Much of the author's criticism of the main protagonists is not new. The myth of Gahndi's pacifism is debunked. In Nehru's uncompromising idealism, the authors lay the blame for eventual partition. Jinnah is the consumate lawyer, manipulating and playing with legal vagueries. But it is for Mountbatten and the Congress hard-liners that the harshest criticism is reserved. Partition comes down to one missed chance in the summer of 1946. Whether or not in the emotional-charged atmosphere of Indian-Pakistan history you accept this proposition, the authors succeed in leaving that bitter feeling in the reader's mind- that partition, the holocaust that ensued after August 1947 in Punjab, and years of ensuing conflict could have all been avoided even after 50+ years of heated struggle if only in that last instance, the main protagonists laid aside their prior histories, showed their courage and seized the moment.

This hugely helpful book shows with examples and exercises how to face scary or difficult situations and turn them into opportunities for self-development, advancement and building relationships with other folks. It has become cliche to remark how the Chinese character for crisis combines the symbols for danger and opportunity. This book's focus on day-to-day events and relationships actually shows the reader how this could be. Crises, boring situations, and bad interactions are actually opportunities for self-leadership or leading others. The book makes it clear that while we usually think of leadership as some grand gesture, changing small things is actually the place any transformation has to start. The examples, theory, and exercises in the book help the reader develop the courage, tenacity, and ingenuity to take on challenges in day-to-day life in transformative ways. I found it strengthened my ability to have a significant impact on the organizations I work in and in my personal life.

It reports on research and practice conducted over a period of more than 30 years that has implications not only for personal and organizational transformation, but also for societal transformation. It includes numerous in-depth examples which anchor the overall approach to simultaneous inquiry and action. Unfortunately, for those who want a 'quick fix' or an easy 'formula' for creating greater personal or organizational effectiveness this book will probably frustrate and disappoint most readers.

The core ideas are based on a developmental view of individuals and organizations, that is implicitly present in some of the most enduringly creative and dynamic institutions throughout history. But the real test of these ideas is to utilize them in practice and through consistent efforts to inquire in the midst of daily action. The exercises and ideas are helpful to individuals at all levels of leadership who wish to develop further their skills and competencies in creating long-term effectiveness at increasingly deeper and broader levels of cognition.

This reviewer is a Professor of Strategic Management at a European business school who has been attempting to apply many of the core ideas and practices in this book for three decades - in both organizational settings as well as in daily life. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in making the effort to engage in long-term personal and organizational transformation. Otherwise, if it is quick change you are after, it is better that you stay with the over-simplified 'cook books' that most management books manifest as.

In Part I, the authors show how individual leaders learn to engage in a self-sustained process they call "action inquiry." Action inquiry not only involves experimenting with increasingly more effective leadership behavior (for example, improving working relationships, teams, and organizations). It also involves reflecting on these experiments and then using the insights gained in further action. The authors bring a sense of passion and clarity to this seemingly simple (but actually quite challenging) process, which seems to be the foundation for everything that follows.

One of the book's unique contributions comes in Part II, where the authors draw on a half-century of research on human - especially adult - development, combined with their own research on the relationship between leadership behavior and stages of personal development. In these chapters they show how new leadership competencies become available to people as they grow into successive stages of human development. In a sense, the authors have created an extraverted counterpart to the widely acclaimed and more introverted developmental framework elaborated by Ken Wilber. (See, for example, his recent book, Integral Psychology).

Because the global business environment has evolved into a turbulent mix of interdependence, rapid change, and uncertainty, many leadership programs are designed (at least implicitly) to help managers develop the competencies needed to operate more effectively in this environment. (These competencies include, for example: a greater awareness of feelings, assumptions, and multiple perspectives and the ability to think systemically, understand and engage multiple stakeholders, reframe situations, and think "out of the box"- all while remaining focused on the pragmatic issues of business strategy and operations). The authors show that these and related competencies often associated "leadership" - as opposed to "management" - correlate with growth into a particular stage of human development that is still fairly rare according to the research. I think this helps explain why leadership programs often don't stick, when they tout these competencies but don't necessarily understand or facilitate the underlying stage-development needed to truly embody them.

