"Successful corporate transformation depends on effective decision making and leadership from three distinct but inter coonected entities: the CEO, the top management team, and the board of directors. The CEO is the executive who has overall responsibility for the conduct and performance of the firm; clearly his or her mindset, imagination, and behavior will have a defining effect on corporate adaptation. Ultimately, however, senior leadership is a shared endeavor, extending beyond the CEO to other top executives. Thus, the senior management group, widely referred to as the top management team, also has a central role in formulating and executing corporate transformation. The top management team is not simply an aggregation of individual executives. Rather, the dynamics and complementarities that exist within the team greatly influence corporate outcomes. Finally, the board of directors has legal responsibility for the governance of the firm...All three of these leadership entities are critically important to effective corporate adaptation under conditions of turbulence. This book examines all three, including their interconnections to one another and, particularly, their roles in designing and navigating effective corpotate change" (from the Preface).

In this context, in Chapter 6, Paul A. Allaire, chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation, discusses in depth the role of the senior management team in bringing about a major transformation at his company. He argues that "Effective teamwork harnesses creativity and unleashes brain power; it leads to better solutions, better decisions, and improved business results through more effective implementation." In this invaluable article, after describing the centrality of teamwork at Xerox, and teamwork at the CEO level-the top management team, he concludes with some lessons from experience on what works and what doesn't work as following:

* Self-managed senior teams don't work.

* Remotely located teams work less well than teams in physical proximity.

* Laissez-faire or consensus leadership doesn't work.

* Ill-defned team objectives, processes, and rewards hamper performance.

* Teamwork starts with the CEO.

* Total Quality Management tools and processes can enhance teamwork.

* Roles, responsibilities, and expectations must be clarified.

* An effective governance process must be in place.

* Outside counsel and assistance helps.

* Teams need to be explicitly launched and then maintained over time.

Finally, Allaire writes that "Those are my insights on teams at the senioe executive level. I should also point out that there is no free lunch. No matter how deep your commitment, teamwork does have some negative aspects. Teams are time-consuming. You utilize more of the time and energy of top management than if you dictate a solution or a direction. You also run the risk that a tendency toward groupthink may develop...Continuous improvement means a continuous team approach to solving problems and staying on the right course. Team members need to know how valuable their contribution is. That's why at Xerox we not only teach teamwork, we celebrate it."

Strongly recommended.

The authors show three types of leadership create and execute corporate change: the CEO, the top executive team, and the board of directors. This collection of twenty essays (chapters) discusses the circumstances and qualities needed for achieving change including: the qualities for being an effective CEO; the keys areas of tension related to turbulent periods; achieving teamwork at the top; the role of healthy conflict; need for the board to get involved in strategy; and key factors enhancing board creativity.

This book provides some important insights into both the process of change and organizational leadership. One comes away from this book with a clear appreciation for the pivotal role of top leadership in any successful effort to transform an organization. Recommended. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

Finally, a book that teaches objects and Java without any procedural programming baggage!

Unlike other books that introduce objects in chapter 4 or 5 (almost as an afterthought!) and start out with the pre-object "Hello World" program, this book dives right into creating objects and manipulating them. "public static void main" doesn't even rear it's ugly head until half-way through the book, where it belongs. The included Bluej IDE ... is incredibly easy to use and it's very intuitive.

I bought a copy of this for the library at work to help my team of procedural COBOL programmers understand objects and Java. It seems to be more valuable than the other books purchased and several thousand dollars of training.

Another benefit is that the examples you write from the text are actually useful tools!

Please, seriously consider getting this book if you are starting to learn Java or just don't quite understand objects. It will spare you a lot of frustration.

This text is so refreshing. It is presented using a more contemporary
approach than any other text on the market. (Believe me I have seen
a lot of them) because its presentation is pure concept without
overburdening one with unnecessary details.

Concepts are only introduced at a level necessary to understand the
task at hand and revisited later in different contexts to deepen one's
understanding. Project programs are relevant and many issues can be
learned from reading the source code. The authors have students
designing parts of programs from the first chapter. If you want to be a
professional programmer or a software engineer this book is for you !

The text is in tutorial style using the BlueJ IDE. The BlueJ IDE is
so visual and displays a UML like diagram representing classes
and relationships in the program projects. By using the BlueJ IDE
(included on the CD along with all the coding)
one can "feel" what it means to create an object, call a method, or pass
a parameter. One of the authors is a developer of the BlueJ IDE.

