Wow. The light bulb went on over my head when I read this book. After years of dealing with depression, anxiety and panic attacks, therapy and prozac, I finally "get it". If you recognize yourself in the description in the introduction, I would recommend this book. It described my covertly narcissistic family to a T. Knowing the sources and causes of misconceptions I hold about myself and the world at large have already begun to help me improve my outlook and my relationships.

The Narcissistic Family has been a book of great help and insight to me. Like other reviewers said, the authors are very kind and did not clog up their writing with psychobabble. Now, I finally have an idea of my own upbringing and family. I am from a covertly narcissistic family and many told me about how wonderful my family was when I was growing up. Those people did not know the inside story about what daily life could be life. I have often felt blamed by my family unfairly. Not that I belive I am perfect, but they always seemed to minimize the roles of others in problems/conflicts and maximize mine. If I ever put an emotional demand on them, they often put me down or gave out sterile advice in a rude, condescending way. There was a large lack of communication between my parents and I can remember several instances of verbal abuse between them. Something was not right, but I could not put my finger on it until I found this book
Two techniques that really helped are the "notebook" exercise and the "lavender sapphire." I also have really benefited from the Pressmans' assertiveness model: I feel....I want. Simple, direct and right to the point. This book has really helped me set limits in a positive way as well.
This book is a bit on the pricey side, but well worth it. I recommend it to all who have issues related to family upbringing and in particular to those from covertly narcissistic families so that they may finally be validated and understood.
Once again, such a great find!

Read It! If you come from an emotionally dysfunctional family of any degree, this is the book to read. You will gain insights into why you carry feelings of worthlessness, why intimacy alludes you, why you feel driven . . . You will be given alternative ways to view yourself, to communicate with others, and to experience life. By the end of the book you will have the framework to realize the unique treasure that you truly are.

The book is written (and priced) for professionals, but is very readable and user friendly. I wish I had come across it sooner. It would have saved me agonizing hours spent trying to pigeonhole my family's particular dysfunction(s). the Narcissistic family is the one with the parental system that for what ever reason - job streee, alcoholism, mental illness, sel-centered immaturity - centers around meeting the needs of the adults. It is the family that to some degree or another most of us grew up in. By reading Pressman's book and following the exercises, you can begin to fill the holes whether great or small in your own childhoood experience and begin to enjoy a fulfilling adult life.

A very comprehensive book on recruitment and selection. I found it especially useful on its coverage of interviewing and tests. Its coverage of structured and unstructured interviews as well as the five factors approach to personality tests is fairly extensive and substantiated with rationale. Very logically written and well sign-posted with appropriate sub-headings; it is very easy to follow the logic as well as easy to search any particular aspect of recruitment you need to check. Even the experienced recruiter will find it useful to refresh his or her skills. The authors have removed the mystery and ambiguity often associated with successful recruitment. Anybody who is in the hiring business should get a copy and read it.

At last, I found a book about hiring that treats me like I can think. This book is readable and has a lot of depth. The authors get you to think through where you are trying to go with your business as the first part of hiring. I got a lot out of that focus. Then they have solid information about what tools to use for good hiring. High-Impact Hiring shows you how to structure an interview, but also how to use other tools like tests and reference checks. They show you how to design your own performance tests. Their decision-making tools are cool--there's a decision table that helps you make sure you don't hire a disaster and sorts out all the information you've got. If you just want an interviewing book, you could get one of the other "hiring" books--though High-Impact Hiring's treatment of interviewing was the best I've read. This book that gives you a system, gives you knowledge and tools, and treats you with respect.

I used this book to design our company's hiring process, and found it helpful for all stages from job descriptions, interviewing, applications to offer letters. The quality of our hiring has improved significantly; all of the people we have hired since are still making major contributions to the company.

Concise, easy to read, easy to understand. A good read for any pastor or church leader who wants to get some clarity on the strengths and uniqueness of his or her congregation. The REALLY good news is that this is NOT another "How I Did It" book. To be sure, "How I Did It" books are inspiring, and you can pick up a lot of good tips and tricks. The trouble is that most of them probably won't work in YOUR situation! What Southern & Norton have done is given us a method which will help us understand and analyze our own unique settings - to discover our own congregation's values and unique giftedness - so that we can focus on doing the things that are right for us, not for somebody else! Share this one with key leaders in your congregation!

