Book Description
Robert Greene's groundbreaking guides, The 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction, espouse profound, timeless lessons from the events of history to help readers vanquish an enemy or ensnare an unsuspecting victim. Now, with The 33 Strategies of War, Greene has crafted an important new addition to this ruthless and unique series.
Spanning world civilizations, synthesizing dozens of political, philosophical, and religious texts and thousands of years of violent conflict, The 33 Strategies of War is a comprehensive guide to the subtle social game of everyday life informed by the most ingenious and effective military principles in war. Structured in Greene's trademark style, The 33 Strategies of War is the I-Ching of conflict, the contemporary companion to Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Abundantly illustrated with examples from history, including the folly and genius of everyone from Napoleon to Margaret Thatcher, Shaka the Zulu to Lord Nelson, Hannibal to Ulysses S. Grant, as well as movie moguls, Samurai swordsmen, and diplomats, each of the thirty-three chapters outlines a strategy that will help you win life's wars. Learn the offensive strategies that require you to maintain the initiative and negotiate from a position of strength, or the defensive strategies designed to help you respond to dangerous situations and avoid unwinnable wars. The great warriors of battlefields and drawing rooms alike demonstrate prudence, agility, balance, and calm, and a keen understanding that the rational, resourceful, and intuitive always defeat the panicked, the uncreative, and the stupid. An indispensable book, The 33 Strategies of War provides all the psychological ammunition you need to overcome patterns of failure and forever gain the upper hand.
Customer Reviews:
It's a great read, but put it in context........2007-09-21
Being a lover of history I think this is a great read. I enjoyed Greene's 48 Laws of power mainly because of all the historical examples he used. This one was no different in that regard.
However, I would caution anyone who considers this some kind of manual for competition and conflict. When reading some of the illustrations I often got the feeling the people involved were more lucky than calculated.
Also, there are so many things that can not be controlled by one person. It would be foolish to think a person could refer to this book and get detailed direction on what to do in a situation. First off, the person would have to correctly diagnose their situation and know which `law' to apply. Knowing which 'law' to apply in a given situation is not automatic.
For me, it is a great read that provides some mental stimulation. If you love history like I do then check this out. If you are looking for some kind of blueprint to wage 'war' on others you probably have already lost and do not know it.
Another tour through history.......2007-09-17
I loved 48 laws of power ( after I got past the shock of reading a truly amoral book. 33 Strategies isn't quite as good. I have been trying to think about why and my guess is that Robert Green is just not a top military strategist and when he keeps saying you must this and you must that, my intuition is just sharp enough to have a bit of doubt.
The short history clips are great, I enjoyed them just as much as I did in 48 laws. By the time I got to chapter 18 ( about 2/3 of the way through the book), they were really all I was reading.
Completes the series nicely.......2007-08-13
When purchased with "The 48 Laws of Power" and "The Art of Seduction", this book completes the series so nicely that one could go from a passive personality to a dominate one (or at least someone who can easily read people) in very little time.
The emphasis of this book is on mind games and what to expect from people whenever you feel vexed by their actions. It also shows how to test people to better understand their true nature and from there how to guide them into whatever direction you wish for them to go. There is even a chapter on friendship and how it applies to the workplace; for example, even the most verbally supportive friend can harbor jealousy that will show itself in very hard to notice ways. Recognizing this early on will keep you safer from being let down when you happen to find yourself needing someone. It shows how it is better to depend on someone you are not friends with rather than turning to the people you trust... (it was odd at first, but not that I have the hang of it, I have increased my productivity ten-fold at work and even received a promotion that I was not being considered for til after I read this book)...
Like the other two books, this one will have parts that are simply too evil for most people to pull off let alone attempt. I reserve these tactics for vengence or keep them in mind for when I encounter someone who does not have my reservations when dealing with others and has the type of personality to deliver these tactics without conscience (I can either avoid them completely no matter how close we have to work together or turn their own game around on them)..
When considering office politics, government politics, or just life in general, this book (along with the other 2) is what you need to get you ahead.
Tactful.......2007-07-18
This book is very descriptive in it's insightful grasp of conduct and how to stategize in winning and getting ahead. This book is Awesome!
The best book ever.......2007-07-08
This book teaches you how to handle anything in life. Its a book you should read go back and consult very often.
Book Description
In yet another page-turner, New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed management expert Patrick Lencioni addresses the costly and maddening issue of silos, the barriers that create organizational politics. Silos devastate organizations, kill productivity, push good people out the door, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate goals.
As with his other books, Lencioni writes Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars as a fictional—but eerily realistic—story. The story is about Jude Cousins, an eager young management consultant struggling to launch his practice by solving one of the more universal and frustrating problems faced by his clients. Through trial and error, he develops a simple yet ground-breaking approach for helping them transform confusion and infighting into clarity and alignment.
Download Description
In yet another page-turner, New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed management expert Patrick Lencioni addresses the costly and maddening issue of silos, the barriers that create organizational politics. Silos devastate organizations, kill productivity, push good people out the door, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate goals. As with his other books, Lencioni writes Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars as a fictional but eerily realistic story. The story is about Jude Cousins, an eager young management consultant struggling to launch his practice by solving one of the more universal and frustrating problems faced by his clients. Through trial and error, he develops a simple yet ground-breaking approach for helping them transform confusion and infighting into clarity and alignment.
Customer Reviews:
Silos,Poltics and Truf wars.......2007-10-05
Not your average Business book... Put in a story form so the reader is not bored with dry material... You need to look close to get the learning facts... A very good book would recomment to anyone with deparment disagrements...