One is taught how to structure a vaguely described problem into classes
and methods. The text even includes a complete case study where all
topics discussed earlier are revisited ...from application design through
design of class interfaces, to discussing many important functional
and non-functional characteristics and implementation details.
You will see reliability, data structures, class design, testing and
extensibility applied in a new context.

Do all the exercises conscientiously and you will discover what I
am discovering......this textbook is worth its weight in gold. Enjoy !

This amazing dramatization of the Pooh books is performed by a marvelously talented group of British entertainers who truly bring the Pooh characters gently and lovingly to life. As for this tape, I finally got this figured out. This is part of a four-tape program that represents the complete two-book Winnie-the-Pooh story collection, except the stories are out of order (probably so that they would fit equally on the tapes). Book 1, "Winnie-the-Pooh," is represented by "Pooh Goes Visiting" (stories in order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10) and "Piglet Meets a Heffalump" (stories: 5, 6, 7, 8). Book 2, "The House at Pooh Corner," is dramatized by "Tigger Comes to the Forest" (stories in order: 1 2, 4, 3, 9, 10) and "Pooh Invents a New Game" (stories 5, 6, 7, 8). When stories that depend on previous information are out of order, it gets confusing. My suggestion: Get the "Winnnie-the-Pooh" / "The House at Pooh Corner" gift pack, which is also four tapes (the same recordings), but in the proper order.

[This is a review of the Hodder/Headline audiocassette version] I learned to read by listening (again and again and again and again) to a pair of well-loved and well-worn LPs of the Pooh stories read by Maurice Evans. I always considered them the finest Pooh audiobooks ever recorded. Up until now! Now there's this wonderful series of fully-dramatized adventures of Pooh featuring a brilliant cast of wonderful British actors: Stephen Fry ("Jeeves and Wooster") as Pooh, Geoffrey Palmer ("The Madness of King George") as Eeyore, Judy Dench ("Shakespeare in Love") as Kanga...and best of all, the *incomparable* Jane Horrocks ("Little Voice" and Bubbles from "AbFab") as a squeaky, alarmed, and altogether adorable Piglet. You don't have to be a kid to appreciate these fine recordings (and there are plenty of adult Pooh fans out there who will *love* these versions). Accept no substitutes: this is simply the finest Pooh audio series yet created, beating by a *far* distance the Alan Bennett and (ugh!) Charles Kuralt versions. There's more than just this one tape in the series, too. The series includes "Tigger Comes to the Forest" (ISBN: 1840322195); "Piglet Meets a Heffalump" (ISBN: 1840320524) and "Pooh Invents a New Game" (ISBN: 1840322268). Type the 10-digit ISBN number into the Amazon search field to go directly to the webpages for these cassettes.

I found this book very helpful in deepening my prayer time with God. The prayers can also be used as devotionals as they reference specific scriptures throughout. A variety of topics are covered including prayers for worshiping God, dealing with sin, sickness and disease, relationships, and praying to bring in the Kingdom of God. I was challenged by this book to pursue God in a deeper way and inspired by His greatness.

As an evangelical pastor who collects prayer books for use in personal devotions and for use from the pulpit, I have found "Prayers to Move Mountains" to be the best I have seen thus far.

The prayers are written simply, in plain English, but are nonetheless beautiful. They have substance, are anchored to Scripture, and though written for personal prayer times, are easily adapted for groups. The prayers are pretty much mainstream evangelical/fundamental with a slight charismatic twist in a few of them, and the few prayers which may reflect a variation from the readers point of view may be easily adjusted. I am a non-charismatic and only feel I need to slightly adjust a handful of the prayers.

The book contains 108 practical and reverential prayers divided into 11 categories, each prayer about 2 short pages long. The categories are: Worshiping God for Who He is, Thanking God for What He Has Done, Becoming More Like Jesus, Sin, Stress, Marriage and Family, The Lives of Your Children, Relationships, Job and Career, Sickness and Disease, and Bringing in the Kingdom of God.

If you are a Bible-oriented Christian, you will appreciate this prayer book. Go for it.

This is a great book that does what it says--it takes you step-by-step through the art of "realistic" (representational) collage. The author describes the various media (mostly paper, but also metal & fabric) for the finished collage and the different ways to adhere those media. The book also contains a section on other methods of achieving realistic collage by looking at other artists' work. It's definately worth the money if you enjoy collage.

Originally saw this book while visiting the artist's gallery in Maine. It is attractive, concise and FULL of ideas for tons of projects. The book does a great job of inviting people to use their own creativity while giving them guidance and support. I would recommend it to both beginners and advanced collage artists.

