Book Description
Written in a clear and straightforward manner, Rethinking the Fifth Discipline makes significant and fundamental improvements to the core discipline of systemic thinking. It establishes crucial developments in the context of the learning organization, including creativity and organizational transformation. Key features include a review and critique of "Fifth Discipline" and systemic thinking, an introduction to the gurus (Senge, Bertalanffy, Beer, Ackoff, Checkland, and Churchman), a redefinition of management, a guide to choosing, implementing, and evaluating improvement strategies, and practical illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
A very readable and practical book on organisational learning.......2006-05-04
Being a fan of Senge's work I was sceptical at first, but Bob Flood build on Senge's work and puts into a larger context of thinking holistically and futuristically.
He adds complexity into the mix in that we must prepare for the unexpected and yet unknown situations using his diagrammatical perspective on scenario planning. I also enjoyed his pages on Satori, his bookshelf metaphor on Process, Structure, Meaning and Fairness (Knowledge-power as he coins it).
The bottom line of the book as he puts it:
* we will not struggle to manage over things, we will manage within the unmanageable;
* we will not battle to organise the totality, we will organise within the unorganisable; and
* we will not simply know things, but we will know of the unknowable.
Flood co-authored `Creative Problem Solving' with Jackson, but I recommend getting this book instead as well as Jackson's later book `Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers'.
A challenging, thought provoking book!.......2001-04-17
This book will provide you value if you're looking for information and analysis of system thinking, and wish to better understand Dr. Senge's seminal book "The Fifth Disciple". However, just as an historical introspective over the last 60 years, it's worth the price of the book alone.
Mr. Flood examines the Fifth Discipline under the careful eye of an academic researcher, bringing into play some of great system thinkers of the past to make his points regarding Senge's five disciplines. As these great thinkers are brought forth, windows of opportunities for new knowledge open up, as do gaps of unspoken positions in Senge's work.
I enjoyed this book very much, probably because it was so unique and carefully laid out. After all, how often to you see a book which is basically a term paper of another book, written by the best professor at the school?
I came away with not only a better understading and appreciation of the Fifth Discipline, but also with a clearer understanding of the history of system thinkers, and how they've each brought us a unique perspective to consider.
Systems Thinking beyond Senge.......2001-04-07
A nice one for the academics. I don't think busy managers would like it. Nevertheless, Flood provides a neat summary and background to all issues involving systems and systems thinking in general. His view that complexity science is a strand of systems theory and not something entirely new is important, especially for those contemplating a new management program based on complexity theory. Flood makes a number of interesting observations and provides some useful suggestions, though some may not be candidates for immediate implementation they do get one thinking. His practical animation of his experience and research at the local police in York in the UK is boring. The essence of systemic thinking as Flood points out is not something that can be easily explained, the notion of wholeness should not be trivialised. To attempt to explain the world in terms of systems and sub-systems does to systemic thinking what analysis does to SATORI - it strips it of all essential meaning. In this sense Flood goes beyond Senge, and I liked it very much.
A funeral parlor read -- the patient has died........2000-06-01
20000531: I have to warn people away from this book, or at least suggest that it be read at a page-a-second clip. What's wrong with it? It's simply analysis that is so process conscious that all it's good for, after painful mastery, in my opinion, is to critique events or "systems" after the fact-if ever! I can see all the fresh bureaucrats now, gathered around their impressive conference tables, watching with barely flinching expressions as bespecktacled "Floodites" make the case for "A" using analyses "A - Z" and sub-positories (sic) "a - z" using an endless succession of highly intelligent flowing diagrams -- a virtual "flood" of absolutely stunning (literally) and pointless DATA, that is intended to let you, eventually, "wall-off," and decide what to "embrase," and group hug the "97 architypes." Perhaps this all sounds good in the quarterly. Flood can't be too sure because there's a lot more stuff by author's "a - Z," and that's just for 1994. But relax -- it's all about "systemic thinking." "Systemic thinking is at the core." So it's -- "systemic." I hate to trash a good man but I would prefer a massage and a tape of wooded sounds. Actually what the professor is describing is what a consciously balanced human brain is supposed to be able to deliver, but with a bit more vigor. I think the professor needs a few magic stones and a trip to Greece. Can anyone _really_ make sense of this erudition? (from title page of part 1): "Knowing oneself following a system of thought, will simply create a result, i.e., oneself, produced by that system of thought -- not knowing oneself." And those bureaucrats? What's in their fresh (collective) mind is a basic _fear_ that holds them tight to the professor and creates lions out of lambs: "Defend the professor with your _life_, because if he's wrong, then that means all of academic structure crumbles." That's what I thought I could hear them thinking as I was watching them. I tear down the work that Mr. Flood and his pedegree erect, to make room for systems that work at least a thousand times better. It pains me to knock anyone's success but with all sobriety I say that as a class, habitually unchallenged professionals like this are more problem than solution.
