What about customers? "Similarly, customer data included purchase information: Volume, dollar amounts spent, repurchase intentions and behavior, brand ratings, product evaluations, opinions, and other complementary patterns of attitudes and behavior were all covered in detail." Who wants to step forward to challenge the validity of Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina's assertions? Not I.

The subtitle of this book, "How the World's Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential," is somewhat misleading. In fact, according to Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina, cultures -- not organizations -- unleash human potential which, in turn, drives organizations. More specifically, emotion-driven, highly engaged employees ("associates" at Wal-Mart and J.C. Penney) continuously nourish and thereby sustain profitable relationships with (yes) emotion-driven, highly-engaged customers. Contrary to conventional wisdom, "Superior performance is not the exclusive product of the rational mind. no matter how appealing it is to business to believe this is so. Talent does intelligence one better, because it combines and utilizes the full circuitry (rational and emotional) of the brain's neural connections in the endless pursuit of productive outcome."

What about knowledge and skills? Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina duly acknowledge that they are required by quality performance. However, "In essence, talent and engagement are emotionally driven. In tough economic times, talent and emotional engagement are the only natural competitive advantages." Emotional engagement is thus the "fuel" that drives the most productive employees (approximately 20% of any workforce) and the most profitable customers. Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina seem almost surprised by the fact that there is an unlimited supply. "The most amazing thing about it is that it never runs out."

The word "path" in this book's title refers to a sequence of "steps" to be taken:

1. Acknowledge the role that emotion plays in driving business outcomes.

Comment: Keep in mind that emotions can be either positive (e.g. appreciation) or negative (e.g. resentment).

2. Acknowledge that all employees possess innate talents that can be emotionally engaged.

Comment: Workers generally do best what they enjoy doing most.

3. Understand that unique talent combinations lead to increased profits and growth.

Comment: Because needs change, different talents may be needed and in different combinations.

4. Understand and appreciate the power of the Q12 and accept what it can do for an organization.

Comment: Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina focus on the Q12 in Chapter 4 and explain how to manage the Q12 in Chapter 5.

5. Understand what it means to manage to develop and sustain engaged employees.

6. Understand the economic implications of engaged, not-engaged, and actively disengaged employees.

7. Acknowledge the role which emotions play in customer engagement.

8. Understand the eleven indicators of customer engagement and how they will impact on your brand, product, or organization.

9. Accept what managing to enhance and sustain customer engagement means.

10. Understand the economic implications of fully engaged, engaged, not-engaged, and actively disengaged customers.

NOTE: The chapter in which this step is examined, Chapter 10 ("Emotional Economics, Part 2") develops in much greater depth the material provided in Chapter 6, "Emotional Economics, Part 1."

Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina devote a separate chapter to each of the ten steps of The Gallup Path, explaining precisely how it can enable any organization (regardless of size or nature) to "drive growth by unleashing human potential." Taking each of these steps will fail, however, unless and until when doing so supervisors REALLY DO understand (a) that talent drives performance and supervisors are totally committed to engaging the talent of every employee, (b) that emotionally engaged employees are invariably the most productive employees, and finally (c) that emotionally engaged customers "always come back for more" and thus are the bedrock of any organization's sustainable profitably.

In their concluding remarks, Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina observe that "It's time to see your world in a different way." In fact, by the end of this book, they have urged their reader to see the world in dozens of different ways. It is important to supervisors to know that, once embarked on The Gallup Path, they will be guided and informed by Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina every step of the way.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out First, Break All the Rules which Coffman co-authored with Marcus Buckingham. Also, Hammer's The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade; Bossidy and Charan's Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done; O'Toole's Leading Change: The Argument for Value-Based Leadership; Collins' Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't; and Connors and Smith's The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual & Organizational Accountability.

Bruce Kimmel San may be known to many of you as a legendary megastar of the record industry and perhaps as a legendary megadirector of the silver screen. But now he is close to entering the ranks of the legendary megaauthors of the American novel.

The childhood in this book is depicted in such glowing and humorous detail that I simply could not put it down. I, of course, grew up far, far from the Los Angeles of Benjamin Kritzer. But from a very early age I was fascinated by the American cinema and the English popular songs that formed the personal world of this young boy, so the references did not fall on deaf ears, or, in this case, on blind eyes.

