I've too have had to read many learning organizational books for my graduate studie -- I just finished Emotionally Charged Learning by Eric Schiffer which was one of my favorites. I also like this one very much because it equally is fun to read! If I also had to train a group of people or point an organization towards achieving its goals as a learning organization, I would rely on both Emotionally Charged Learning and this book as my bible. Great writing style, great examples!

I've had to read many learning organizational books for my graduate studies -- this was one of my favorites out of maybe 10 I've read. One, it's fun to read! The examples are erudite, taken from other disciplines like science and math, not just business. The 10 steps are easy to follow, logical and well represented. The authors rely on concrete examples that everyone can relate to. If I had to train a group of people or point an organization towards achieving its goals as a learning organization, I would rely on this book as my bible. Great writing style, great examples -- overall one of the most enjoyable I've read!

While there are many books about brain-compatible learning, systems thinking, communication, organizational and culture change, multiple intelligences..., this book has integrated them all into a very practical, wise and interesting manual for organizational growth. Ideally, people in any organization should start with the assessment tool and go sequentially through all the ten steps: 2. promote positive, 3. safe thinking, 4. risk taking, 5. people as resources, 6. learning power, 7. map the vision, 8. model the vision, 9. systems thinking, 10. get show on the road. But there are so many useful guidelines, stories and exercises, you can dip into any page and be enriched and enlightened. Just take "16 principles that promote learning" (pp. 16-19) or the 36 assessment items (pp. 66-67), they are very specific goals for us to aim at. "Why most training doesn't work" (pp. 168-171) should be required reading for all trainers. In fact, the whole book should be required reading by all those in management or interested in fostering growth through participative learning. For follow-up, it helps to read Peter Kline's The Everyday Genius, that gives a more comprehensive background to the Integrative Learning that underlies the present book. People can also go on to Peter Senge and team's books--if they haven't done so. In another revised edition, it might help to include an index and also update the checklist on 7 multiple intelligences to include the natural and existential intelligences.

It is one of the most amazing books I have ever come across. I found in every page, from the start, that the dialogues spoke to my heart and that I could see myself in them. I discovered that the Genesis Principle is the Creative Principle behind everything. The book allowed me to see how creativity works, it's design and how it is the essence of Who I AM. It's comprehensible dialogue takes one by the hand in the understanding of the flow of the creative process and how it works in every area of life. The book is very well written, mapping out the Wisdom Principles that I have found underlie most Spiritual Traditions. The question "Who AM I?" is the platform from which everything arises, gets created and brought into form. It is truly, as the name says: "A Journey into the Source of Creativity"! A must for anyone interested in their own Spiritual growth in a very practical way in living every day. I thank the authors, Isen and Kline, from the bottom of my heart.

As a student, I was assigned this reading. I found the latter half of the book to be the most useful. However, I thought that the first eleven chapters could have been revised to approximately three chapters. The most impressive part of this book is Kline's examples of his learning philosophies. These examples include games, activities, and exercises that are applicable in the home and classroom. Overall this read was intelligent and insightful. Kline has some truly amazing ideas.

I sometimes forget to slow my life down enough to pay attention to the lessons that children can teach me about how to live my life. Every child that is born into this world is a laughing, singing, creative and powerful individual. Often it seems that by the time we reach adulthood we have lost the ability to laugh and sing. Peter Kline seriously addresses the process of learning from all angles. Extremely instructive to adults!!!

Some favorite passages:

"Creativity is a function of our whole personality and its interaction with the world, not something we turn on or off. The more we see ourselves as innovative and original thinkers, the more creative we tend to be"..."So whatever else we may say about creativity, these three things are essential to it: we must value our uniqueness, we must trust the worth of our experience, and we must be able to draw freely and widely on the full range of that experience, which is the content of our memory." P 190

"Experiencing disharmony between what we say and what we feel leads to a vague sense of anxiety and not being at home in the world - a sense that some philosophers assume is an inescapable part of the human condition. However, the origin of this anxiety is not human nature, it is in our withholding or even becoming unaware of what we really feel - in failing to live our lives fully. Accepting emotions helps us get beneath the surface in order to discover the rich and wonderful process of being." P 219

"Whenever you feel you are learning nothing from the person you are with, or the situation you are in, it is time to return again to whatever springs inspire in you the development of new learning skills, and drink as deeply as you can. Then you will be better able to discover that each person you meet has a fund of experinece so rich that no matter what thier differences in worldly accomplishments may be from yours, you can learn from them and they from you. Some of my own finest learning experiences have come from those who had lived long lives without the advantage of education or even literacy. Experience of any kind is always richly and uniquely instructive." P 252

I don't completely agree that our kids "can't think," but I do think American culture has come to have an increasingly chaotic fabric and the author raises one very substantial point in that regard: the way we read affects the way we think about the material we are reading. The importance of reading is not just some archaic value, it sets the tone for education in general.

The way we engage written material does seem to me to be central to the kinds of questions we ask, and consequently the way we understand the material. When I browse a tree of documents on a website, I often seem to come away with a very different understanding of the content than when I read the same material in a book. Some of this may just be technological (taking margin notes is still difficult without a book, etc.). I suspect that there may be more to it, because the way we tend to use the web medium makes attention-grabbing more important than the organization of the material. We tend to organize web pages to keep our limited attention span engaged rather than to engage deep thinking about the material.

What we lose isn't obvious, because we tend to think of learning solely in terms of lists of facts. However deep thinking requires that we more actively engage the material, ask questions, follow up, criticize the arguments, and so on.

If you have benefitted as much from reading as I have, you will have no trouble finding the author's view congenial in its stress on reading for understanding and interpretation, and also disturbing in its implications for the way we are changing the way we read. At the very least, this book is itself very engaging and well-written and serves as a good example of why we should be taking the fundamentals and concepts of reading very seriously as new technologies begin to augment and replace it.