The Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback

Shirley Poertner & Karen Massetti Miller

If you are in search of a practical how to guide regarding feedback this book will meet your demands. Organizations weave a complex web of infrastructures making feedback a difficult aspect of a managers growing list of responsibilities. Poertner and Massetti-Miller have taken a "back to the basics" approach in writing this book and avoid the buzzwords like 360-degree feedback and opt for a how to practical guide regarding feedback. The information discussed provides the reader with self-assessment and goal setting activities in order to better relate with the topics discussed. The self-assessment opens the door to a wide variety of topics that will make feedback easier to give and receive. There are many helpful diagrams and examples relating to common workplace feedback situations that help relate the material to the "real world".

The book will take you through the necessary steps to effectively give and receive effective feedback. A brief outline of the chapters is as follows:

Chapter 1: The Power of Feedback *Definitions, characteristics, and an explanation of ineffective types of feedback.

Chapter 2: Useful Feedback is Detailed Feedback *Identifies the importance, features, and the roles of those who are giving and receiving detailed feedback.

Chapter 3: Planning Effective Feedback *Explores the importance of planning feedback and helps develop a plan to prepare detailed feedback.

Chapter 4: Steps for Giving Effective Feedback *Provides the who, what, when, where, and how information. Discusses reinforcement and how to get past defensiveness and a host of other useful information regarding the delivery of effective feedback.

Chapter 5: Steps for Receiving Feedback Effectively *An important chapter that explains the importance of not only talking but listening as well. An important aspect of feedback often overlooked.

Chapter 6: Feedback and Communication Styles *Identifies and explains the different aspects of how people communicate and offers insight on how to deal with different styles of communicators.

Chapter 7: Handling Difficult Feedback Situations *Not all feedback is good and this chapter deals with the bad. There are many practical ideas offered that help shape the feedback situation.

Chapter 8: Developing Your Feedback Skills *As this is the final chapter there is a section that deals with the need to reassess current feedback skills. Also outlined is a tutorial that will help create an action plan to help develop better feedback skills.

The authors have created a practical and informative amount of information that is presented in a "how to" manner. If developing effective feedback skill is on the future agenda this book will make things a little easier. Each chapter has side-notes that makes the book a great reference tool for future reflection. If you are looking to learn more about the feedback process including the 360-degree feedback process this book is a great place to start exploring the process.

This is a good introduction to the Arts and Crafts movement in America. It is a fairly complete guide to Arts and Crafts creations (defined as useful and simple designs) made from wood, stone, glass, and copper across the country.

The book is well-arranged by state and contains outstanding photos. Most entries include a description of the piece or building, details of its history, and visiting information.

The Arts and Crafts movement started in the late 1880s and ended in the late 1920s, although its designs remain popular today. The movement wanted to unite social reform, art, architecture, and the decorative arts. Proponents believed that architecture should be simple and functional, based on historical forms and constructed of local materials.

Notable examples of Arts and Crafts design were Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture and interiors (called the Prairie School); Stickley's Craftsman furniture; and Louis Tiffany's glass designs.

I would have liked it if this book had had more photos of interiors and objects, but it never promised that, so the disappointment was of my own making.

I found this book to be very useful in understanding the issues that Asian Pacific American women face in higher education. She brought to my attention several things which should have been obvious to me but I had never noticed until reading the book, and I think even the most enlightened reader will feel the same.

In classical mythology the figure of Atalanta stands alone as the mortal woman who could hold her own with almost any mortal man. Shirley Climo retells the ancient story of how King Iasus of Arcadia prayed to Zeus for a son to inherit his throne. When a daughter, Atalanta, was born instead he ordered the infant to be abandoned on a mountain. The baby was saved from death, first by a mother bear and then by a hunter. On the side of the mountain Atalanta learned to run swifter than the stags and was almost as good with a bow as the goddess Artemis.

Climo does not tell of Atalanta's participation in the famous Calydonian boar hunt spoken of in the "Iliad," although we do hear of her prowess at the Olympic games (there is an author's note at the end talking about the Olympic games as well). Instead Climo focuses on the story of Atalanta and the golden apples. Restored to her place as the princess of Arcadia, Atalanta is ordered to marry a suitor but she will do so only on her own terms: she will marry any man that can beat her in a footrace, while the penalty for losing to her will be death. Atalanta defeats all those who dare to race her until a young Greek warrior named Melanion accepts the challenge. He is aided by the goddess Aphrodite, who things Atalanta needs to be taught a lesson about the power of love. The goddess gives Melanion three golden apples and tells him how to use them to win the race.

"Atalanta's Race" is illustrated by Alexander Koshkin, who manages to evoke a sense of the ancient frescoes from which we have taken many images of the classical myths. Atalanta is an important figure in mythology because she is obviously the one mortal women with whom most young female readers are going to be able to identify, more so than Antigone or Electra. Certainly the young students who read this book are not going to be interested in hearing the stories about Clytemnestra or Medea. The main thing is that "Atalanta's Race" will certainly achieve the goal of making mythology fascinating to young female readers.

A good book for someone with no bonsai experience. The authors keep the basics of bonsai simple and point the novice in the right direction. Although it would be a good reference to have handy while attempting that first Juniper, the beginner would do well to read other books before going further.

it read quickly, and was really good

Yes it is a text book but it is also exceptionally easy to read. The authors were my profesors so it gave me a new look at the book, This book had many relational dialects and a statement of what good speaking is this is a good book if your serious about learning how to speak publicly

Bilingual research literature very rarely distinguishes gender issues in second language use and relies on ungendered data or presents the masculine view as a usual default model. It was for this reason that the editors of this work gathered papers that dealt specifically with women's issue in second language use. Many cultures are represented in this volume that addresses the themes from an anthropological and ethnographic perspective. Women have often been the caretakers of indigenous languages that have fallen out of use because of colonization and changes in the social power structures. Mothers are the ones who have the greatest part in perpetrating languages through generations where the culture has become subordinate or migration or intermarriage with a member of another language group has severed connections with the maternal language community. It can also be their option not to teach their children their mother tongue. The authors include articles on the critical role of women in the survival of minority languages such as Breton and Gaelic. Power and equality are the major themes presented in the research where women under various circumstances do not have access to the privileged forms of a language and are thus limited in the social forum. One of the authors argues that women, like children, are maintained in a condition of privileged inferiority and suffer exploitation at the same time they are viewed with special regard. Bilingual women have also been considered to be both linguistically and sexually promiscuous. Historically this stereotype has a basis in the fact that often the colonizer would leave his wife at home and take up with a native woman who becomes the intermediary and language interpreter. Stereotypes of women's roles in language use are presented in such themes as: dominant and subdominant languages, women's use of them ; ambivalent or hostile attitudes towards women as translators, This book delves into issues that are rarely seen in bilingual and cross-cultural studies. The male default is usually explained and issues of gender go unreported and ignored. The information in this book is very useful because it makes the reader consider issues of gender and language use, presenting views of feminine empowerment and exploitation that are part of the researched language communities. The texts also investigate the deeper reasons for language gender differences within complex social structures and explains issues that fall below the surface of bilingual and multicultural studies. I recommend this book to all who have interest in sociolinguistics and gender studies.

The book was kind of boring in the begining but it got bewtter as you read along. It was an interesting case. If you like horse racing mysteries you would probably like this book.

Most concise and readable version yet of the movements and engagements of the 11th . . . and, of course, of Sallie's story.