The value of having a common definition of Performance.......2007-08-22
A short, well written, story about a most common business problem - lack of or differing definitions of performance by the senior leadership team. Using a common complaint heard within most businesses - the performance damage done by "silos" between departments, divisions, units, or whatever you call any internal enterprise - Author and consultant Patrick Lencioni again uses the popular business narrative format to show how the lack of a common definition of performance within the leadership team (even when they like each other and want to be a strong leadership team) will cause the organization to be pulled apart and under perform. He then goes on to solve the problem by getting the team to agree a singular, near-term problem they need to solve (thematic goal) and are willing to unit behind.
Although one can question if this condition can be solved in a two-hour meeting, as the hero of the story does; Lencioni's solution components - the thematic goal, a set of defining objectives, a set of ongoing standard operating objectives, and subsequent metrics - is a concept with practical merit. As with most business narratives, the single theme skips over the many other real-life business issues, making the solution seem more powerful and easier to implement than business reality often allows. The story does, however, identify a very real problem of leadership team members each defining performance from their individual perspectives and provides the beginning of the solution. The book is recommended for leadership teams.
Another Lencioni classic.......2007-08-14
Lencioni has written a very good fable that depicts the typical "silos" or turf wars that take place in any organization. Using several different case scenarios, Lencioni does a great job in describing the subtleties of turf wars and places the blame square at the top of the organization. (The ground troops are simply doing their jobs as described for them by their bosses.)
The answer to the turf war, according to Lencioni, is a thematic goal. This is not to be confuse with a vision statement or a BHAG (big fat hairy goal), as Porras and Collins describe. But it is more than strategic goals and objectives. I must admit, this was a new concept for me and I'm not quite sure of the concept even after reading Lencioni's concept.
Lencioni clearly states that a thematic goal does not exclude the need to develop a good, functioning executive team (cf. Dysfunctions of Teams). Indeed, good executive teams are a priority for Lencioni. But contends that even well functioning teams with good personal relationships will sometimes have organizational/structural weaknesses that allow "silos" or turf wars to develop.
Overall, Lencioni has written a very readable book that clearly describes the problem of politics among divisions in an organization. But the concept of a "thematic goal" (as opposed to organizational vision) is still a bit vague to me -- but it is clearly not to be dismissed.
Silos, Politics and Turf Wars.......2007-07-23
This book was reader friendly, very easy to navigate, and it was interesting and informative.I have used it as an educational tool.
Quick Read, Great Message.......2007-07-22
Told as a "story", this book has tremendous lessons for any company dealing with Silos in their organization
Amazon.com
Daniel Yergin's first prize-winning book, Shattered Peace, was a history of the Cold War. Afterwards the young academic star joined the energy project of the Harvard Business School and wrote the best-seller Energy Future. Following on from there,
The Prize, winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a comprehensive history of one of the commodities that powers the world--oil. Founded in the 19th century, the oil industry began producing kerosene for lamps and progressed to gasoline. Huge personal fortunes arose from it, and whole nations sprung out of the power politics of the oil wells. Yergin's fascinating account sweeps from early robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, to the oil crisis of the 1970s, through to the Gulf War.
Book Description
Pulitzer Prize Winner -- and Now an Epic PBS Series
The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations. The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.
The cast extends from wildcatters and rogues to oil tycoons, and from Winston Churchill and Ibn Saud to George Bush and Saddam Hussein. The definitive work on the subject of oil and a major contribution to understanding our century, The Prize is a book of extraordinary breadth, riveting excitement -- and great importance.
Customer Reviews:
First to cover the topic, but still a facile book.......2007-09-17
Yergen gets kudos for being the first to cover this topic, but his account (perhaps because it's now outdated) is facile and pro-oil company. Every time the oil companies are thwarted he seems to blame straw men for it: tree huggers, the people that hounded poor misunderstood Tricky Dick Nixon, the Saudi sheiks (best friends of Bush, Cheney, et al). He never turns his gaze on the corruption of the oil companies themselves. We hit peak oil in the U.S. in the 1960s. The oil companies suppressed any attempts since then to find alternative fuels. Now we are up the creek, so to speak, with the Oil Men running the Show. Some "Prize". I'd say it's the booby prize. The best overview of our current fix is Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower.
The Age of Oil.......2007-07-04
We are living in the Age of oil.
World and human civilization have experienced different "ages" such as the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Gilded Age, and so on. The 20th and 21st Centuries are indeed, the "Oil Age." We are living in it. This book is one of the most informative and relevant books published in recent years, In my opinion. This work by Daniel Yergin was and still is prescient today, in 2007. "The Prize" tells the story of where we are today, and how we got here. It also latently foresees where we're going in the future. The book doesn't tell us - we just know. We're human. This book is so comprehensive and has so much information only a small portion of it can be noted. Below relates to WWII, and former Iranian leader Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh.
"The Prize" proceeds chronologically. And within the chapters there are numerous mini-subtitles for sub-chapters that connect the big picture. The bibliography and index are excellent and can be used to tie in different figures and historical occurrences. The 'history of oil' is actually the history of the world: humankind, business, innovations, globalization, war, and geo-political power-plays. The very survival of a nation-state is based upon oil.
"The Prize" begins with tiny puddles of black, sticky, goo, in Pennsylvania in the mid 1800s. Locals collected this goo and realized its many uses. In 1859 oil was struck. Almost immediately, the wealth and power amassed from possession and control of oil was realized. The initial trust acts in the U.S. are related to the oil industry, in which Barons quickly gained gargantuan amounts of wealth and political power.