I've read a lot of creative writing books and this is the best so far. David Michael Kaplan is an excellent teacher. He explains things well with humour and clarity. Every point is illustrated with examples and comments from both himself and other writers. I especially liked the way he uses his own stories as examples so he can show us the subsequent drafts as the story grows towards completion. This method perfectly illustrates the points he makes and I have never seen it used so well before. If you have ideas for short stories but never seem to get round to writing them, or when you try - you end up disappointed with the results, this is the perfect book for you. As a bonus it also helps you find ideas for stories because in David Michael Kaplan's book the 'revising' starts even before the first draft. In short if you want to write fiction and you only buy one how-to book make it this one.

This book offers indepth suggestions on revision of fiction writing, including some forms of revision I would never have thought of personally. The over-all goal is seamless fiction writing and Kaplan has some concrete suggestions on how to achieve this. One of the most helpful books I have ever read on the subject.

There has never been a time when interreligious understanding was more needed. And I don't have in mind only the atrocities committed at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center and what seems to be, as I write, an impending war. It's trite to say, but true, that the vast geographical distances that once separated the great religions from one another have vanished, both figuratively in the sense that modern transportation and communication technologies have rendered them insignificant and literally in the sense that, given modern immigration patterns, Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists and Confucianists and Sikhs are very likely to be living in the same neighborhoods with Jews and Christians. It is imperative that we learn to understand one another better.

This book is an important step in that direction. By presenting academically serious, reliable, but still sympathetic portraits of the five great religious founders, it provides a basis for genuine dialogue between the faiths. It is an excellent book. The authors are first-rate, and the writing is generally clear and occasionally even quite good.

I wish it weren't so expensive, but I hope that it will nonetheless have a large readership. I recommend it enthusiastically.

Contributions from the best contemporary thinkers provide explorations of the lives and beliefs of the five founders of major world religions: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus and Muhammad. These essays provide new insights into the careers of these individuals, blending biography with spiritual insights. An excellent contemporary review.

June Sprigg's great introduction to the Shakers has happily been reprinted. It is a most beautiful book.

It's rare that something that looks at first glance like a "coffee table book" that should be admired largely for its pictures but that also contains such a thoughtful and illuminating text.

There is no other book that shows as clearly how the Shakers connected practicality and simplicity with elegance and harmony of design. The photographs are subtle, understated but quite lovely to linger over.

It's easy to dismiss the Shakers as a fringe group, and few up us would embrace their doctrine of celibacy. But June Sprigg documents the appeal of their fundamental values: Do all your work as if it was to last for 1,000 years, but live your life as if you knew that the Judgment Day was coming tomorrow. Her ability to articulate this apparent paradox makes this a spiritually moving book.

Buy it as a gift for anyone interested in design, or with a serious interest in religion. And be sure to order two copies--you'll want one yourself.

Shaker: Life, Work and Art is a beautiful book. I first saw acopy several years ago and was disappointed to learn that thehardcover version was out of print. The book has short narrative sections that provide insight into Shaker history, work, and communal and spiritual life. One section captures a "typical" day in the life of the Brethren and Sisters. The enlarged font is easy on the eyes and the top of each narrative page is headed by the famous Shaker wall pegs. The narrative sections are separated by numerous pages of high quality, well-captioned color photographs of Shaker crafts, furniture, and architecture. Lots of beautiful pictures! The Shakers legacy still seems to have a profound impact on our contemporary lives in spite of (or perhaps because of) the simplicity of their work and their unusual communal way of life. Although this book does not present a comprehensive history of the Shakers, it does an admirable job of providing an insight into the lives of these interesting people. This book is deserving of any coffee table and should get a lot of attention in your household. END

I find all other so-called biostatistics books are helpless
until I have read this book. This book is written based on
Clayton and Hills's past experience in applying statistics
in their studies. They can illustrate most difficult concepts
by very simple examples and words which are totally differnt
than other text and teaching books. For other books, you
can learn a lot of various statistical techniques, but you
cannot understand what is the core idea behind the statistics.
You may get it from this book.

Clayton and Hill's book is an excellent introduction to the Statistics underlying epidemiology for readers who are not specialist Mathematicians. The book does explain fairly erudite ideas, but it does so gently and the Mathematics used is elementary. There are also many not-too-hard exercises at the ends of sections, making this a very gopd bok to learn from. Highly recommended.

This book makes you understand, learn, think and treat spinal problems in a racional way.

This represents a substantial improvement from the first edition, which was a good text in it's own right. The subject matter is more complete, and virtually every topic has been updated. I recommend it highly.