In Part III, the authors lay out a model of stages of organization development. Though at one level this seems to be just another life-cycle model of organizations, the unique contribution of this model is that it conceptualizes its stages in a way that parallels the individual stages presented in Part II. In this model, each successive stage gives birth to new organizational capabilities needed to re-purpose, re-structure, and continuously improve in response to increasingly complex environmental conditions. The organizational stages and the transitions from one to the other are illustrated with real-world examples.

Finally, Part IV explores the inner and outer reaches of action inquiry, drawing on the authors' empirical and life research to conceptualize and document even "higher" (deeper?) stages of leadership and organizational development. The examples provided in this section are sketchy and suffer from a low sample size, but they are intriguing. This section also includes a thought-provoking chapter that brings alive for contemporary leaders the Socratic question, "What is the good life?"

Overall, this ambitious book succeeds in being both pragmatic and far reaching. This second edition of the book, with its two new chapters, deserves wide readership among thinking leaders; among HR, Training, and Organization Development professionals; and among professors and students of leadership and organizations.

L'auteur du livre nous a raconté une belle histoire, celle des principaux protagonistes de l'invention de la télévision. Il a su vulgariser les notions scientifiques complexes qui intervinrent dans la réalisation du téléviseur moderne. Il s'adressait à un large public. C'est pourquoi son histoire est personnifiée.

Nous retrouvons les principaux inventeurs indépendant qui orientèrent leurs recherches dans le cadre du paradigme mécanique, Jenkins, Baird, Ives. D'autres figures peuplent les recherches dans le cadre du paradigme électronique, Zworykin, Farnsworth. L'auteur entre dans le détail biographique propre à nous illustrer les conditions de l'invention. La personnification de l'histoire permet d'attirer le lecteur.

Par ailleurs, le livre rend bien la complexité du développement de la télévision. Ce n'est pas un seul individu qui trône au dessus de l'histoire. En effet, l'invention de la télévision va d'au moins 1880 à 1939 et elle a mobilisé des chercheurs de partout dans le monde : Allemagne, Japon, Canada, Italie, URSS, France, en plus des États Unis d'Amérique et de la Grande Bretagne. Des inventeurs indépendants, des chercheurs universitaires et des chercheurs de grande compagnies y investirent nombre de jours. Plusieurs brevets furent déposés. Il n'y a pas -le- brevet décisif, mais plusieurs connaissances, savoir faire.

Cependant, pour le spécialiste de l'histoire des techniques, il ne s'agit que d'un livre de vulgarisation respectant avec intelligence les règles de l'art. Les livres publiés antérieurement sur l'histoire de la télévision (et il n'en existe guère peu) étaient soit trop rivés sur les faits, soit trop techniques, soit trop concernés par les débats entourant la télédiffusion de l'apprés seconde guerre mondiale.

Or, nous sommes toujours en attente d'une histoire de la télévision sous l'angle de l'histoire des techniques. Une histoire qui répondrait aux questions suivantes : quelles sont les contraintes exercées sur l'innovation technique par l'option paradigmatique des chercheurs? quel rôle a joué la présence de l'industrie dans le passage de l'invention à l'innovation? comment des inventeurs indépendants, tel Farnsworth ont-ils pu tenir tête à des industries telles RCA? pourquoi les Bell Lab., disposant de compétences techniques et de savoir faire éprouvés, en plus des ressources financières nécessaires, se sont-ils lancés dans l'aventure de la télévision mécanique plutôt que celle électronique?

For baseball fans, especially Yankee fans which I am not, this is a must-read. Rarely do I laugh out loud when I'm reading, but Sparky made me chuckle throughout the entire read.

I'm waiting for Sparky's second fiction to come out.

This was one of those books that as soon as I saw the cover, I swooped one of the three copies available at this bookstore I was in and never cracked it open to "pre-read" the book jacket. The book written BY Terry Bradshaw and ABOUT Terry Bradshaw was enough for this finicky reader (only few noted authors get this kind of purchase from me). I remember Terry Bradshaw on the field leading the Steelers and I watch Terry Bradshaw every NFL weekend on the FOX pre-game. I quite didn't know what to expect out of the book when I swooped it up, as a lot of players and coaches who author a book tends to relive each and every second of each and every game they ever coached or played. I love football but it's great when you can also read and get to know the person who you are supposed to be reading about.