My congregation worked with Southern and Norton over the course of several months. We found their strategy for church growth and renewal to be easy to follow, highly participatory, and full of wisdom. It has totally transformed our congregation and organizational systems!

"Cracking Your Congregation's Code" is a great contribution to the church growth movement! It not only offers a theoretical framework for congregational health and vitality, but provides easy to use surveys and inventories. Their recommendations for church growth and renewal are not "one size fits all" but are easily tailored for each congregation's unique "DNA". The end result is the development of a "strategic map" that will guide one's congregation to a new place of enthusiasm and growth!

I've been implementing some of the procedures in Cracking Your Congregation's Code, and I've found it answers many basic needs of busy pastors and lay leaders. I know it helps answer mine. It's a practical book, that's easy to read, and easy to use. It describes how a church can transform itself. The surveys the authors provide for the four congregational systems give a church a way to quickly evaluate and strengthen their work. From my standpoint, as someone looking for how-to's, I'd say the information in chapter seven on how to create a strategic map is worth the price of the book alone.

This books is full of inspiration, information, and hope. I am so blessed to have come across this book in the early stages of my educational leadership experience. I have been a principal for less than a year. No matter where my leadership "road" takes me, I am sure that I will always reference the reading of this book as playing a pivotal role in shaping me as a leader. In this respect, it will rank second to only one other powerful book which plays a similar, yet infinitely more powerful role: the Bible.

According to Evans, the goal of this immensely readable and practical book is to help school leaders "implement change in ways that truly 'take'." He has divided this project into three parts. In the first, he describes the nature of change; in the second, the dimensions of change; and in the third, the dynamics of leading innovation. Evans' book is perhaps different from others in that he looks at change from where most schools are, not from where he believes they should be. In so doing, he describes what it means for schools to grow and improve given the very human constraints that define an educators' world.

In describing the nature of change, Evans sees a need to move away from common organizational assumptions rooted in Taylor's scientific management practices to assumptions that are more aligned with the nature of today's organizational reality. Given that the environments in which organizations operate today are no longer stable, but turbulent, change strategists must alter the way they seek to improve their organizations. Taylor's legacy assumes efficient organizations are stable, rational, hierarchical, and product-oriented. Evans argues that this "rational-structural" paradigm is less useful than the "strategic-systemic" paradigm, which assumes that efficient organizations are fluid, adaptable, open, and process-oriented. Given that cultures (school cultures as well) are fundamentally conservative, changing schools means changing school cultures. The problem is change challenges peoples' competence, creates confusion and causes conflict. Effective change strategies must harness people's competencies, seek coherence, and work productively with conflict.

In describing the dimensions of change, Evans argues that change must be desirable and feasible. He includes a useful table of tasks of change (p. 56), which describes "unfreezing" the school's culture by increasing the fear of not trying, making change meaningful to the change agents, developing new behaviors and ways of thinking, revising existing structures and norms, and generating support for change. In one of his key chapters, Evans addresses the issue of the "reluctant faculty" and offers an analysis of the faculty member in midcareer (the average age of teachers in the US is forty-five). In part, midcareer educators are where they should be: their personal roles (partner, parent, community member) in life have become important, and the material rewards of work have become necessary expectations. Yet for many, educating young people has become less challenging and the rewards and recognition for what they do have become less frequent. These faculty are isolated and unfreezing them is a significant challenge. Schools must offer more new opportunities for leadership, appropriately recognize and reward teachers at all stages of their careers, and seek new ways for teachers to develop professionally and personally. Additionally, to undertake effective change, schools must assess their organizational capacity by examining six school specific contexts, which Evans describes in some depth: (1) Occupational framework (2) Politics (3) History (4) Stress (5) Finances, and (6) Culture (pp. 119-143).