Enter WWII:
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because of oil. Japanese conquests throughout South-East Asia and the Pacific were motivated not only by the quest for dominance but for securing oil and keeping their oil (fuel) supply lines open. Without supply lines of oil, the war machine would completely break down, as it later did (Chapter 8).
The Americans sacrificed a lot, but Japan in large part lost WWII because of its lack of fuel for planes, ships, and ground forces. Domestically, the Japanese economy collapsed because of its inability to import oil. The Kamikazes were brought into existence after the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines, in 1944. Lack of oil meant lack of fighter plane fuel. Fuel supplies became so low they actually stopped training Japanese pilots at all. Pilots were ordered to "follow the leader" to the attack site because they didn't even have navigation training.
There was even an "Oil Czar" In the U.S. during World War II in PAW, the Petroleum Administration for War. The Oil Czar was Harold Ickes.
In the European Theater's Eastern Front Germany invaded Russia with Operation Barbarossa mostly to get the oil in the Caucuses (In addition to "lebensraum" and "untermensch" beliefs). In addition, a needed land-route to Iron Ore in Scandinavia via the Baltic SSR Republics was a factor. Hitler also began making synthetic oil because without enough of it Germany's war machine, domestic economy, and arms production were doomed. These synthetic oil factories were top targets in Allied bombing missions.
Oil and the Cold War World:
The Soviets dominated Eastern Europe and exerted its influence after WWII for 45 years because the Allies ran out of gasoline. When the British 3rd Army and U.S. 1st Army were advancing eastward toward Berlin chasing demoralized, retreating, and broken German troops in disarray. But because of the lack of gasoline for the Allied Armies, a million people ended up losing their lives and war was prolonged because the Germans were able to retreat and re-organize (page 388).
If someone says "it's not about the oil" today in 2007, tell them to read this book. Oil encompasses almost all things in our daily lives, whether we are are conscious of it, or not.
Oil, Military, and Economic Interests:
Democratically elected governments are overthrown by foreign governments because of oil. In 1953 Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was democratically elected in Iran. He was an anti-communist. He didn't like the 93% to 7% profit sharing split with a British Oil company operating inside Iran. He changed it to 50-50. The CIA sponsored a coup to overthrow him. Americans were repeatedly told by the U.S. media that Mossadegh was a communist and communist sympathizer, although factually untrue. The American public believed this propaganda, according to poll results. Gullible? Mossadegh was ousted and the Shah was placed in power. Democracy has never been supported in the Middle East and it isn't now by the U.S. government. Also see the Carter Doctrine of 1980.
Most of us as individual consumers literally need oil to function. Dependence upon oil is for the continuation of the nation-state, its military machines, and domestic economy. More critical today, is that nation-states need a *sufficient* supply of it.
This is a positive book. It's a history book.
We're in the heart of the "Oil Age."
Amaze.......2007-06-19
This book is the better form to say what means the oil in the world. The history is well clear end real. There are many important information and who is curious or needs to know the subject this is a perfect one.
It's interesting to know the past to forecast the future..........2007-06-14
I really appreciated Daniel YERGIN's book.
The history of oil is crucial to try to solve the huge demand for future oil. History tells us that oil is limitless in virgin deserts...
The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power.......2007-06-12
Excellent, well chronicled book showing the inside of the oil world history. Amazon shipment was a slick execution which makes the book more valuable..This book is a must-have for oil and gas pros.
Book Description
In this groundbreaking new history, Adam Tooze provides the clearest picture to date of the Nazi war machine and its undoing. There was no aspect of Nazi power untouched by economics—it was Hitler's obsession and the reason the Nazis came to power in the first place. The Second World War was fought, in Hitler's view, to create a European empire strong enough to take on the United States. But as The Wages of Destruction makes clear, Hitler's armies were never powerful enough to beat either Britain or the Soviet Union—and Hitler never had a serious plan as to how he might defeat the United States. The Wages of Destruction is an eye-opening and controversial account that will challenge conventional interpretations of the period and will find an enthusiastic readership among fans of Ian Kershaw and Richard Evans. BACKCOVER:
Advance praise for The Wages of Destruction:
“One of the most important and original books to be published about the Third Reich in the past twenty years. A tour de force.”
—Niall Ferguson, author of Colossus
“Unputdownable epic history . . . Transforms not only our reading of Hitler's sordid regime, but the history of the twentieth century itself. Brilliantly written, its original scholarship is telling and lightly borne on every page.”
—John Cornwell, author of Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
Customer Reviews:
An enlightening analysis of economic factors behind the Third Reich.......2007-10-08
Tooze does occasionally mention in passing how companies or individuals benefited from fueling the Third Reich's war effort, but his real topics are far broader and more interesting: showing how economic factors drove Hitler's war goals and timing and how the continual feedback between industrial needs and war goals drove war strategy.
Tooze starts by describing the impossible quandary which faced Germany in the late 1920's. Germany was not self sufficient in either food or raw materials and needed to be able to export in order to finance essential imports. Germany also needed to be able to sell its exports in order to obtain hard currency to pay the reparation demands from the World War I victors. Despite these difficulties the German finance ministry was managing to navigate Germany through a slow and painful recovery from WWI. Then disaster struck with the Great Depression. First there was an inevitable shrinking in export markets and then, much more seriously, there were conscious protectionist decisions in America, Britain, and France to block German exports in order to protect home employment.
