn't constantly be rolling in his grave."

In the workplace it's about passion, the right attitude and being happy at what you do. Mike encourages change and risk taking because if you're unhappy you can't afford to stay where you are. In addition, your role whether you are an Indian or a chief is to help create a workplace atmosphere that is fun, positive and risk taking. He writes, "How effectively you interact with coworkers sets the tone for the organization," because if you take a genuine interest in the people around you, you never know where it might lead.

I was particularly struck with this philosophical statement, "If you approach things with optimism and with the mentality that any obstacle can be overcome with good humor, preparation, brainpower, and a little bit of luck, nothing is outside the realm of possibility." It is that statement that clearly drives Mike's wonderful daughter. The book is filled with interviews and vignettes from business leaders in which they express, in their own words, how the importance of a "Fun is Good" philosophy has driven the success of their company. None is more powerful or moving than the section written by Rebecca Veeck who truly sums up much more than the philosophy of the book when she writes, "Fun is Good because that's the way life is supposed to be. It's the main feeling that we're supposed to have. I mean, if you're not having fun, what's the point?"

I will be giving this book to my daughter Elizabeth on her birthday on April 11 (the same date as Veeck's eldest, Night Train Veeck) because as she prepares to graduate college and face the real world she needs to know that if you treat every day like Opening Day than life will be fun, and fun is good.

... Read more

Book Description

What’s Your Type at Work?

Are you one of those organized people who always complete your projects before they are due? Or do you put off getting the job done until the very last possible moment? Is your boss someone who readily lets you know how you are doing? Or does she always leave you unsure of precisely where you stand? Do you find that a few people on your team are incredibly creative but can never seem to get to a meeting on time? Do others require a specific agenda at the meeting in order to focus on the job at hand?

Bestselling authors Otto Kroeger and Janet Thuesen make it easy to recognize your own type and those of your co-workers in Type Talk at Work, a revolutionary guide to understanding your workplace and thriving in it. fully revised and updated for its 10th anniversary, this popular classic now features a new chapter on leadership, showing you how to be more effective on the job. Get the most out of your employees—and employers--using the authors’ renowned expertise on typology. With Type Talk at Work, you’ll never look at the office the same way again! ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Finding Ways to Communicate
All personality books offer generalizations and this is no different. The authors, however, do acknowledge the limitations of the Myers-Briggs test (in contrast to Please Understand Me, a worthless book). I had my staff take the MB test to see how they scored and then had them read and use the book in exercises to understand how their communication with and peception of others is affected by their personality. It was an interesting process and got them to realize that some of their interpersonal conflicts start in their head. A good choice for team building and organizational development.

USEFUL MATERIAL CONNECTING TYPE WITH WORK
This is just one of the books that shows you how to use personality/psychological type at work and is worth reading. It covers nearly all issues we face in the modern workplace like communicating with co-workers, handling stress in the workplace, ethics, time management etc. all from a Type perspective. Kroger and Thuesen do a good job at explaining how Extroverts handle things differently from Introverts, Sesates from iNtuitives, Feelers from Thinkers, & Judgers from Perceivers. Apart from this, in between it gives various tips on how people with different preferences can better understand and work with each other. It also tells interesting tales about the happenings in the workshops they conduct and how they explain to people that its because of their personality differences that conflicts arise and what they could do to prevent them. It even has some jokes at the end of the book.

I thought that the cream of the book was the descriptions of the 16 personality types. My type description was extremely accurate and insightful and three or four of the points mentioned in that seemed shocking to me because they described what went on in my mind and its something only I knew about.

But beware - It isn't so good on finding out what your type is.

