Uncommon Practice: People Who Deliver a Great Brand Experience

Customer Reviews:

Nothing more to say...other than this book is great!.......2002-09-19

The other reviews here sum up this book nicely. It is very insightful and great to read. Highly recommended.

learn from the best.......2002-07-11

"Uncommon Practice is the book that lets you hear about the essence of business success straight from the horse's mouth. "
Phil Dourado, Editorial Director, eCustomerServiceWorld.com

In an increasingly crowded market place, there are certain companies that really stand out from their competitors - companies like Tesco, PizzaExpress, Virgin, easyGroup, First Direct, Harley Davidson, Krispy Kreme and Pret A Manger.

This new book by Interbrand and Forum, demonstrates, through interviews with key executives from these and other leading companies, how they provide remarkable experiences for their customers and staff alike. The premise behind Uncommon Practice is that that this success stems from their distinctive cultures uniquely developed to meet the needs of customers. The companies featured have defied conventional wisdom and broken the traditional rules of management to engender exceptional levels of commitment from their people, who, united behind a clear brand vision, translate their belief in the company into exceptional customer service.

Editors Andy Milligan and Shaun Smith have taken care to let the voice of the organisation speak for itself. Uncommon Practice is not a `how to...' book, and does not provide a `quick-fix' list of invariable rules for success. The editors do however provide insight into the core principles and practices that the leading companies featured share but which are uncommon in many organisations today.

Uncommon Practice explores the creation of outstanding brand experiences delivered through people, illuminated with interviews with senior executives and front-line managers.

Critical to the success of these brands is the way they treat their own people. Open management, share ownership, training and appraisals are common benefits, but can you guess which company has an empty seat policy on the company jet, keeps a fleet of yachts, has a monthly beer bus, gives an employee the Bentley for the weekend or awards Tiffany stars? Through a series of interviews with key executives, Uncommon Practice gives an insight into how certain companies have become so successful by providing remarkable experiences for their customers and staff alike.

Action Inquiry: The Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership
Average customer rating:

Unique ideas that work, but some shortcomings....

"Action inquiry" is the process of transformational learning

The Art and Science of Transformational Leadership

Action Inquiry: The Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership
William R Torbert
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 157675264X

Book Description

"Action inquiry" is the process of transformational learning that individuals (and even whole organizations) can undertake to better assess current dangers and opportunities, act in a timely manner, and make future visions come true. Through short stories of leadership and organizational changes in the areas of business, politics, health care, and education, this book illustrates how this process can increase personal integrity, improve relationships, and lead to company profitability and long-term success.

Customer Reviews:

Unique ideas that work, but some shortcomings...........2007-02-03

ACTION-INQUIRY is a great book with lots of useful concepts. The editorial and other reviews focus on the content and I won't repeat a lot of that. However, I have some other comments to make that may be useful and I can describe my experience applying the ideas in daily life.

The authors introduce the idea that every action is an inquiry and every inquiry is an action. The premise of the book is that you need to be in inquiry in every moment at different levels to make the best choices and approach decisions with full awareness. This is a useful concept and it is illustrated throughout the book with many real-life business examples.

As a former director in a large company, I can say that these are practical ideas that if applied could be very transformational to an organization. The challenge is to really impliment them and not just pay lip service to the concepts. This must begin with the leaders. If they don't buy into the model, it will be difficult to get other people onboard, but not impossible. The book is about each individual being a change agent through action-inquiry.

What I didn't like about the book is that I found there were too many examples to illustrate the same basic concepts, there was also quite a bit of repetition of concepts and an unnecessary use of jargon where plain everyday language would have done just fine.

I think this book could have been half the length and been just as effective. I also think the author could have presented his ideas more clearly and concisely. In places, he uses different language for the various levels of inquiry and this tends to make the flow more confusing than it has to be. In the next revision, it would be good to see some of these issues addressed.

However, I still recommend this book to business and other leaders. In fact, it is useful for anyone who wants to live with more awareness and choice through tuning into various levels of inquiry in the midst of action. Basically, we are talking about taking a systems approach to life where we have practices that give us access to better quality feedback. This is the essence of the book.

"Action inquiry" is the process of transformational learning .......2005-08-05

Action Inquiry offers a fresh approach to helping individuals and organizations learn in the midst of the cut and thrust of daily action. Bill Torbert and Associates detail a highly accessible process for transforming power into action. Through real-life examples, they illustrate how action inquiry increases personal integrity, relational mutuality, company profitability, and long-term organizational and environmental sustainability.

The Art and Science of Transformational Leadership.......2004-08-02

Does everyone in your organization do the best they can, as they see it, yet the organization still fails to achieve its desired results? Action Inquiry shows why this often happens and how to convert this seeming paradox into a transformational change, taking everyone and the organization to the next level of performance.