Original, profound yet easily understood and operationalised.......1999-10-17
The content of Professor Flood's latest book is original and profound, but easily understood and operationalised, therefore this book can be considered a "must have" by academics, students, interventionists, consultants and managers alike. It successfully elucidates how the concepts of Systems Theory, Complexity Theory, Organisational Learning and Organisational Intervention are inextricably intertwined.
There is a significant degree of emergent synergy that arises from the complementarist use of the Senge's approach (as described within the "Fifth Discipline") when used in conjunction with Flood's guiding> frameworks for organisational intervention and improvement. In isolation, Senge provided his readers with guidance on organisational learning - but provided no pragmatic steps to guide organisational analysis and the actual selection and use of improvement strategies. Conversely, Flood's previous writings provided a guiding framework for facilitating organisational improvement but lacked the organisational learning approaches that are simultaneously required if the need for organisational improvement (i.e. change) is to be recognised, validated, operationalised, reflexively critiqued and assimilated as part of a revised organisational paradigm. Empirical studies have clearly demonstrated that without the tools to facilitate organisational learning, it is quite likely that the need and desire to implement change strategies will be attenuated by organisational defence mechanisms. (See the work of Argyris in this regard). Therefore, the augmentation of organisational improvement frameworks with organisational learning offers interventionists an enhanced degree of success.
Thus, by effectively combining his interventional strategies with the Senge's organisational learning strategies, Flood has successfully created a pragmatic approach that is more potent than the sum of its constituent parts. The emergent synergy is not by any means a coincidental by-product of the amalgam. Flood clearly explains how the inescapable and tangible manifestations of Complexity Theory require us to "learn our way into an unknowable future". Flood's book also effectively prepares the reader for the adaptations that will be necessary in contending with a dynamically changing organisational landscape.
This book is highly recommended to all those with an interest in organisational learning, change management, systems theory and complexity theory.
Customer Reviews:
Its Alright!.......2007-08-23
What can I say, its a used book - it served its purpose. That's all.
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Who Will Be Fed in the 21st Century?: Challenges for Science and Policy (International Food Policy Research Institute)
Manufacturer: International Food Policy Research Institute
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ASIN: 0896297047 |
Book Description
Global food production has more than doubled over the past 40 years, growing faster than population, and will likely keep pace in the 21st century. Yet today one-eighth of the world's people lack secure access to the food they need to live active and healthy lives. This volume describes how together innovative technologies and sound policies can help close the global food gap -- the gap between demand for and supply of food.
Although markets will continue to supply sufficient food to those with money to spend, getting food to the poor will require that government policies and investments supplement the operation of markets in three critical areas: protecting the natural resources on which agriculture depends; focusing the benefits of agricultural research, including biotechnology, on the needs of small farmers in developing countries; and ensuring that access to food, resources, and income-generating opportunities is equitable and secure.
Contributors to this book show how soil degradation, biotechnology, and other resources and technologies might affect the future supply of food, as well as how poverty, conflict, and gender roles might affect demand. They also consider the roles that institutions must play in meeting the challenge of global hunger. Finally, they outline the policy priorities required to achieve a food-secure world in the 21st century.
Contributors: Bruce Alberts, Nicole Ballenger, Donald Duvick, Craig Gundersen, Eileen Kennedy, Rattan Lal, Alex F. McCalla, Susan R. McCouch, Ellen Messer, Rajul Pandya-Lorch, Per Pinstrup-Andersen, G. Edward Schuh, and Keith Wiebe.