I laughed and laughed and laughed at poor Benjamin's attempts to understand the vagueries of American slang and metaphors, for I have endured the same confusion in trying to learn your quirky and illogical language.

I cried and cried at the heartbreaking childhood love story, and you will too.

Whether you are a legendary megastar of the silver screen like me or of more humble persuasion, I am sure you will enjoy this book and want to reread it as soon as you reach the back cover, which is on the right.

Your Sushi

Filled with detailed remembrances of fifties songs and films and a kooky family so quirky that they have to be real, Benjamin Kritzer will ring true to anyone who has experienced the pangs of being a child a bit out of sync with his surroundings anywhere at any time.

God is in the details. But humanity is in the emotions. And the author has got them both exactly right.

A joyous read, perhaps the first major first novel of the millenium. Is that an exaggeration? Watch Kimmel in the future. He is anything but a one-trick pony. Film director, scenarist, song-writer, record producer, actor, singer, arranger, playwright--and now novelist. Kimmel seems to be a Jack of all trades and master of all. (Except he can't draw worth cocky-doo-doo.)

At the very least, we learn about the Greek concept of Love. From this book we may garner a far deeper understanding of Eros than we might have previously hoped. This is the finest of Plato's works, in my opinion.

The Symposium will continue to tower among Western literature as a work of truly insightful genius. Buy this book and be prepared for enlightenment.

Plato imagines his mentor Socrates, the comic playwright Aristophanes, and other Athenian luminaries of the Golden Age met for a dinner party and a night of discussion on the nature of love. The various guests present their positions in manners ranging from thoughtful to hilarious, but all of this is but an appetizer for the main course: Socrates' concept of Eros as the fuel for the soul's ascent to the Divine, as revealed in Socrates' reminiscence of his own mentor, Diotima, the woman of Mantinea. At the end, a drunken Alcibiades breaks in upon the festivities to reveal Socrates as an avatar of the very divine Eros which he praises.

Robin Waterfield's Oxford translation is one of the best. He captures each speaker's individual idiom, a major translational feat in itself. That he is able to do so and also render the text into lucid modern English is a further coup. The Oxford edition also includes an extensive introduction, very helpful notes, and a complete bibliography.

The Symposium is great philosophy, great literature, an intimate peek at the social life of one of western civilization's formative eras, a work of spiritual inspiration and transformation, and, not least, a wonderful read. Most highly recommended!

Phaedrus and Pausanias are utilitarians and materialists. Phaedrus looks at love between people and a proto-Burkean love for government and state. Pausanias complicates the argument, saying that there are two different kinds of love, one which is common and one which is heavenly - yet still oriented towards the real and the tangible. Eryximachus is a proto-Swedenborg, trying to reconcile or harmonize the two kinds of love.

The jewels of Plato's "Symposium" are Aristophanes and Socrates. Aristophanes gives us the profoundly moving depiction of Love as a fundamental human need, a desire for completion. For a writer of comedy, whose aim as an art form is forgiveness and acceptance, Aristophanes's explanation is no surprise, though its depth is amazing. While women are generally discounted throughout the "Symposium," not only does Socrates, as we might expect, completely astound his audience (both inside the book and out) with his progressively logical and ascendant view of Love, but he also does it through the voice of a woman, Diotima. When we realize that Socrates is a character in this fiction, and that his words originate in a woman, the egalitarianism and wisdom of Plato the author truly shines forth, like the absolute beauty he claims as the ultimate goal of Love.

Was Plato a feminist? I don't know. I do know that the "Symposium" is a tremendous book. I picked it up and did not stop reading it until I was finished. The style of the Penguin translation is smooth, with a lighthearted tone that can make you forget that you are reading philosophy. Plato's comedic masterpiece in the "Symposium" is the character of Alcibiades, who provides the work a fitting end. Get the "Symposium" and read it now. You cannot help but Love it...in a Platonic sort of way.

As soon as I discovered this book, I immediately linked it to my homepage, as well as my Jewish resource menus and online FAQs. It fills a very real need for a user-friendly basic Judaism book that is "accessible" to the rank beginner, and I find myself recommending it a LOT to web surfers and readers of my own books who email me with their "Judaism 101" questions.

This book is much, much better than Steinberg's old standby, "Basic Judaism," which is just too much stuffy academe for the average reader of today. Rabbi Blech's use of the familiar 'Idiot's Guide" format is non-threatening, and even uses some humor to make learning about Judaism easy and fun!