In the last section of the book, Evans focuses on leadership as a key dimension of innovation. Given that effective reform in today's schools requires trust and consensus, authenticity is the key quality for school leaders - be they teachers, administrators, or parents. Major change, he argues, almost never arises from the bottom up, it comes from purposeful leadership. Purposeful leadership means generating consensus around a school's core purposes and demonstrating tireless commitment to them. Purposeful leadership builds followership and with followership comes change. (Evans offers an exploration of six ways to build optimal participation on pages 246-252.) Leaders should emphasize the positive, keep the path clear (when you add, take something away), and be flexible with timelines. The leader can't ask others to change unless s/he changes first. And, leaders must challenge "unprincipled resistance" from staff who violate group values. Schools, like America's top corporations, must reward people for trying innovations, and avoid punishing failure.

This book, more than most I've ever read, is true to its title. Evans is humane, intelligent, insightful, and realistic. This book continues to enrich me each time I re-read it.

A staggeringly good book.Easily the best analysis of the change process in education that I've read-and I've 'force-read' a few. Evans' adopts a holistic approach concentrating on why real innovation is so difficult to achieve successfully. However,there is much sage advice and many cogent observations that are enormously thought-provoking. Although ostensibly about change it is also a marvellous examination of leadership,how educational institutions function and how public policy should be implemented.This is an excellent book in every respect.

One of the better books on project management, the focus is not so much on specific best practices for project managers to implement on their own within their teams, but how upper management can create an environment that is conducive to project success. This book is exceptionally good at helping to understand how management causes organizational perversity - mucking things up by applying departmental best practices that are totally inappropriate and bad practices for project teams. Great insights into how this happens without upper managers being aware they are doing the opposite of what they intend. Could be used by a Project Office to convince upper management that they might be the main problem that keeps other best practices from being effective. It also highlights those areas where you can get the most leverage, most out of your efforts to get an organization to improve its overall project management effectiveness.

Amazing how a book written in 1997 seems like it was written for current times.

As a project management consultant, I get asked alot 'how do I implement PM into my company'. There is no one cookie-cutter approach to this since every company is different. There is also no one book out there that adequately covers this subject. This book is the closest thing that there is. If you are looking for a good coverage of the things that you need to be aware of in implementing PM into your company, this book is a good start. It is also well suited for executives looking to implement PM into a company who are curious what PM involves - since a major problem in implementing PM into a company quite often involves executives who are unaware or unconcerned what their responsibilites are for PM. All in all, a useful book that I have used extensively for clients.

If you want to understand the underpinnings of what makes projects work or not ... this book is a "must read".

It is full of the kind of plain yet profound logic that my grandmother used to pass on to me when I was child. It just made so much practical sense ... .

The book tells us about what happened to John F Kennedy during World War two, how the Japanese sank his boat, so how he became a hero. There is a short biography( 1917-1940) too, with cute photos. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. I suggest it to all Jack Kennedy fans or not.

Dr. Ballard lives in Lyme Connecticut, 10 miles from where I live. I saw this book in a local bookstore window this weekend, and realized that he was coming to town in 4 days to speak on the subject. Being a history buff, and certainly a Kennedy history buff, I bought the book (locally, so that he would sign it for free!), and read it last night. It's a short read, with only one or two chapters covering the actual exploration for the PT-109. The rest of the book contains Kennedy family history dating back to the Kennedy's in Boston from 1850. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. There was also nice information on the crash that proves that the Hollywood movie on PT-109 took some liberties concerning his rescue of marines on a beach ... go figure ... Hollywood taking liberties...

The bottom line ... I believe Ballard has found the PT boat ... even though he couldn't quite prove it ... The fact a future president's boat was lost in this region has left a closeness with the locals towards the United States ... and the two local's that discovered Kennedy and his crew are still alive and still very much influenced by their part in history. This will be Ballard's last modern historical ship find ... after this he will move on to work on the Black Sea project ... I'm glad he found John Kennedy's boat before he moved on. Read the book

Dr. Ballard lives in Lyme Connecticut, 10 miles from where I live. I saw this book in a local bookstore window this weekend, and realized that he was coming to town in 4 days to speak on the subject. Being a history buff, and certainly a Kennedy history buff, I bought the book (locally, so that he would sign it for free!), and read it last night. It's a short read, with only one or two chapters covering the actual exploration for the PT-109. The rest of the book contains Kennedy family history dating back to the Kennedy's in Boston from 1850. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. There was also nice information on the crash that proves that the Hollywood movie on PT-109 took some liberties concerning his rescue of marines on a beach ... go figure ... Hollywood taking liberties...