Overall, a good read! ... Read more

Amazon.com

Fish! Tales is Stephen C. Lundin, John Christensen, and Harry Paul's follow-up to Fish!--their enormously popular fable that draws lessons aimed at combating dysfunctional workplaces from the happy fishmongers at Seattle's Pike Place Market. In Fish! Tales the authors show how these lessons were put into practice at businesses both big (a major hospital and long-distance carrier) and small (a local car dealership and roofing company). Anyone who enjoyed Fish! (or, for that matter, Who Moved My Cheese?) or is looking for a motivational tool to help energize their own workplace, should find this short, upbeat primer worthwhile. --Harry C. Edwards ... Read more

Reviews (25)

Insightful!
Things are going swimmingly in Fish! land. In the latest volume, Fish! Tales, authors Stephen C. Lundin, John Christensen, Harry Paul and Philip Strand build on the successful training program that evolved from their first Fish book. Tales shows how four companies - a long-distance call center; a hospital neural-renal unit, a car dealership and a roofing company - have applied Fish! theories effectively. They also provide short examples from other companies to show how well the Fish! function. The four main principles are familiar by now - keep the work fun, seek to serve others, stay focused on your customers and have an enthusiastic attitude - but the examples in the book bring them alive. Along the way, the authors heavily sell their Fish! courses and merchandise - that's just good salesmanship - but the real catch of the day is the final how-to section, showing ways to apply these principles in any organization. The lively writing style helps keep you hooked. We from getAbstract suggest that if you haven't yet caught any Fish!, start with this one. Its cheery, accessible methods should lure you in, hook, line and sinker.

Insightful!
Things are going swimmingly in Fish! land. In the latest volume, Fish! Tales, authors Stephen C. Lundin, John Christensen, Harry Paul and Philip Strand build on the successful training program that evolved from their first Fish book. Tales shows how four companies - a long-distance call center; a hospital neural-renal unit, a car dealership and a roofing company - have applied Fish! theories effectively. They also provide short examples from other companies to show how well the Fish! function. The four main principles are familiar by now - keep the work fun, seek to serve others, stay focused on your customers and have an enthusiastic attitude - but the examples in the book bring them alive. Along the way, the authors heavily sell their Fish! courses and merchandise - that's just good salesmanship - but the real catch of the day is the final how-to section, showing ways to apply these principles in any organization. The lively writing style helps keep you hooked. We suggest that if you haven't yet caught any Fish!, start with this one. Its cheery, accessible methods should lure you in, hook, line and sinker.

"Real" It In
I enjoyed reading Fish, but Fish Tales is even better because it has real world success stories. While the original Fish! seemed like a business theory, Fish! Tales shows how several companies actually benefited from implementing these ideas instead of just reading about them. Fish! Tales enhances the credibility of the original book. Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey is another great book for companies to share with employees because it offers entertaining stories and goal oriented advice about improving your workplace and your life.

Disappointing
While the message is a good one, it nearly gets lost in this very poorly written book.

Integrating Fish and optimizing the workplace
The Fish philosophy isn't new but the unique context and delightful presentation makes it effective. I got a lot out of this book because I saw how the concept is integrated into organizations. We have found that the best companion for the Fish philosophy is to train employees in Optimal Thinking. Optimal Thinking is the simple, realistic mental resource to empower individuals to be their best and bring out the best in others. I recommend both of these books. ... Read more

Book Description

Getting stuck is an integral part of business because the most ambitious and rewardingwork is often the hardest to undertake. The challenge is knowing how to get unstuck.Inthis dynamic and pragmatic handbook, Keith Yamashita and Sandra Spataro share theinsights, methods, stories, and best practices of the extraordinary leaders they haveworked with at business giants such as IBM, Sony, Disney, HP, and Nike.

In immediately accessible terms, they identify the symptoms of being stuck, introducereaders to the Serious Seven states of "stuck"—from "Overwhelmed" to "Exhausted" to"Alone"—and offer dozens of in-the-moment tools, techniques, and examples to generateimmediate ideas, whether you need to back up in order to move forward, motivate astruggling team, change your goals, or inspire yourself with a clearer picture of whereyou’re headed.

With a handy trim size, a vivid two-color interior, and memorable images that speaklouder than words, Unstuck is a book for anyone who wants to get themselves ortheir team motivated and moving in the time it takes to fly from New York to D.C.Designed to be flipped through, read in chunks, and returned to again and again,Unstuck is an innovation in business literature. ... Read more

Reviews (24)

A very user friendly book for your business.
This book caught my eye immediately with the vibrant cover and it's small size. I read this book cover to cover the first time I picked it up. Then I went back through it and followed the instructions on solving my own problems. Throughout the book, there are descriptions of various problems and where to turn in the book to help you solve what you need fixed. It's very interactive and it has great graphics. This is a book that you won't be bored with. I would recommend this book for anyone - from the CEO to the new guy. Although no book can fix your problems for you, UNSTUCK is the best guide around to help you.

