I just received this book and I think it is excellent. Chapters start with an introduction or summary, and end with either a conclusion or implications section, which makes it easy to preview the topic without having to read a lot. There are 3 things I should warn prospective buyers, though: it is expensive ($89.95 the paperback edition!), it is extensive (enciclopedic, with almost a 1000 pages), and it is written for "people in the know" (NOT a beginners' book). But because it is so extensive, it has a chapter on every topic on personality psychology theories I could think of. Great as a reference book!

"Managing For Excellence" is a portable well-illustrated handbook, which harbours all the essential tips for improving (individual) performance. The book is very straightforward. It is comprehensive, and highlights all the important factors that strengthen and weakens partnerships.
This is one book which helps its user to better understand strategies and improve output. It is superbly organized, and presents its techniques in a practical format.
However, anyone who already has the "Successful Manager's Handbook" need not spend on this one. Both books contain similar information.

I have been writing Excel-based VBA applications for years and always struggled to find a good reference for various functions, properties, and objects. I recently moved up from Excel 97 to Excel 2000 and was struggling. I had continued to use my old Excel 5.0 references because I had trouble finding newer ones that contained substabtial information. Some of my old VBA code wasn't working in Excel 2000 (VBA has been enhanced considerably since Excel 5.0)so I was stuck. I found this book listed at Amazon.com and ordered it as a trial. If you're an Excel 2000 user who writes a lot of VBA code, this book is the reference I recommend. There are some reviews here that complain about the format of this book not matching other Wrox publications and being harder to use. That may be true - I haven't used other Wrox publications - but I found everything I needed and a few extras in here. It's not the only Excel 2000 VBA reference I have on my shelf - check out Microsoft Excel 2000 Power Programming with VBA by John Walkenbach and SAMS Teach Yourself Excel 2000 Programming in 21 Days by Matthew Harris - they're both good references as well.

Many programmers are not satisfied that their programs work, but they also want to know if the techniques they employ are the most efficient, or if there is a better means of doing something. For those readers who want to make use of Excels sophisticated object model this is a great book to learn how to do it best. Just about every programming technique I have needed has been covered, allowing me to develop Excel applications written with efficient code that is FAST.

John Green seems to stay one step ahead by pre-empting any questions the reader has, and all the points he covers are backed up with code. Often the author will give several alternative approaches to solving a particular task programmatically, and also explain which approach is more effective / efficient and why.

Although some explanation of basic programming techniques are covered in the "Primer in Excel VBA" chapter, this book is probably best suited to readers who have some programming background (although you don't have to be a pro either).

My one criticism is directed more at Wrox Press than John Green, and is the reason I have only given four stars not five. As has been already mentioned in other reviews, the index is very poor, and is little more than an extended Table Of Contents - a trait in common with other Wrox books I have read. Finding that "golden nugget" in this is a gold mine of information is very time consuming. For example, trying to find the section on the EVALUATE or CALLER methods from the index won't yield much success unless you already know that they are covered in "Chapter Three: The Application Object Model" - this is what you look up in the index - crazy! Finding other entries in the index is just impossible since they are not there.

My suggestion is buy this book, but as you read it through for the first time, use a highlighter on any points that you think may be of significant interest.

As a professional VBA programmer, I found this book to be an excellent reference. Although I use Excel 97, many of the programming concepts are the same as for Excel 2000. Each chapter maps well onto real-world issues that are likely to come up in an intensive programming environment. A good example of this is the chapter on International issues: I have recently been involved in developing a system installed in several countries across Europe, where the users previously had to switch to UK settings in order for the system to work. The book is not intended as a 'learn to program' guide, a genre which is too heavily catered for already, rather as a programmer's reference laid out in such a way as to find solutions to real-world problems quickly.

how could something as interesting as african mythology become this boring? it's a mistery to me.
i grew up with african mythology, with the stories, the jungle, the witch-doctors, the animals...all i got here was endless rhymes that might sound great if the story-teller were in front of me but was sleep inducing on paper.
so why a 2 star you ask, instead of only one star? for the effort...this book was written based on days/years of hard work...i have to respect that.