The bottom line ... I believe Ballard has found the PT boat ... even though he couldn't quite prove it ... The fact a future president's boat was lost in this region has left a closeness with the locals towards the United States ... and the two local's that discovered Kennedy and his crew are still alive and still very much influenced by their part in history. This will be Ballard's last modern historical ship find ... after this he will move on to work on the Black Sea project ... I'm glad he found John Kennedy's boat before he moved on. Read the book.

A pretty good first effort, Mr. Walker! I really liked Hector, and I would like to see him again in some future project. I'd love to know the derivation/significance of his nickname "Cheetah" and the circumstances of the tattoo.

I thought Baron and Hector were well-drawn characters, the women and incidental characters less so. I thought the ending was great - very exciting! I think it hooked the reader from the start, and it kept my interest to the end - I really wanted to know what was going to happen, and the characters were sufficiently developed for me to care what happened to them.

I could do without a steady stream of physically perfect female specimens, but I recognize that they are an integral part of male fantasy-land. A little gratuitous sex sells books, and this wasn't obnoxiously gratuitous.

Negatives: I think Walker needs to work on dialogue. He sets all the various scenes very well, so I always had a very detailed mental image of the physical location - the café, Regina's castle, etc. But dialogue sounded cliched and trite from some of the characters, some of the time, and it was jarring, because it didn't match the quality of everything else. Not from Hector or Baron so much, but from the other characters, as I mentioned above.

But over all, I enjoyed it enough that I am purchasing two more books to give away as Christmas presents!

Excellent first novel! This is a slam-dunk for those who are looking for a change from the normal Clancy-esque 500-page paperweights. Hector (code name "Cheetah") is a spy who comes closer to the real thing than your normal "Ops-" type hero. Story line is absolutely refreshing, compact and reminds me of the original short thrillers of the '50s and '60s by authors such as Fleming, MacLean and Le Carre.

Walker creates interesting and volatile twists in the plot to keep you turning pages, and then neatly pieces it all together in an ending you won't forget. His fight-to-the-death scene is one of the best I've ever read, where you see and feel the pain, the cold, the adrenaline. Throw in the crisp descriptions of European scenery and background and characters who help fire up the plot and you have a marvelous book in your hands that you absolutely can't put down.

What a good read! I thoroughly enjoyed this book. ROGUE gripped me with the first sentence. I love the way the setting is as integral as the characters.The characters are real. They produce sympathy and ire. Even the dog is real! The surprising and intricate twists and turns of the plot kept my attention from start to finish. The description of jungle and urban scenes in Texas, Yucatan and Europe put me right where the events took place and gave me the feeling of being an eyewitness. More! More! More!

"Typically a top management team goes off for three days," writes the author Quinn. "They hole up in a room with lots of flip charts and go to work." Then he says that when they're through they typically write words on small cards and pass them out to employees. Sadly, he observes these cards are "ignored and things go on as before." The premise underlying this book is that Quinn would have us care enough to change this way of thinking. The key, he says, is to stop doing things out of self-interest and start identifying and going after the shared goals of the group. He does a nice job of working good examples into his text. He also points out how risky it is to be a true leader since it involves overcoming a fear of failure when trying something new. He also does a nice job of making clear that hierarchy in itself is not a bad thing; it's only bad when they're perceived as mechanisms that result in getting nothing done. "Hierarchies become frozen bureaucracies due to the failure of human courage." He makes a compelling case for why it's crucial to skip the hollow words and dare to lead toward change. Only then can organizations hope for real change.