Whether we look at the level of the individual, project, organization, network, or society, we each follow a path of development over time. For example, I think about the world in a different way today than I did when I was 10, 20 or 30. Likewise, my organization sees the world different after 10 years of success than we did as a startup. Based on over forty years of observation in the field, Bill Torbert and his associates find that we often get stuck in early levels of understanding of the world, even as we grow older. While it's obvious that it is appropriate to act like a teenager when you are 16 and not when you are 30, when we apply this same developmental logic to organizational life, the authors find that most organizations get stuck in early levels of development (like the teenager) that were appropriate in the first years and not in later years.

To show us what can be done about this and its implications, the authors provide many examples of how the action inquiry approach helped these individuals and organizations grow to the next level, taking on a broader understanding of the reality that faced them, which led to greater value being created for all.

We can see that the evidence is mounting: those leaders who understand and work with an action inquiry approach to leadership and development create significantly more value for their organizations in the short term for the long term, sustainably. Based on rigorous theory and scientific evidence, this is the art and science of transformational leadership for leaders who can handle the truth.

Product Description

History remembers Edmund Ruffin, the Virginia native believed to have fired the first shot against Fort Sumter in 1861, as one of the South's most aggressive "fire-eaters." This volume of Ruffin's work offers us his less known but equally intense passion for agricultural study. In carefully edited selections from Ruffin's writings, Jack Temple Kirby presents a portrait of an innovative, progressive agronomist and pioneering conservationist. Arranged in sections discussing southern agricultural history, Ruffin's observations on nature, his ideas about land reform, and his plans for soil rejuvenation, Nature's Management shows that Ruffin was a thinker far ahead of his time, who recognized our need to improve agriculture and to protect nature.

Book Description

Cheney and Seyfarth enter the minds of vervet monkeys and other primates to explore the nature of primate intelligence and the evolution of cognition.

"This reviewer had to be restrained from stopping people in the street to urge them to read it: They would learn something of the way science is done, something about how monkeys see their world, and something about themselves, the mental models they inhabit."—Roger Lewin, Washington Post Book World

"A fascinating intellectual odyssey and a superb summary of where science stands."—Geoffrey Cowley, Newsweek

"A once-in-the-history-of-science enterprise."—Duane M. Rumbaugh, Quarterly Review of Biology

Customer Reviews:

What Can a Monkey Know?.......2002-03-26

I read this book in connection with graduate coursework under Seyfarth at the University of Pennsylvania. Cheney and Seyfarth describe a fascinating line of research on primates, mainly but not solely their own work on vervet monkeys. The goal is to form an account of the mind of the nonhuman primate -- how much do they understand about themselves, about other minds, and about the world?

I think that these are questions that fascinate almost all of us. What would it be like to be very nearly as intelligent as a human being, but to lack language (not merely a means of communication but also a way of formulating knowledge -- therefore a modality of knowing)? It is, of course, impossible ever to understand as a monkey understands or to feel as a monkey feels, but there is no better way to learn what a monkey can know or feel than Cheney and Seyfarth's engaging book.

Inside the Animal Mind: A Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence
Average customer rating:

A Page-turner

Wonderful......just excellent

Outside the Animal Mind: Suppositions of a casual observer

For animal lovers everywhere!

Wonderful book

Inside the Animal Mind: A Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence
George Page
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Animals | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0767905598
Release Date: 2001-02-13

Amazon.com

George Page, creator and long-time host of television's Nature, knows animals well. He has written Inside the Animal Mind, a broad look at how birds, apes, and others solve problems without the advantages of the human brain, as a companion to the three-episode series covering the world of animal intelligence. Exploring the natural world and the laboratory, he comes up with some interesting insights into intelligence and (more importantly) how we see it. Though the reader occasionally wishes for greater depth, Page's breadth offers interconnections that we would never find elsewhere (moving from the Sun King's gamekeeper to Stephen Jay Gould is beyond most writers).

Page is clearly sympathetic to his subjects, speaking for them where most of them cannot. Investigating tool use and language, he finds the competition not so barren as we had once thought, with finches and gorillas merely heading the lists of nonhuman animals learning clever tricks. Interwoven with his descriptions of bright animals is a story of our own species' long, slow coming to terms with our non-unique status. Perhaps intelligence is not distributed equally, even among humans, but it seems fair to say that we've lost our monopoly. Page's warm, gentle prose also reminds us of our responsibilities to those whose capacity for suffering has been quietly ignored for centuries. Inside the Animal Mind ends with a call to treat animals with respect. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

In the bestselling tradition of When Elephants Weep and Dogs Don't Lie About Love, Inside the Animal Mind is a groundbreaking exploration of the nature and depth of animal intelligence.

While in the past scientists have refused to acknowledge that animals have anything like human intelligence, a growing body of research reveals otherwise. We’ve discovered ants that use leaves as tools to cross bodies of water, woodpecker finches that hold twigs in their beaks to dig for grubs, and bonobo apes that can use sticks to knock down fruit or pole-vault over water. Not only do animals use tools–some also display an ability to learn and problem-solve.