The reader was alerted that there could be some serious laughter coming from the book and if caught in that situation in front of people...just look up, smile and point to the book! Let me tell you I ended up pointing more than once to the book with belly laughs and tears in my eyes....even sitting, of all places, on the tarmac in a jet liner at the Cleveland airport awaiting clearance for the jet to taxi and take off!

In the book, Mr. Bradshaw gave us a view of what his childhood and family was like...what ethics he was taught as a child that influenced as a foundation of how he grew up, as a guideline for how he would handle the fame of being a NFL quarterback to being a Television Analyst and motivational speaker. (Okay so, I am leaving out his run in the Cosmetic Industry.) When life gave him lemons (as life does everyone at some time or another), he doesn't glide over it like frosting on a cake but he showed how he turned those lemons into lemonade.

When you are reading this book, it isn't as if you are merely reading a book but that time just slips by as if you were sitting down with Terry Bradshaw with him sharing his life story. It's done in an honest, open and humble manner which this reader appreciates. If he made a mistake in life, he tells us about the mistake and his error of ways--he doesn't pawn the blame on to someone else to look good.

Not only will you find yourself listening to a friend, time slipping quickly by but you will find yourself laughing outloud at times at Terry's antics and even some of the behind the scene antics. Laughter is truly good for the soul.

It's an easy read and I don't think any NFL fan (regardless who your team is) will ever go wrong buying and reading this book. This Cleveland Brownie LOVED the book!

The only problem was when it came to the end! I WANTED TO KEEP READING! Okay Mr. Bradshaw....when can we have another installment??

The book boils down to whether in the end, the victim gets killed, or Joey gets shafted. In order to describe how he kills someone, he describes the events leading to, during, and after the job has been done. While hitting is a great story, the preparation involved, along with the needless and pointless details is not.

Joey seems to describe his days at the track, his arguments with his wife, how he hates one guy, how numbers are run. Seemingly sidetracked, he sometimes forgets he's hitting a guy and describes the tedious day to day movements of his own life. When he does go back to the hit, the mystery of the victim is fragmented and hardly fluid.

While interesting in the beginning, towards the later half it gets pretty monotonous, as if delaying the ending in order to fill a few more pages.

What saves it is that is a true story, and does provide insight to the methodical way a hit is accomplished, along with a description of a life of a New York criminal.

It tells how JM matched tricks with the leader of the Dervishes to get safe passage for British troops. How JM stumbled over the means to get desert camouflage paint. To prevent Alexandria Harbor from being bombed, JM moved it! To avoid an attack, dummy tanks, guns, and troops were created as reinforcements to be seen by enemy air reconnaissance. To protect the Suez Canal he used high-intensity rotating searchlights; this was copied by Britain's air defense.

JM was asked to give lectures on escaping when captured; he became a member of MI9 (which dealt with escape and evasion). His Magic Gang also created dummy submarines to hide the absence of real ones. He traveled to Malta to help hide real airplanes and create dummies to attract and waste bombs. They developed a way to drop a crate of supplies without using scarce parachutes. When his friend survived a plane crash only to die in the fire, JM created a cream that withstood flames for a few minutes to allow people to escape. When testing out in the desert, JM became lost an nearly died from dehydration.

To prepare for the attack from the Alamein Line Gen. Montgomery wanted his forces on the north hidden so the enemy would expect an attack in the south. Since the desert was flat, the camofleurs had an impossible job of deception and misdirection: to put a decoy army in the south and hide a real army in the north. Thousands of tons of supplies had to be hidden in the north while dummy supplies had to be hidden in the south. Pages 278-9 explains how the dummy water pipeline was built. The Battle of El Alamein began as planned. The Magic Gang created a phony sea invasion twenty miles behind enemy lines, which diverted German reserve forces. Chapter 18 tells how German tanks were halted by dummy cardboard tanks and silver painted boards! And the battle ended with Rommell's retreat.

Afterwards JM was sent to Canada to establish Station M, which educated and served the OSS and FBI ("Room 3603" references this). The Gestapo placed him on their "Black List". He invented air to ground communication using infrared waves. After the war he migrated to Kenya, and died there.