Book Description
Traditional concepts of God are no longer tenable for many people who nevertheless experience a strong sense of the sacred. These people require an approach to religion that recognizes its actual manifestations within their own lives.
The Religious Function of the
Psyche offers a psychological model for the understanding of such experience, using the language and interpretive methods of depth psychology, particularly those of psychoanalytic self psychology. Offering an introduction to Jung and religion and a bridge between the transpersonal and the personal levels of the psyche, author Lionel Corbett suggests a psychological model for the relationship between the divine and the human and offers an alternative approach to spirituality. The problems of evil and suffering, and the notion of human development as an incarnation of spirit are dealt with by means of a religious approach to the psyche that can be brought easily into psychotherapeutic practice and applied by the individual in everyday life.
Download Description
This book offere an understanding for people who find traditional concepts of God no longer teneable. Using several methods, this provides an alternative approach to spirituality.
Customer Reviews:
A book of hope for those.......2007-08-29
who feel a deeply religious sense, yet don't respond to, or find meaning in institutional religion as it's presented.
I've given up on collective religion and have turned to Jung/depth psychology as a means of relating to the most important area of life: inner meaning and value.
This book reflected what I've long thought: all of us are potentially capable of incarnating the archetypes presented by the organized religions. This book helps to free the images and symbols from their "religious" matrix.
Just as the medieval alchemists pried out symbols and images from the matrix of religion and mythology, this book shows that the "religious" themes do not have to be related to within the confines of the formal religious structures. Through many ways, the individual can relate to the autonomous psyche and need not be bound by tradition.
The book is vast in scope. The first time I read it, I underlined in red, went back later and read what I'd underlined. Later, I'll read it again...and again.
I can't begin to review this whole book! The author draws from many sources and his perspective is extemely broad. He's obviously studied many religions and thought deeply and profoundly on the the relationship between the collective relgions and depth psychology. But for me, at the level of a "seeker" without a formal container such as one of the formal religions, this book serves as a bridge, giving my "search" validity outside the accepted traditions. I'm a layman and the book is geared, I think, toward the professional, to some extent. Still, if one has read Jung, Edinger and has deep interest in these matters the book is worth every effort necessary to understand and assimilate it.
Really, I think there are many of us travelling in the same boat. The old institutions don't apply any more for us. But the feeling of the sacred, the numinous, the transpersonal, something more than ego is riding along with us. If it seems that way to you, read this book!
A Brilliant Jungian on the Numinous!.......2004-07-01
Fascinating and thorough and utterly compelling, Dr. Corbett's book is an amazing look at the relationship between psyche and spirit. Recommended!
Very Rich and Filling.......2002-05-15
This book is packed with Jungian concepts. It is not at all a book for casual reading, something one just breezes through then shelves. It a text that one reads and then meditates upon and then reads again later on. Very difficult to milk it dry. One comes back and must come back to every page again and again if one is to relish all that Corbett has locked in his book.
Don't be misled by its length. Although just over 250 pages, every chapter is brimming with insights. Compared to the publications by the Jungian publisher Inner City Books whose titles are usually just over 100 pages long, I would say _Religious Function of the Psyche_ is equivalent to 10 of them. The adjective that comes to mind is rich, extremely rich.
Feast upon such insights as the following:
"Our emotional suffering always contains an element of the divine. The archetype at the center of the complex, no matter how painful, is this element, so there is no escape from the numinosum at the core of our difficulty. This is why the Self images which appear to us always contain elements of our deepest needs and fears. If the divine is never further away than our suffering, then our suffering becomes the beginning of our spirituality. Any attempt to develop spiritual techniques that do not penetrate and understand suffering, run the risk of avoiding the sacred itself."
I dare say it is one of the best Jungian books I have come across. The style of writing and the depth to which it dives bears the distinctive mark of introverted intuitive thinking--the very same typology that characterizes Carl Jung. It is technical in this sense--that it is deep and adroit--but Corbett is not muddled in his writing. On the contrary he is able to bring his audience to a very high level without the reader experiencing vertigo (and should you notice that I have contradictory metaphors here, please note that it is a fact that the highest is also the deepest and vice versa). Hats off to Mr. Corbett for achieving this rare feat. Even Jung's abstruse writings cannot compare with the Corbett's lucidity.