Hopefully, you have already read some (if not all) of Quinn's earlier books, especially Deep Change which serves as an excellent introduction to this one. In the Preface, he explains that this book "is about changing the world. It is about coming to a deep understanding of human beings and human relationships." He then adds, "The book focuses on vision, unconditional confidence, and profound impact. It is about the mastery of human influence, transformational power, and the capacity to accomplish extraordinary things. It argues that everyone of us is a change agent." It is important to add, that Quinn advocates "deep change" as opposed to "incremental change." Moreover, no organization can achieve deep change unless and until those within that organization achieve deep change. So as I understand it, each of us must assume full authority as well as responsibility for (and have control of) our personal development. "There is a language of transformation. Yet most of us are cut off from that language. All our lives we have been explicitly taught to see human influence as an exercise in domination." Even the most sensitive among us is shaped by this paradigm or worldview. But this outlook prevents us from seeing more deeply into the actual workings of human systems. This book demonstrates an alternative system."

Quinn recalls the remark by Oliver Wendell Holmes that he placed little value in simplicity that lay on this side of complexity but a great deal of value on simplicity that lay on the other side. The framework within which Quinn presents his material comes from the "seed thoughts" of people who have mastered "the language of transformation." By "seed thoughts" Quinn means some of the "core notions that masters of transformation hold in common, the simplicity they send us from the other side of complexity." Specifically, Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quinn focuses on eight (8) "seed thoughts" (eg Envision the Productive Community, First Look Within, Embrace the Hypocritical Self), providing brief quotations from each of the three "masters of transformation" which he correlates with each of the eight "seed thoughts." His objective is to explain how Advanced Change Theory (ACT) can enable individuals to achieve deep change in their own lives and then within their organizations. The title of this book (Change the World) may be somewhat misleading. I wholeheartedly agree with Quinn that "ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary results", both individually and as members of a group. I also agree that Jesus, Gandhi, and King were "masters of transformation" within their respective spheres of influence as were Carnegie, Edison, Ford, Morgan, and Rockefeller within their own. Quinn's basic idea is sound. He and I may differ only when defining terms such as "change" and "world."

I urge you to read this book, to consider very carefully what ACT offers to you (personally) and to your organization, and then to select whatever is most appropriate. Quinn provides an eloquent and convincing argument in support of his concept of deep change; better yet, he suggests all manner of strategies and tactics to achieve and sustain it; even better yet, almost anyone who reads this book already has the resources required. If you need help to organize and allocate those resources, and truly powerful encouragement to support your efforts in process, look no further.

Most books on change posit the concept that the leader has to change herself or himself before the organization or community can improve. This book sets a high standard by encouraging ordinary people to follow the examples of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I heard Norman Schwartzkopf speak once about leadership. He said, "Be the leader you would like to have." That's the essence of this book.

Each principle is established by showing a quote from each of the three models, and then is followed by stories of ordinary people as well as those in major organizations.

The principles expressed here entail going several psychological levels lower into the human psyche than I have seen in other leadership books.

"Envision the productive community" is important as a first step, because chances are no one else sees the way that the people could cooperate to create much more. Human beings have trouble imagining what they have not yet seen, so those who are good at this can provide very valuable guidance to the others.

"First look within" is a good second step because it concentrates oneself on why one wants to change. It is very easy to want the change for the wrong reasons (pride, self-esteem, or misdirected ego). You have to purge that and focus on selfless reasons for changing.

"Embrace the hypocritical self" was very impressive to me as a concept. Almost every leader I know is actually partly driven by hypocritical motives. Even the Stephen Covey books show examples where he seems to have been operating hypocritically. I sense this issue in many of my consulting projects, and find that it is difficult for people to address this.

"Transcend fear" is good advice, too, because trying to make such large changes will undoubtedly encourage unusual levels of fear. Working through the fear is good for the leader and those who will benefit from the change.

"Embody a vision of the common good" is essential inspiration to carry the vision forward both internally and by drawing support from others.

"Disrupt the system" is based on complexity science. By creating disruption, you create the largest potential for self-organizing solutions to be generated.

"Surrender to the emergent process" is a follow-on application of complexity science. You have to trust what is working, because it will lead to other self-organizing improvements. Trying to "manage" this process at this change will simply shortchange its potential.