A great plane read.
This is a perfect book for anyone whose slammed with work, headed onto a plane, and seeking fresh ideas. The authors, a designer and Grad Professor, take the reader through a self-guided tour of organizational design and leadership 101. There's no predicatable narrative to the book, as many pages contain provocative questions with corresponding page numbers. While this may leave some readers lost, those that embrace the unique design and layout of the book won't be disappointed. My whole team is hooked on several pages from the book and unlike most traditional business books (zzz...), we're really using Unstuck.

Great book for teambuilding
Unstuck is the perfect book to use for a teambuilding exercise. Pass the book out to each member and let them read it in their own way. Not only is the book short, but you don't even have to read it cover to cover -- the authors encourage readers to take a non-linear approach and suggest paths to becoming unstuck. Gather up the troops and compare the experiences. Did everyone identify the same problems with the team? What types of ideas were sparked by reading of the book?

Much of what the authors say is common sense. But, sometimes common sense is the first thing that's lost when things start to go wrong. Unstuck is more fun to read than most of the business type books out there, but it also includes references to more serious and in-depth resources. Plus, it looks good on a bookshelf.

Get out of that rut!
This book came just at the right time. My group at work, and really my whole company, was just "stuck." I cannot motivate the whole company, but the ideas in Unstuck can help to motivate my group and get us out of the rut we have been in. Some of the ideas are not new, but sometimes it is easy to forget how to get motivated and how to motivate others and a reminder is all that is needed.

Unstuck is not a huge, tedious "business" book. It is small, quick to read, helpful and funny. It contains practical diagnostic tools and solutions that are as applicable to everyday life as they are to the workplace.

A good how-to guide for getting your team out of a rut
Unstuck is a great book for helping to get your team or your business back on track. Maybe you're not living up to your potential, or you sense there is a problem, but you're not sure what it is or how to fix it. With Unstuck, you first spend a little time diagnosing why you're stuck. The categories are explained really well, so it is easy to see where you fall. Once you know where your problem is coming from, there are over 100 pages of tools, techniques, and examples, including short case studies, that will help you get unstuck. What makes this book fun to read, in addition to the great design, is the fact that once you know what your problem is, it gives you page numebr for the ideas that will best help you. It is sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure book for grown-ups. Or you can read it all the way through for all of the ideas. The only thing that I wished were different was that I was searching for help getting out of a rut in my own life, and Unstuck focused on helping groups with problems. ... Read more

Book Description

Women with Attention Deficit Disorder addresses the millions of withdrawn little girls and chronically overwhelmed women with ADD who go undiagnosed because they don't fit the stereotypical notion of people with ADD. They are not fast-talking, hyperactive, non-attentive, and they are not male. Though the book focuses on ADD, much of what is said also applies to women with ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Introduction by Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo, authors of You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Crazy or Stupid? Foreword by John J. Ratey, MD, co-author of Driven to Distraction. ... Read more

Reviews (40)

ESSENTIAL reading for ADD in women
Women face an incredible wall of disbelief from professionals when it comes to the diagnosis of ADD. This book acknowledges the additional gender-based expectations women face, exacerbating our difficulties, when it is a struggle just to meet the basic demands of daily life. Clearly explains what ADD is and is not, helps sort through the tangle step by step. Undiagnosed ADD can have us running ourselves ragged with no explanation, no hope of an answer, and "no excuse" for our problems. This book sheds light in so many areas that will never apply to the lives of men in this society. For women coming to terms with ADD, this is a MUST READ. Brings to light our disjointed lives, striving hard to hide the depth of our incompetence, hiding the mess at home and at work, the frantic behind-the-scenes scramble to keep up with the demands of everyday life. Gives hope and courage in the face of professional ignorance and reluctance to believe women, especially WITHOUT hyperactivity. It felt like my life was spread out before me in the pages of this book. Clearly delineated a struggle I thought was mine alone. When your friends and your therapist are saying "Oh, EVERYONE thinks they are ADD", tune in to this book. Let it be your guide in the search for an answer.