Before reading The Wages of Destruction, I had loosely understood how the Great Depression had been a key factor in Hitler's rise to power, especially due to widespread unemployment. But Tooze clarifies that Germany was facing a much deeper strategic dilemma than a simple economic depression. Germany was dependent on the goodwill of other powers for its export markets and for its essential food and material imports, but those powers were demonstrating that in a crisis they would look entirely to their own interests and would quite cheerfully close their markets and let Germany suffer. Given this behavior, the long-term economic and political future for Germany looked extremely grim. Hitler offered a radical solution to this problem: Germany needed to expand to the East and become self sufficient in resources in the same way as the British Empire or America. Given the depth of Germany's problem, it becomes easier to understand why many thinking Germans either enthusiastically or reluctantly accepted Hitler's solution.
In succeeding chapters, Tooze describes how Hitler rapidly switched the Germany economy to focus on rearmament. He argues that while the Nazi propaganda machine emphasized efforts to increase employment and on visionary projects such as the autobahn system, this was really mere window dressing and the regime was massively focused on military preparations for war. More interestingly, he also highlights how the continual shortages of hard currency (and thus of key materials) continually constrained and shaped rearmament. By 1938 lack of currency and other economic constraints were limiting further military expansion. Hitler was thus faced with a situation where Germany could see its own military abilities peaking and simultaneously see other powers starting to accelerate their own rearmament, weakening Germany's relative advantage. Hitler being Hitler, this drove an impatience for war, while Germany had its best relative position. As the war progresses, Tooze revisits this theme from several angles. Hitler was continually faced with situations where his enemy military expansion would quickly eclipse Germany's and he reacted by trying to knock particular opponents out of the war quickly.
Tooze's major focus is on the operations and outputs of the German wartime economy. Overall, he shows us an economy that was reasonably well run and efficient but where production was dominated by shortages of key resources, especially steel and skilled manpower. By making high-level decisions about reallocations of these resources the Reich leadership could cause major leaps (or declines) in production in target sectors such as aircraft or tanks or munitions. Typically these resources shifts would take about six months to work through the system. The lucky Nazi bureaucrat who happened to be in charge of a target sector at the end of the six months would then happily boast of his productivity miracle as his sector suddenly produced startling jumps in output.
Tooze does not shy away from describing and condemning the many darker issues involved in the Third Reich's war economy. A major aim of the expansion to the East was to improve Germany's food supplies. But that land was already inhabited and the food was already being consumed. So the Nazi solution was the "Hunger Plan" which quite casually assumed that food would be diverted from Poland and the Western USSR to Germany and many millions would be deliberately starved. Tooze argues that this appalling plan was widely circulated, understood and accepted among the German political and military leadership in 1941. Thankfully, it proved difficult to execute and while there was widespread suffering, the East avoided the systematic mass deaths called for in the plan. However, in subsequent years the same desire to remove what were seen as "useless mouths" and free up food supplies was one of the many input factors towards the holocaust. In parallel, Germany manpower shortages led to large drafts of forced labor from occupied countries to German factories. Tooze illustrates both the appalling conditions of the laborers and the folly of a regime that for ideological reasons oppressed and starved the very labor it was trying to exploit.
Overall, I found this book a very enlightening read. Tooze's thorough analysis of the details of exports, imports, production levels, etc provides a convincing base for his explanation of how the constraints and limits of the German economy drove high level German economic and military planning.
A PROFOUND AND FAR-REACHING STUDY.......2007-09-17
I certainly agree with other reviewers who give "Wages of Destruction" highest praise. The only wonder is why it took so long to get the story out. We've been reading histories of the war for more than sixty years, and yet I cannot recall reading anything that lays out the economic choices and consequences as well as Adam Tooze has done here. My only criticisms in this regard would be that Tooze tends to look through a lens of economic determinism, as though weight of resources would inevitably result in Germany's defeat, no matter who was in charge. What Tooze does not delineate with any degree of specificity is Hitler's confidence in the risk aversiveness, if not downright cowardice, of the Western democracies. That was certainly the case with France, which went to war profoundly divided, and whose failure of leadership echos to this day. Great Britain under Nevelle Chamberlain was hardly better. As late as May, 1940, members of the Cabinet were still debating whether to try to cut a deal with Hitler. As for the Soviet Union, the idea that Germany could defeat the Red Army in the field and expect to hold onto captured territory was wishful thinking at its worst; even if Moscow had been captured, which Napoleon did in 1812, Hitler had to know that in Stalin he faced a man as ruthless as himself. The idea that he could repeat the German Imperial Army's success against Russia in 1917, and then confront the Western Allies, throws all rational calculation to the wind. The only other comment I would make about Wages of Destruction would be that Tooze tends to summarize the events between the Summer of 1943 and May, 1945, as though that 18 month period simply followed on what had been in the pipeline before.
Profound Analysis of Nazi Germany's Economic Situation.......2007-09-11
Recently, there has been a spate of excellent books arguing that Germany was a much weaker state than it has generally been thought to be, and that the tactical brilliance of its military obscured economic inadequacies and strategic incompetence. Isabel Hull's "Absolute Destruction," Ian Kershaw's "Fatal Decisions," and now Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" all make a similar point in their very different ways. They also suggest something very interesting -- that given the insane premises that Germany should be a hegemonic power and that war and conquest were the means to attain that power, Germany's military decisions in World Wars I and II made sense.
Tooze points out in convincing fashion that not only was Germany an economic basket case compared to the United States (capable of produing perhaps 1,000 warplanes at the same time the United States could produce perhaps 50,000), but that even if it were matched against the British Empire alone, its long-run prospects were little better than 50-50.