Recommended; good depth-psychological resource........1999-10-12
This useful exposition on the transpersonal dynamics of the psyche belongs on every depth-psych reader's bookshelf. It also provides some corrective insights into the limitations of classical Jungian thought and archetypal psychology. Not for beginners. Definitely recommended. -- Craig Chalquist, creator of the To Thine Own Self site on the Web.
Average customer rating:
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Cytology and Cell Physiology, Supplement 17, Volume 17, Fourth Edition (International Review of Cytology, Supplement, No 17)
Manufacturer: Academic Press
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Book Description
International Review of Cytology presents current advances and comprehensive reviews in cell biology-both plant and animal. Articles address structure and control of gene expression, nucleocytoplasmic interactions, control of cell development and differentiation, and cell transformation and growth. Authored by some of the foremost scientists in the field, each volume provides up-to-date information and directions for future research.
Book Description
The first book ever published to document the history of one of the worlds most cutting edge sports-skateboarding. The book features hundreds of photos of skaters, memorabilia and includes interviews with Tony Alva and Tony Hawk. Forward by Rodney Mullen.
Customer Reviews:
Should be a staple in every skater's house.......2007-08-31
Very interesting historical view on skating. Reads more like a magazine, (no wonder he started one) but in a good way. We are presented with articles basically, from key skaters throughout time. My only gripe is that he hasn't done a new edition, but I really can't complain about this book.
Checked the facts.... and loved it!.......2006-12-15
I was more than a little skeptical when I started reading this one, but found it very enlightening for a "non-skater with a skater husband". I was even more shocked to find out my husband corresponds regularly with the author! I felt this was a very honest, fact-filled book which made it easy for even a laywoman to understand. :)
This book is an awesome read as well as some of the other publications that Michael's company has out there! My hubby is a big stickler for details and even he was impressed, which takes a lot. Being almost-40 (but would never admit it) sports nuts, we both enjoyed this one!
Early History of Skateboarding.......2003-03-01
This 1999 book is more like a bunch of 'zines stitched together than a straightforward histroy of skateboarding: There are lots of sidebars, numerous authors and topics, full-page illustrations that look like ads, and unexpected excursions into such areas as "Skateboards at the Movies."
Still, there's a lot of love within this book. Those of you who enjoyed the recent documentary, "Dogtown and the Z-Boys," will find a similar fan/participant enthusiasm here. The early years are emphasized: The index lists Tony Hawk on only about 10 pages, and the X-games on only 4 pages. Still, for a chronicle of (especially) the early years of skateboarding, for its photos, density of information, and the enthusiasm of the writers, this is a good book for the skateboarding fan. 197 pages of text, an index, lots of photos, and five interesting appendices: "Pros of the Last 40 Years," "Skateboards at the Movies," "Skateboard Competitions (through 1993 only)," "Memorable Skateparks of North America," and "Skate 'Zines." What's really needed is an updated version of the book.
badly jaded book.......2002-08-10
Possibly one of the most lame jaded skateboard books written without good fact checking and bought and paid for by a fausto vitello mythology of SF- centric [stuff].
It is full of horrible misconceptions and leaves out the real people who built the sport. It is total BS by a dude in the frozen north who is so detached from the scene.
absolute GARBAGE, should be a 0.
concrete wave.......2002-05-25
this book was kick [rear].If you want to learn your skateboard history this book is perfect for doing so.