A Book that Reassures and Guides
I picked this book up while cruising the bookstore for books on ADD, which both my son and I have. When I started reading, I had to put it down and go get a pencil. I underlined everything that was me--the book ended up looking like a flat zebra. In spite of myself I tend to feel ashamed, as though I have bad character, so to have a book addressed specifically to how ADD would look in a woman was wonderful. It isn't just that many women experience it differently than men, but also that the kinds of situations we find ourselves in are different. (Housecleaning!!!!!Nurturing!!!) Only down side, only not really, was that I had my then fiance, a psychologist, read it. He gave it back and said grumpily "this says you have no intention of changing." He's history now and I'm married to a lovely man who is more disorganized than I am.

an ADDult
I was soooooooooo relieved after i read this book,as I am not the hyper type(although I talk a lot-but I am not jumping around -fidgeting or worse daydreaming when I have to sit still)
A lot of is highlighted in yellow and I lended it to the ADD psy(he heard about but did not have the opportunity to read,well this could have save both of us a lot of time,anyway...)
It was like a thriller I spend 3 nights and days reading and reading.I highly recommend it along with "ADD in women" by nadeau,this one is more recent and quote a lot from it.

Required Reading for Women Who Think They Might Have ADD!
This book stilled so many fears and anxieties I've had for years because I had no idea what was wrong with me but knew it had to be something terrible! Now, after reading this very informative book, I feel enlightened about a woman's unique symptomology as compared to boys and men.....no wonder I never dreamed that I might have ADD!

This is Me!
I just got this book yesterday and I'm up to Chapter 6! I was just recently diagnosed with ADD and it seems every page of this book is describing some aspect of my life! I can't wait to read the next page, the next chapter, the next section. I'm hoping to also be able to help my teenage son who also has ADD. Thank you Sari for helping me know that I am definately not alone! ... Read more

Book Description

Every group can benefit from team-building exercises. But sometimes it's not practical to embark on a full-scale training initiative. Now,supervisors, managers, and team leaders have 50 team-building activities to choose from, all of which can be implemented with no special facilities, bigexpense, or previous training experience. Readers will find engaging exercises for:

* Building new teams and helping teams with new members * Dealing with change and its effects: anger, fear, frustration, and more * Recognizing individual efforts and team accomplishments * Finding creative ways to work together and solve problems * Increasing and improving communication * Leveraging diversity and individual differences to meet team goals * Keeping competition healthy and productive within the team

Instructions and tips for follow-up and variations are included for each activity, and an additional chapter provides valuable advice for working throughunexpected difficulties in team-building. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Affordable book, easy to do activities
For the money, this is one of the best activity books you will find. All of the activities are easy to set up and easy to complete -- but they do all serve a purpose. When the author says that these are 15 minute activities, he means it. I am an independent leadership consultant and I have started using this book over and over again when I present workshops. You'll love it!

Clear and concise with good ideas
Great resource...from the intro chapters that explain clearly and concisely how to run an activity as well as what could go wrong and how to avoid it (or deal with it), to the the 50 activities themselves. Everything is so clear and concise...the whole book is written in bullets. And none of the activities are so out there that you'd be afraid to try them. I've used several with my staff and we've all (even me!) had a great time and grown stronger together.

Great Reference for Today's Managers
This book brings together several mutually-supportive elements: managers with heavy, fast-moving schedules; team members who want to feel a greater sense of belonging; and an era that demands higher levels of collaboration....teamwork.

The book is organized into two parts. The first section is instructional; the second section consists of bullet-pointed presentations of fifty short easy-to-run exercises. The opening section has two chapters that are worth the price of the book all by themselves: How to Run a Successful Team-Building Activity and What Could Go Wrong with a Team-Building Activity. What a sense of security this section gives managers: these activities are simple to use...and your experience is practically fail-safe.