Tooze goes on to show that after France fell and Britain would not make a separate peace, Hitler faced an economic and strategic dilemma. The United States was not likely to stay out of the war indefinitely; when it inevitably entered the war on the allied side, Germany would be grossly outnumbered and outproduced.
The only possible answer was Russia, either as an ally or as a colony. As an ally, the Soviet Union was unreliable, opportunistic, and probably treacherous. Moreover, Germany would have to bend a great deal to Stalin's wishes to keep the Soviet Union happy. As a prostrate colony, Russia might just provide the material to resist Britain and the United States. So, Tooze suggests, Hitler was not so irrational when he invaded Russia (provided, of course, one does not ask the question "If Hitler faced such a daunting situation even after France was unexpected defeated, how could he ever have figured on winning the war while France was still in the allied camp"?)
If anything, Tooze suggests, Germany got lucky -- it had no business being as successful as it was by June 1941. Even at that, so many things had to go right for Germany to come out of the war in any decent shape that total victory was an impossibility. Could he successfully invade England? Little or no chance. Could he starve England out? Not with the United States on Engalnd's side. Even if he had conquered Russia where would he be -- Facing the United States across a narrow strait with his army streched from the Bering Sea to the English Channel. This was not a winning hand.
Tooze presents plenty of evidence to show that the Nazis ran a miserable war economy; that it had no idea how to put together a coherent economic or military strategy; that its solutions were ad hoc, duplicative, inefficient, and ultimately monstrous. The famous "German efficiency" takes a terrible hit, at least on the strategic level. In sum, Tooze concludes, absent a complete collapse of allied will, Germany never had a chance. But given the fact that it never had a chance and chose to take one anyway, its seemingly irrational moves made a certain kind of mad sense.
Wages is Scholarly Blut Dull.......2007-07-21
Adam Tooze has made a great contribution to the history of Germany under Nazi party rule, breaking into territory trod by few hisorians. His scholarship is superior. Few have found a way to enliven economic history and Toonze has failed to break that barrier. This along keeps the book from a five star rating.
great book.......2007-07-07
Germany lost the Second World War was because the allies out-produced them. I've known that for a long time -- but until I read The Wages of Destruction I never really understood what that statement meant, and all that it entailed. The Wages of Destruction explains, in gripping, readable detail, how the Nazi war machine worked, how it failed, and how it shaped the strategy and some of the worst crimes of the Third Reich.
So let me add to the chorus of five-star reviews. I consider The Wages of Destruction required reading if you want to understand Nazi Germany, particularly if you have an interest in economics or business. Also, if you have read Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich, you'll be interested in this book for the counterpoint it provides.
Book Description
Prominent CNN host and commentator Lou Dobbs unleashes his manifesto on the vanishing American dream
Through his nightly CNN show, Lou Dobbs Tonight, his syndicated radio program, and his monthly magazine column, Lou Dobbs has become one of America's most visible, popular, and respected voices on business and financial matters. Now, with War on the Middle Class, Dobbs takes an impassioned and rousing stance on the all-out class war that is turning the American dream into a nightmare.
The middle class has never been so vulnerable. Its every feature is under assault by politicians and the lobbyists who court them, big-business corporations that are sending their jobs overseas, and a media that relies on sensationalism instead of facts when reporting the news. In a sweeping analysis, Dobbs looks at every aspect of the decline of the middle class—from a lack of political representation to America's corrupt health-care system—to demonstrate how the gap between America's newest haves and have-nots is no longer merely financial, but instead includes the erosion of education, employment, government, and community. Dobbs proposes a series of measures to resolve each issue and incite people, whose future is being mortgaged to benefit a powerful few, to preserve their rights and dreams. War on the Middle Class is provocative, incendiary, and bound to be widely discussed—the perfect book to establish the terms of debate in this year's midterm elections.
Customer Reviews:
War On The Middle Class.......2007-08-23
Lou Dobbs tells straight forward how our government is misleading the American public, has taken away American jobs and with free trade has created unbalanced trade (with China). Every chapter brings on more disbelief at how our government operates.
Wake up America.......2007-07-13
This is a must read. The more people know about government the sooner they will help us to change it. The working man is getting screwed and Lou exposes are polititions for what they are!!!
Great book with good details.......2007-07-12
This is a book that outlines exactly what everyone already knows which is how the middle class is growing smaller. If you are looking for a book that she is going to try and show both sides, this is not the book. While I really liked the book, I knew what I was bying and already agreed with the idea behind the book. The book just clarified for me how America is working.
LU DUBS.......2007-06-30
Lou Dobbs in a nutshell:
1) Right-wing Conservative Republican
2) Fanatic
3) Idealogue
4) Rabble-Rouser
5) Zealot
6) Racist
7) Demagogue
8) Bigot
9) Polemicist
10) Resenter
I don't say more.
This was a wake-up call for me.......2007-06-25
This book was scarier than any Stephen King novel. I knew that Washington DC was out of touch with everyday citizens, but I was not aware of how deep pockets can make our elected representatives forget who elected them in the first place. Money really does talk, and if you don't have a lot of it, then it is unlikely the US government cares what you have to say. I have been seeing the gap widen between the rich and the poor with my own eyes as I am in the middle class but my brother is a consultant for a high profile firm on the West coast. He gets a lot of tax breaks for investments and gets to stop paying social security taxes after he hits the $90,000 mark every year. I barely have any money to save, much less invest. Read this book, and then check out Lou's show Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN.