Product Description
This unique book and CD-ROM set combines our new ring-bound book reproduction of the government guide, “Federal Benefits for Veterans and Dependents” and additional material, with our comprehensive 43,000 page CD-ROM on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The book describes federal benefits available to veterans and their dependents, with information on eligibility, special groups outside of wartime service, important documents, health care benefits and enrollment, priority groups, financial information required, health care programs, disability compensation, POWs, vocational rehabilitation and employment, children of Vietnam veterans born with certain birth defects, education and training, VeteransÂ’ Educational Assistance Program (VEAP), life insurance, survivor benefits, homeless, overseas benefits, small and disadvantaged businesses, appeals, workplace benefits, VA facilities, Montgomery GI Bill, Summary of VA Benefits for National Guard and Reserve Personnel. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was established on March 15, 1989, succeeding the Veterans Administration. It is responsible for providing federal benefits to veterans and their families. Headed by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, VA is the second largest of the 15 Cabinet departments and operates nationwide programs for health care, financial assistance and burial benefits. Of the 24.8 million veterans currently alive, nearly three-quarters served during a war or an official period of conflict. About a quarter of the nation's population, approximately 63 million people, are potentially eligible for VA benefits and services because they are veterans, family members or survivors of veterans. The responsibility to care for veterans, spouses, survivors and dependents can last a long time. The last dependent of a Revolutionary War veteran died in 1911. Five children of Civil War veterans still draw VA benefits. About 440 children and widows of Spanish-American War veterans still receive VA compensation or pensions. VA's fiscal year 2004 spending was $63.5 billion -- $29.1 for health care, $34 billion for benefits, and $155 million for the national cemetery system. Disability compensation is a monetary benefit paid to veterans who are disabled by injury or disease incurred or aggravated during active military service. Veterans with low incomes who are permanently and totally disabled may be eligible for monetary support through VAÂ’s pension program. In fiscal year 2004, VA provided $27.6 billion in disability compensation, death compensation and pension to 3.4 million people. About 2.9 million veterans received disability compensation or pensions from VA. Also receiving VA benefits were 539,290 spouses, children and parents of deceased veterans. Among them are 145,740 survivors of Vietnam-era veterans and 265,456 survivors of World War II veterans. Some of the topics covered by this material include: · Compensation · Pensions · Education Programs and the GI Bill · Home Loan Guaranty · Life Insurance · Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment · SurvivorsÂ’ and DependentsÂ’ Benefits · Medical Care and the VA Hospital System · Disability Programs The companion CD-ROM is packed with over 43,000 pages reproduced using Adobe Acrobat PDF software - allowing direct viewing on Windows and Macintosh systems. The Acrobat cataloging technology adds enormous value and uncommon functionality to this impressive collection of government documents and material. Our news and educational CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs are privately compiled collections of official public domain U.S. government files and documents - they are not produced by the federal government. They are designed to provide a convenient user-friendly reference work, utilizing the benefits of the Adobe Acrobat format to uniformly present thousands of pages that can be rapidly reviewed, searched by finding specific words, or printed without untold hours of tedious research and downloading. Vast ar
Customer Reviews:
VA Veterans Benefits with CD.......2007-06-27
This guide goes hand in hand with the use of the Retired Veterans Guide. As one who helps military retirees and veterans get the benefits they feel they deserve, this guide and CD are very helpful.
County Veteran Service officer.......2007-04-02
I purchased this book hoping the CD rom would have something interesting and be searchable for specific items of technical stuff.
I found the book and the CD to be less than informative very basic and often out of date. The VA's web site is what I paid way too much for. There are better books out there for less than $20. Don't waste your money on this.
Book Description
Describes federal benefits available to veterans and their dependents as of January 1, 2005. Measures 9 x 6 in.
Book Description
The Federal Benefits for Veterans and Dependents booklet provides detailed information on a full range of federal benefits available to military veterans and their dependents, including program description, payment amounts and eligibility. This booklet also contains the addresses and telephone numbers of VA hospitals, clinics, benefits offices and national cemeteries nationwide.
Book Description
A complete summary of the benefits available to qualified American veterans of the armed forces, including health insurance, pensions, education, vocational rehabilitation, home loan guaranties, life insurance, burial benefits, and many others. This is a complete quality reprint of the original with bonus material including online application directions.
Customer Reviews:
Federal benefits for Veterans and Dependents.......2007-01-10
Comprehensive, very useful for my people. Not for me or other 100% disabled vets, who are permanently and totally disabled. Many of our options are limited by the classifications.
Get the same information online.......2005-05-04
"Federal Benefits for Veterans and Dependents" is simply a reprint of the same thing from the US Department of Veteran Affairs. If you'd rather not get the information from the VA directly, whether in its own publications or its website, you might like this book. However, with a little bit of work you can get as much or more information online. The book is merely a summary and much less of a guide to claiming benefits.
I found "Veteran's Guide to Benefits" much more useful.