Each of the activities is presented using the same format. The bullet-point sections are This is, The Purpose is, Use This When, Materials You'll Need, Here's How, For Example, Ask these Questions, Tips for Success, and Try these Variations. It doesn't get much more comfortable than this! Understanding today's work environment, Miller promises no role-lays, demonstrations, outdoor activities, handouts, or touchy-feely stuff. The activities are organized by areas of need: Communication, Connecting, Cooperation, Coping, Creativity, and Teamwork. A strong index complements the well-organized table of contents, making the volume highly user-friendly.

Recommended for managers and supervisors, as well as training and development professionals. Consultants will also find this tool to be useful as they work to bring people together to achieve results. Everything is explained so that the exercises can be led by laymen or by professionals. A wide variety of tools is offered, enabling the reader/user to choose the experience that will be best for the participants and the circumstances.

Makes it so easy
This book is terrific and so, so easy to use! How many times are you asked to add some sort of quick teambuiling exercise to a meeting and you have to scour your brain to come up with new ones that won't get groans from the team? This is the perfect solution for on-the-spot energy boosting activities. The author really understands "busy managers!"

This is just what I've been looking for!!!
In today's world of do more in less time it's important to find suggestions that are both helpful and insightful. Brian Miller has nailed it! I am committed to providing my associates with a monthly teambuilding session but have often come up short because I am unable to find interesting, relevent and, dare I say, FUN, exercises. This book will make quite a difference in my upcoming meetings. I highly recommend it for all levels of associates. Thanks, Mr. Miller! ... Read more

Reviews (55)

An inspiration...
The Learning Organization remains one of the most talked-of management concepts in today's business world, and nobody is as capable of explaining exactly what is a Learning Organization or what are the requirements for such an elusive concept than Peter Senge.

Senge's main thesis is that for an organization to become a Learning organization, it must embrace five disciplines:
1) Building Shared Vision so that the organization may build a common commitment to long term results and achievement.
2) Mental models are a technique that can be used to foster creativity as well as readiness and openness to change and the unexpected.
3) Team Learning is needed so that the learning is passed on from the individuals to teams (i.e. the organization as a whole).
4) Personal Mastery is the individual's motivation to learn and become better (hence the term Mastery).
and Finally
5) The fifth discipline is that of Systems Thinking which allows to see a holistic systemic view of the organization as a function of its environment.

However, this is not simply a book about management practice.. though it was written primarily for the use managers. This is a book about growth, improvement and continuous development. If you wish to achieve these results for yourself, your home, or your organization, then you MUST read this book.

Senge introduces his ideas and concepts smoothly and in an absorbing style. He is able to explain difficult concepts simply and by the end, you find that you have whole-heartedly embraced his belief in the Learning Organization, in fact, you find yourself yearning for it!

The Book that began a fad
This book was written quite a long time ago (in 1990) and shifted the boundaries of management from concentrating on silos (marketing, HR, finance, production) to looking at organizations as open systems which interact with outside systems and put into motion forces that may not be easily understood using traditional systems to assessment. This ability of Systems Thinking Senge called the "Fifth Discipline" , the other four being:
1) Building Shared Vision.
2) Mental models .
3) Team Learning.
4) Personal Mastery

The field of Systems Thinking was developed in MIT under Prof Jay W. Forrester, but Senge gae it the 'managerial' flavour, cross-fertilising it with folk beliefs , spirituality and scientific thought from around the world.

The belief being, once an organization has mastery of all the five disciplines, the organization can become 'a learning organization'. This book, therefore triggered the craze and fad on part of organizations to become 'learning organizations' and the rise of the 'knowledge economy' was perfect timing for it. Now when the hoopla has settled, it is time again to revisit the true essence of Senge's work and what he REALLY means.

Being a consultant who works in the areas of creativity and knowledge creation, Senge's work is like an ocean , which I visit time after time. And come up with an occasional nugget and pearl. It's not an easy book to read, but well worth the effort.

UWM Book Analysis
Most best sellers are based on some concept that they create their argument off of - Senge's concept is systems thinking. Unlike other best sellers out there, it is not just a personal journey the author has taken; Senge's book has a multitude of research and analysis behind his theories that makes the reader more willing to "buy in" to systems thinking. A little long winded but worth the read. Make sure to jump around to those chapters that appeal to you more.

Too Good For the Planet Earth
Senge is a demigod to many people. I spent in excess of $50.00 on this book and The