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
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History: Fiction or Science? Astronomical methods as applied to chronology. Ptolemy's Almagest. Chronology III
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Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History And Legends, Unearthed And Explored
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Before the Pharaohs: Egypt's Mysterious Prehistory
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They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies
ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Book Description
When The Machine That Changed the World was first published in 1990, Toyota was half the size of General Motors. Today Toyota is passing GM as the world's largest auto maker and is the most consistently successful global enterprise of the past fifty years. This management classic was the first book to reveal Toyota's lean production system that is the basis for its enduring success.
Now reissued with a new Foreword and Afterword, Machine contrasts two fundamentally different business systems -- lean versus mass, two very different ways of thinking about how humans work together to create value. Based on the largest and most thorough study ever undertaken of any industry -- MIT's five-year, fourteen-country International Motor Vehicle Program -- this book describes the entire managerial system of lean production.
Nearly twenty years ago, Womack, Jones, and Roos provided a comprehensive description of the entire lean system. They exhaustively documented its advantages over the mass production model pioneered by General Motors and predicted that lean production would eventually triumph. Indeed, they argued that it would triumph not just in manufacturing but in every value-creating activity from health care to retail to distribution.
Today The Machine That Changed the World provides enduring and essential guidance to managers and leaders in every industry seeking to transform traditional enterprises into exemplars of lean success.
Customer Reviews:
Over rated........2007-07-09
The Machine That Changed the World and the subsequent articles that Mr. Womack has written for the Wall Street Journal almost make him look like a shill for Toyota. This book either omits or minimizes the importance of developments that lead Toyota to the Toyota Production System. I expected a more independent and intellectually honest viewpoint because Mr. Womack passes himself off as a top academic.
Book Description
The American middle class is on its deathbed. People who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. If you’re not a CEO, you’re probably screwed.
As Air America Radio Host Thom Hartmann shows, this death is no accident. Like the Founding Fathers, patriots such as Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower knew that economic opportunity and democracy go hand-in-hand. They believed in maximizing the public good and they worked tirelessly to build the strongest middle class the world has ever seen. But now, under the guise of “freeing the market,” conservative and corporate forces are waging a covert war against the middle class, dismantling policies like Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, and fair labor laws — the very safeguards that foster economic opportunity and citizen engagement. The result is an economic system designed to line the pockets of the super-rich, the impending extinction of the middle class, and a very real, very dangerous threat to democracy itself.
By exposing the systematic efforts to destroy the middle class, Screwed empowers readers to stand up, speak out, and reclaim their democratic birthrights.
Customer Reviews:
SCREWED.......2007-09-23
Thom Hartman should be a college professor teaching history and current politics. Easy to read and makes a lot of sense.
Huge Disappointment, Not Much Substance.......2007-09-19
After struggling to get through this book, I could not help but to ask, "where's the beef?" The book is marketed as a reading that discusses the control of America by the wealthy elite and corporations. However, this is not at all what I read. The author rambles on and on...it's pretty much yada, yada, yada. The analysis (if you can even call it such) is very generic. After learning that the author is apparently some talking head on radio, it now makes sense why the book is full of fluff. Radio personalities have motor mouths and simply do not have any expertise to write a book of this nature. They should save it to the real experts instead of trying to profit from selling their books during radio time. I will be returning this book back to Amazon. Don't waste your time on this book unless you like to read fluff. I gave it 2 stars only because the quality and effort is good. But again, substance is the key in my opinion.
Rethink.......2007-08-24
This book has moved me to re-think numerous ideas I have previously had, and will look at things differently from now on. Thanks Thom Hartman.
Passionate defense of the middle class against corporate power.......2007-07-27
Since the early 1980s, American politics have been meshed with the interests of large corporations. The result is a new form of "corporatocracy," which Thom Hartmann links to the woes of the middle class. He believes that the political Conservatives who pushed for privatization and special corporate tax breaks intentionally harmed the American middle class, which he calls the bedrock of democracy. While the U.S. government has helped corporations and wealthy citizens, it has increasingly taxed the public and killed social programs that fostered the middle class. Hartmann focuses on the U.S.' future, which, he says, depends on having a healthy middle class. He adds a historical perspective by quoting America's founders, who predicted the dangers of creeping corporatism, economic elitism and an incipient aristocracy. Although he is very assertive in his attacks on Conservatives and corporations, his approach is refreshing. We found this impassioned analysis interesting, but - fair warning - you won't like it much if you're a corporate lobbyist or a Bush supporter.
The most Important Punch was Pulled.......2007-07-04
Mr. Hartmann, in this full-bodied critique of the "American way" demonstrates a keen mind, a subtle reading of American history and uncommon passion and patriotic fervor. And although at times his critique has the smell of Marxist reductionism, and utilizes every liberal cliché on the leftist pallet, this is nevertheless an extremely well thought out piece -- a five star effort if ever there was one.
Only one punch has been pulled. It involves the same moral lacunae missed by most other critiques of the American way of life. For instance William Bennett, shamefully and unforgivably, in his several books specifically design to address American morality fails to mention it even once. Roger Wilkins in his fine attempt to square the circle about the deep hypocrisy of the founding Virginia Quartet, in his Jefferson's Pillow, at least tries to grapple with the problem. Even Morris Berman, in a book I like a lot, "Dark Ages: The Final Phase of Empire, failed to mention it as a factor in America's predicted demise.