I recommend this book to non-Jews who want the basics, to Jews who need to brush up on what they might have missed as kids in Hebrew school, and especially to school teachers and librarians as a quick reference to those common questions about what Jews believe in, what happens in a synagogue service, and "Why do they do that...?"

Thank you, Rabbi Blech, for a great educational resource!

Wet Grave continues Hambly's string of wonderfully atmospheric books. That is actually the main character in these January novels: the atmosphere. Hambly uses vivid descriptions to completely set the scene. You feel like you're in a really hot New Orleans in the middle of a sweltering summer. You can almost feel the heat coming off of the page. I love how she sets the scene even as actions are happening. Ben and Rose may be walking down the street, discussing things and eating Italian ices, but Hambly will spend a paragraph or two describing the people and conditions around them. You don't so much read this book as experience it. If this sort of thing bothers you, then you should probably skip this one.

The pace is leisurely. When a book is badly written, that can be a detriment, as nothing seems to happen. However, when it's as masterfully done as it is here, you don't seem to notice. This isn't to say that there isn't a sense of drive to the narrative, because there is. It's just that the pace allows the reader to absorb everything. The only place that the pace drags is during the climax, when Hambly's penchant for description sometimes takes away from the action, making it drag to a halt periodically. She should have toned it down a bit in the end, but I will gladly take this over a book that has a slam-bang climax but isn't interesting the rest of the time.

The characters are another strength of this novel. Some of the characters who have populated previous novels aren't in this one very much, like Olympe, or Ben's mother. In fact, fans of Hannibal, Ben's longtime musician friend, will be disappointed to find out that he's not in this one at all. However, this provides Hambly the opportunity to really explore Ben's relationship with Rose, as well as the character of Abishag Shaw, the head of the city's police. Rose is a school teacher friend of Ben's who he loves. She has been extremely tentative with Ben because she has an intense fear of men, having been raped a few years ago. Ben has been very patient with her, though, throughout the series. In Wet Grave, things finally begin to change. Rose is a wonderful character, and really brings the book to life. She has a wonderful sense of humour, as well as a dedication that makes her very endearing. The relationship between these two characters is simply wonderful to see, and you find yourself rooting for them.

Abishag Shaw, however, has to be the best character Hambly has created. He's a Kentuckian who has moved down to New Orleans. He's one of the few white people who actually will listen to somebody of colour. He's a man who Ben considers a friend and a man of honour. He's genuinely sorry that he can't help Ben with investigating Hesione's death, as he knows he has to instead investigate the murder of a plantation owner. If he doesn't, he wouldn't have a position any more. He's visibly torn about this, however. When circumstances conspire to bring them together, however, Shaw trusts Ben to watch his back like no other white man would. I think he sees a bit of a kindred spirit, as the French Creoles in New Orleans treat him almost as badly as they treat people of colour. Hambly writes Shaw's character with a very deft touch that makes him very interesting to read about. He really comes into his own in this book, as much of the action at the end concerns him and Ben, showcasing their relationship.

Finally, one of the most interesting things about this series of books is the way it portrays race relations in this time period. Ben is a free man, but he always has to carry his papers with him that declare this. If he's out in the bayous and a plantation owner kidnaps him to work in his fields, there's nothing he could really do about it. The relationships between Creoles and Americans, freed coloureds and slaves and white people, and the various other aspects of New Orleans society are vividly portrayed by Hambly, almost like a history lesson. Ben's sister Dominique is a "kept" woman, a mistress of a plantation owner, as so many other free coloured women (such as Ben's mother) did in order to get by. It's a very fascinating study of a culture. It's very interesting to see who looks down on whom, who is "too black" to fit into a certain social class, that sort of thing.

This book is an intriguing mystery, but it's so much more than that. The characters are fascinating, the atmosphere is wonderful and it's a joy to read. You will lose yourself in this book. It took me just as long to read this book (286 pages) as it did to read Harry Turtledove's last book (500 pages). To me, that shows the depth and richness that Hambly provides. I heartily recommend this book, but to experience the best that this series has to offer, you should almost start at the beginning. There's certainly no need to, as it's perfectly understandable on its own. However, the series is so rich that it deserves to be read in order.