Average customer rating:
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Federal Benefits for Veterans and Dependents
U. s. Veterans Administration
Manufacturer: Pavilion Press
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This is a comprehensive summary of veterans benefits, 2004, for United States military personnel
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Federal Benefits for Veterans & Dependents
Manufacturer: Diane Pub Co
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Federal Benefits for Veterans and Dependents
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ASIN: 0788111086 |
Book Description
Countless guides to law schools claim to offer an insider view of top schools, but none of these guides provides the rich detail that Vault's new guide does. In this new annual guide, Vault publishes the entire surveys of current students and alumni at more that 100 top law schools.
Customer Reviews:
Students Reveal.......2005-04-03
This is the book I've used as a substitute for visiting law schools because--let's get real--not EVERYONE can afford to go on all those trips to different law schools. Being someone who applied to 10+ schools, none of which are located any closer than 6 hours by car and most being much farther than that, it was essential for me to get information from students and to learn more about various points of interest when one is choosing a law school. To be real again, when you speak to current students/alumni or when they contact you out the blue, these people are going to have a biased assessment--you know these are the people who like the school and will be nothing but positive about most, if not all, aspects.
"The Buzz Book" was a way for me to see what students and alumni who weren't necessarily part of the schools' new admits welcoming committee have to say about five basic but essential areas: Admissions, Academics, Career Prospects, Quality of Life and Social Life. At the time I bought this book, I was past admissions--I was looking for something to help me make a choice. However, if you're looking to read students' viewpoints on what matters in admissions to a particular school, this book is very helpful with that and, I would say, is pretty much correct for every school that I read up on. This book is also helpful if you want to know what schools are hard, what schools use the Socratic Method and how, what schools are laidback, which ones have great career service offices/workers, which ones have crappy dorms and which ones have a good social scene. Some students even go as far as to tell you who the best professors are to take courses from and where the best food is (as well as who and where to stay away from).
Two problems with this book: 1) if you're looking at top law schools, they are, pretty much, all going to be here...but not every school is. And the lower in the rankings you go, the less it seems like students filled out surveys. So, you can have, maybe 7 or 8 surveys for each of those five areas covered with schools like Harvard, Boalt and Georgetown, but you might catch only 2 or 3 for a school like the University of Colorado or DePaul. This book might not be great for those not looking at the top 20 or 30 schools; 2) a lot of the students and alumni who filled out these surveys didn't exactly put enough care and thought into them. So some surveys will be one-liners or a couple lines that are not the most helpful or as helpful as you would have wanted. This is fine for the schools that have several surveys under them, but this is another reason why people who are looking at more "realistic" schools don't really need this book.
Basically, admissions tells you, from their viewpoints, how to strengthen your application or what the schools are looking for. Academics tells you about the professors, the courses, the grading, and the teaching/Socratic Method. Career prospects tells you about the career service office and how helpful (or not) they are at certain schools, as well as where do most of the students seem to get jobs and if students have a hard time finding them during summers and after graduation. Quality of life tells you about housing, dining and location. Social life tells you about the students, different activities on campus, dating, what to do/where to go in the area for fun or if there even is a social life.
Overall, a very helpful source. I'm not sure it's the kind of book you read and definitively make up your mind about where you want to go to school, but it provides keen insight and tips that will get you on that path.
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- Shaping Globalization: Civil Society, Cultural Power and Threefolding
- Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action (Eliot Janeway Lectures on Historical Economics in Honor of Joseph Schumpeter)
- Social Choice with Partial Knowledge of Treatment Response (The Econometric Institute Lectures)
- Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change
- Standard & Poor's 500 Guide, 2007 Edition (Standard and Poor's 500 Guide)
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- Financial Meltdown in the Mainline
- If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 1/2 Things You Would Do Differently
- Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire
- It Doesn't Have to Be This Way/No tiene que ser asi: A Barrio Story/Una historia del barrio
- Accounting System: A Self-Study Primer for Introduction to Accounting
- Followership: A Practical Guide to Aligning Leaders and Followers
- The Business Traveler's Survival Guide: How to Get Work Done While on the Road
Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers
Sensemaking in Organizations (Foundations for Organizational Science)
Systems Thinking Basics: From Concepts to Causal Loops
Systems Thinking, Second Edition: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture
Knowledge Assets: Securing Competitive Advantage in the Information Economy