It has to do with America's foremost political and moral blind spot: The corrosive effect that racism has had on the American psyche, on American morality, on American humanity, and on the way its continuous practice throughout most of American history has given permission over to narcissistic, entitled and self-appointed demagogic leaders to do as they please in refashioning the American mind, its worldview and its institutions to suit their own private needs. The Cheney/Bush administration is just the most recent example of what can happen when this phenomenon goes completely awry.
How is it indeed the case that most Americans, who engage in the long overdue business of introspection and self-analysis invariably fall prey to the same weakness and fail to see that the paradigm for screwing the white American Middle class was long ago fashioned and perfected in the incubator of racism -- one of America's closest held and most important values?
Arguably, the screwing of the (white) Middle class is (as perhaps Malcolm X would have phrased it) just a case of the racist, demagogic, and Fascist chicken coming home to roost. Now that the White Middle class has become America's "new niggers," all of the alarm bells are starting to go off. Only now has the silent majority begun crying that the neo-cons are grinding us into fascism. But the neo-cons are only culling the low hanging fruit available for the pickings in our sublimated but still very much race-sensitive culture.
Even the Constitution has embedded within it a moral compromise on the issue of slavery. A Civil War was fought primarily because the Abolitionist Quakers raised the issue in an effort to save their own moral souls and thus refused to allow it to be swept under the national rug. But when "real equality" did finally break out during the Reconstruction era, the American mind, neither North nor South could handle or embrace it. A century of Apartheid for Blacks was the answer to this dilemma of how to avoid full Constitution-mandated equality. It is this same bankrupt morality that continues to rule the American conscience. Witness the recent Supreme Court Decision effectively reversing the 1954 school integration decision. Curiously, its claims are made on the basis of "not discriminating on the basis of race."
A nation cannot be racist without first being at least proto-Fascist. That is why I believe a more detailed reading of American history would have revealed to the author that this pact with the devil of racism has made us vulnerable to manipulation by all sorts of political "low-lifes." Two of them currently occupy the Executive offices, and our Congress is now full of them as well - all because we elected them.
For god's sake, we went to war against Fascism and Europe's ethnic cleansing of Jews in a fully segregated army. Even the Jews in the U.S. Army saw nothing wrong with this! Many of the Post-WWII GI benefits that the author speaks so glowingly of and that launched the white middle-class, were not available to those of color who fought in the same foxholes that helped rid Europe of its racism and genocide against the Jews. How noble a nation does that make us?
Living side-by-side, year in and year out, for centuries with this kind of hypocrisy has had deep psychic consequences on the collective mind. The most important of which is the diminished humanity that results from the failure to face the issue of race, our greatest and most obvious inner demon. Another is that it makes a mockery out of our lavish claims of being committed democrats (little "d"). As we speak, we are spreading this same brand of democracy, which we never quite learned to practice at home, to Iraq.
It is this "hypocrisy gap" that makes us the laughing stock of the world and that leaves the back door open to manipulation by those self-appointed, entitled, low-life elites who have only their own private economic interests to protect.
They know all too well that if they throw a few racial epithets here and there doing the election cycle, reassuring the middle class that white supremacy is still the foundation of the American way, they gain permission and license to do anything they wish in our name. We all know the game: Every four years they manipulate our minds by giving us with one hand our daily bread of symbolically coded racist tripe; while with the other, and in full view, they rob our nation blind.
How can there be fairness for the white middle class, when the only paradigm of American culture is unfairness operating under the guise of fairness? The politician's job is to know the American mind. And for five centuries now what they know is that Americans cherish the value of racism well above all other values, including the Constitution.
Until we stop drinking from the poison cup of racism, this kind of manipulation will continue along the same dishonest path that our so-called "racial progress" travels. When friends from abroad ask how we could have elected an idiot like George W. Bush to lead the Western world, this is in my view is the only correct answer.
Five Stars.
Average customer rating:
- The War for Talent
- The War For Talent Is About to Begin In Earnest
- A worthwhile read
- Good theory but doesn't work in the real world.
- Good talent also requires good systems
|
The War for Talent
Ed Michaels ,
Helen Handfield-Jones , and
Beth Axelrod
Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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How to Compete in the War for Talent : A Guide to Hiring the Best
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The Talent Management Handbook: Creating Organizational Excellence by Identifying, Developing, and Promoting Your Best People
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Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting & Orienting New Employees (Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting and Orienting New Employees)
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Winning the Talent Wars: How to Build a Lean, Flexible, High-Performance Workplace
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Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People, Revised and Updated Edition
ASIN: 1578514592 |
Amazon.com
Talent, as defined by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod, is shorthand for a key employee who possesses "a sharp strategic mind, leadership ability, communications skills, the ability to attract and inspire people, entrepreneurial instincts, functional skills, and the ability to deliver results." It's also, they contend in The War for Talent, an overarching personnel characteristic that companies of all kinds will require throughout their organizations in order to survive the competitive recruiting era that we appear to be entering. Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod, authors of a 1997 McKinsey Quarterly article that uncovered a definitive connection between top performers and superior corporate achievement, spent the intervening years studying 13,000 executives in 27 companies to identify the programs and behaviors that help today's foremost firms attract and retain the best kinds of employees. The authors outline five common "imperatives" that they found these companies employed to strengthen their talent pools ("Embrace a Talent Mindset," "Craft a Winning Employee Value Proposition," "Rebuild Your Recruiting Strategy," "Weave Development into Your Organization," and "Differentiate and Affirm Your People") and construct a practical framework for making it happen in your company. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
In 1997, a groundbreaking McKinsey study exposed the "war for talent" as a strategic business challenge and a critical driver of corporate performance. Then, when the dot-com bubble burst and the economy cooled, many assumed the war for talent was over. It's not.