"Entice through moral power" is something that needs to permeate each of the earlier stages. There is a compelling quality to moral power that draws attention and commands respect and action. Here, the leader must be clearly acting from beyond self-interest to attract the collective support of those who respect the same moral tenets.

I found this combination to be a unique synthesis of how change leadership can be accomplished. I can recognize the model from cases I have seen that worked and missing elements from the model in cases that did not work. I think the author has made an important step forward with this thinking. My only quibble is that the ordinary person reading this book may still have a conflict between the original reasons for seeking a change and the realities of how to pursue such a change. Almost everyone is attracted to making a difference initially because of a desire for self-aggrandizement. Early in the process, people may not be able to abandon that ego-based need for a selfless one. I suspect that more help is needed in this area than the book provides.

Overcome your disbelief and misconception stalls about making beneficial changes!

A good book to keep in your collection, read and absorb the messages transmitted about the everyday life, and how to approach it and face it with all its varieties...

Easy to follow in the different chapters, and it actually gives us many new insights about a different culture and belief. The Shambhala is a complete method of living by itself with many followers in the far East, and expanding all over the world.

One book that will help for sure get you more organized, focused, and look at things a little differently.

Shambhala: The Sacred path of the Warrior is a book I read on whimsy. I read this book originally because of the relationship Trungpa had with Allen Ginsberg. I was curious so I picked up a copy of this book. It was enlightening because this is the real deal unlike a lot of the half baked Zen Buddhism invoked by many beatnik types. One need not drop acid to gain wisdom here. If you want the hokey, trippie hippie Buddhism, forget this book. Trungpa is writing of an ancient code of warriorship. It is an inward, spiritual journey drawn from the Tibetan warrior culture. One who reads this and learns the lessons it teaches will be assisted in overcoming self doubt and negativity. This is not a book of violence. It is really a guide towards overcoming violence. It is about learning mastery over oneself. I was inspired to be better after reading this book. It made me believe in the possibility of transcendence. That is saying something, too. It is a very motivational book.

"The Shambhala teachings are founded on the premise that there is basic human wisdom that can help to solve the world's problems. This wisdom does not belong to any one culture or religion, nor does it come only from the West or the East. Rather, it is a tradition of human warriorship that has existed in many cultures at many times throughout history". - Chogyam Trungpa

The book looks at the principles of warriorship, and this is non-aggressive, no swords and daggers here.

I read this book and it was like having spent my whole life walking from place to place. Then one day being given a bicycle to travel around. And one night, whilst asleep, dreaming of the awesome speed I was now able to travel at, someone sneaks into my garage and fits a turbo charged, jet powered, rocket engine.

I would recommend this book to anyone, and have been doing, if you are reading this now then your search is complete, there is no need to go any further. Put it in your shopping basket and get ready for the rollercoaster ride of your life.

When my engagement was broken the first thing I did was shop for books to make me feel better - there was nothing!

I have read this book cover to cover and it is extremely well written, comforting, and humorous at the same time. The stories of the Almost Brides are so helpful to someone going through this - it helps to know you aren't alone.

Truly an amazing book!! I recommend that anyone who has gone through a break-up, divorce or broken engagment read this book! It is extremely responsible in it's attention to detail and the many stages of trauma one goes through in a situation like this. Rachel also gives many examples of what other almost-brides wrote in their surveys to her and it is so helpful to hear such a varied opinion of others' experiences. Please, if you are going through any type of break-up or relationship trauma - READ THIS BOOK!

...that this subject, long overdue, was put in writing. An invaluable book loaded with laughs, tears and numerous resources. As an *Almost Bride* I found this book comforting at a time when I searched the aisles of countless bookstores for anything remotely related to this unique topic. Rachel Safier covers a range of topics from cold feet to what to do with the wedding gown and ultimately how to begin healing in what is truely a unique process in and of itself. The contributions from real life *Almost Brides* enhance the book's down to earth, real-world look at this journey. I highly recommend it! ..and equally as valuable for any *Almost Grooms*.