Now the authors of the original study reveal that, because of enduring economic and social forces, the war for talent will persist for the next two decades.
McKinsey & Company consultants Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod argue that winning the war for leadership talent is about much more than frenzied recruiting tactics. It's about the timeless principles of attracting, developing, and retaining highly talented managers-applied in bold new ways. And it's about recognizing the strategic importance of human capital because of the enormous value that better talent creates.
Fortified by five years of in-depth research on how companies manage leadership talent-including surveys of 13,000 executives at more than 120 companies and case studies of 27 leading companies-the authors propose a fundamentally new approach to talent management.
They describe how to:
* Create a winning EVP (employee value proposition) that will make your company uniquely attractive to talent
* Move beyond recruiting hype to build a long-term recruiting strategy
* Use job experiences, coaching, and mentoring to cultivate the potential in managers
* Strengthen your talent pool by investing in A players, developing B players, and acting decisively on C players
Central to this approach is a pervasive talent mindset-a deep conviction shared by leaders throughout the company that competitive advantage comes from having better talent at all levels.
Using practical examples from companies such as GE, The Home Depot, PerkinElmer, Amgen, and Enron, the authors outline five imperatives that every leader-from CEO to unit manager-must act on to build a stronger talent pool.
Written by recognized authorities on the topic, this is the definitive strategic guide on how to win the war for talent.
Customer Reviews:
The War for Talent.......2007-07-05
Great book, I recommend it for anyone who is in Human Resource management. It will change the way you think about running your organization.
The War For Talent Is About to Begin In Earnest.......2003-10-23
The War for Talent is a great book for the leaders of an organization to read. Why? They are the ones who can affect the culture of the organization. Most workers, even A Players, do not have the power to drive cultural change.
As a contract recruiter (www.recruiterguy.com), when I go into a company for the first time, I interview the managers and ask them, in their view, "Why would a top performer want to work for this company, in this position, for you?" As the competition for talent begins to gain steam over the next few months, companies who do a better job of addressing the needs of the Gen X'ers will find themselves in the enviable position of attracting the replacements to the Baby Boomers who are retiring or otherwise leaving the workplace. Sure there is still a surplus of workers as a result of the recession. However, companies who do not have a recruitment strategy will soon find themselves spending much more money to attract the best talent.
In The War For Talent, the authors used specific examples of companies who had either a recruiting or attrition problem and then solved it by improving their Employee Value Proposition (EVP). For instance, SunTrust had a problem where they were losing 46% of their branch employees in their Publix supermarket branches in Georgia and 55% of their high performers. The book discusses the steps they took to dramatically lower their attrition rate in a relatively short time.
Unfortunately for the book, it came out just as Enron was spinning into the ground. Therefore, some people have focused more on the Enron EVP and other qualities and possibly not enough on the other companies' qualities. Enron, while it was growing, appealed to a specific group of people who were not afraid to take what now appears to be excessive risks. There are many examples of other companies with other EVP's who have survived and possibly thrived during this recession. They were able to attract and retain the high performers, who generally tend to be more strategic and less tactical than their counterparts.
Just as Brad Smart in his book "Topgrading" focuses on recruiting, developing and mentoring the A Players, the authors of The War For Talent stress the importance of the A players in a company. It is surprising that "The Peter Principle" came out in 1969 and we are still discussing the concept but in different terms.
The War For Talent concepts should be discussed from the boardroom to your hiring managers. Your leaders need to embrace a talent mindset (title of a chapter in the book), develop a winning differentiation for your company, and develop recruiters who have the ability to attract A Players.
Read this book if you want to win "The War For Talent." .........
A worthwhile read.......2003-10-21
Easy reading, entertaining, interesting and informative. Light on details but a very good general overview of the topic.
Conceptually excellent. The value is in how you implement the recommendations - which is where you will find this book wanting.
If you get nothing else out of this book, the quote from Dee Hock (founder of Visa) will make it worth buying:
"Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second motivation; third capacity; fourth understanding; fifth knowledge; and last and least, experience.
Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind."
Good theory but doesn't work in the real world........2003-05-08
This book is a good theory and in an ideal world it would all work out that way: the highly talented and highly skilled would get the promotions, good jobs, and plum assisgnments. But unfortunately, more often than not, the pie isn't divided so nicely. There are often other reasons, not work/talent related, that a person gets a promotion or a job. The classic example is the boss' son getting handed a top job in a company, which still happens today. I've also seen too many people get handed promotions who are not A) qualified or B) not college degree, they just happen to know the right people. Also how do you fit Affirmative Action into the equation? AA is not based upon talents, only gender & race. Personally I wish more management would read this book and use the basic idea but it probably won't happen. Companies keep talking about "needing good talent" but they don't walk the walk.
Good talent also requires good systems.......2003-02-25
Based on quantitative surveys, this study identifies that few US companies are good at recruiting, retaining and developing talented people and that excellent performance produces qualitatively and quantitatively superior results. The key cause of success is a mindset among leaders that gives high priority to excellence across all aspects of building talent. The advice provided for achieving excellence with talented individuals is well set out and, not surprisingly, mostly obvious. What needs explanation is why so few leaders give real attention to their stock of talent. The book also tends to assume that talented individuals produce good results, with out looking at the system within which they work.
Average customer rating:
- Very Very bad
- Simplistic and exaggerating
- Eye-opening!
- Another Western Bias towards China, this time with a scare tactic
- Harsh But Passes the Logic Test
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The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won
Peter Navarro
Manufacturer: FT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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