Based on the latest scientific and anecdotal evidence culled from animal experts in the labs and the field, Inside the Animal Mind is an engrossing look at animal intelligence, cognitive ability, problem solving, and emotion. George Page, originator and host of the long-running PBS series Nature, offers us an informed, entertaining, and humanistic investigation of the minds of predators and scavengers, birds and primates, rodents and other species. Illustrated with twenty-four black-and-white photographs, the book is the companion to the three-part, hour-long show of the same name, hosted by Page.

Download Description

Based on the latest scientific evidence, Inside the Animal Mind is an engrossing look at animal intelligence, cognitive ability, problem solving, and emotion. The host of the long-running PBS series Nature offers an informed, entertaining, and humanistic investigation of the minds of predators and scavengers, birds and primates, rodents and other species.

Customer Reviews:

A Page-turner.......2006-07-19

This is a pleasing overview of a timely and rapidly advancing topic. Page is a good story-teller and he writes with friendly enthusiasm. He includes a lively discussion of consciousness. One pet peeve here: Page refers to birds "emitting" alarm calls, when "uttering" or "producing" them would be more apt for a conscious being. Plenty of levity here, too: "There is nothing more `businesslike' than the gait of a hungry and confident contingent of lionesses." Bravo for his conclusion that all those mirror-self-recognition studies with animals are a classic case of anthropocentrism; we are seeking proof of our kind of self-awareness because it's the only kind we can understand. An enjoyable, recommended read.

Wonderful......just excellent.......2001-05-27

.... I have read this book and I have enjoyed it very much. It is incredibly interesting and captivating! Anyone who enjoys animals as much as I and have made then their career and life like I have...will enjoy this book very much. In fact, just anyone who enjoys animals will enjoy this book. I dare those who did not enjoy this book to write something better!

Outside the Animal Mind: Suppositions of a casual observer.......2001-03-06

George Page is a journalist, not a researcher. Unfortunately, that does not save him from taking the posture of one who knows better. He dismisses whole fields of discourse with offhand remarks, for example: "Eventually behaviorism melded with the equally notorious sociobiology as formulated by E. O. Wilson." (p. 29) For an accessible yet scholarly exploration of animal cognition, I recommend Marc Hauser's "Wild Minds." Hauser is a scientist, who specializes in primate cognition. His writing is more lucid, and less affected. He addresses the same questions as Page, with an appreciation for subtle variaritions in the possible interpretations of evidence, which is lacking in Page's presentation. One comparison between the books: Page's bibliography is 3 pages long; Hauser's spans 30.

For animal lovers everywhere!.......2000-04-26

This is a terrific, heartwarming book. Filled with incredible facts, a great sense of humor, and a lot of interesting verbs, George Page does a super job of making the subject even more interesting than it is on it's own. Do animals think? Feel? Communicate? The answers to these and other fascinating questions can be found inside these pages. You will be amazed at what you learn. I think George Page knows his stuff, and I think his years with the PBS Nature series has paid off in a fabulous display of animal empathy, inquisitiveness, and knowledge. After perusing this book, you will never look at an animal in the same way, be it house pet, zoo creature, or wild beast. Take the time to explore each wonderful page, and learn a lot about animal nature, and maybe even human nature. I would read this book again and again and again!

Wonderful book.......2000-04-19

I just finished this book and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. The writing was smooth, and went quickly and the topic is fascinating. I often wonder what the future will hold for communication between species and Inside the Animal Mind helps to cement my belief that interspecies communication will be possible someday.

The author makes a very good point in suggesting that our means of measuring animal intelligence are limited...after all we can only test them in ways that we understand. How well would most of us do if we were told to climb a tall tree and make a nest of leaves and, oh yes, raise our young in there as the squirrel does? Or given leave to roam the African plains...without a written map to show us where water sources are,as the elephants do. Would we "pass" those tests? I have my doubts.

Besides, beyond intelligence there is the point that he makes at the end of his book, "but can they suffer?" Yes, I think that is clear and for that reason alone they deserve better treatment than many of them have had at human hands over the centuries. Do unto others...the Golden Rule should not be limited to "other people." Or, as Emily Dickinson wrote, "If I can stop one heart from breaking/ I shall not live in vain/ If I can ease one life the aching/Or cool one pain, Or help a fainting robin/Unto his nest again; I shall not live in vain.

Inside The Animal Mind, Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence
Average customer rating:
Inside The Animal Mind, Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence
George Page
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NDM2XC

The Sasquatch Have Their Ways: No 1 (Tales of Fantasy & the Supernatural)
Average customer rating:
The Sasquatch Have Their Ways: No 1 (Tales of Fantasy & the Supernatural)
Steve Heinzen
Manufacturer: Lowell Printing and Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1881147002

Book Description

Longtime White Sox fan and historian, Paul Whitfield, takes the rich tradition of the White Sox and presents the legend and lore in brief, through quotes, humor, facts, figures and memories. A lot of ChiSox history in a little package!

Customer Reviews:

Enjoyable little conversation book chock full of White Sox fun facts.......2005-12-18

Fun read, lots of interesting quotes tied in with trivia and fun facts encompassing White Sox history... can't go wrong here!

Book Description

Belize Insight FlexiMap features detailed city, street and road maps clearly marked with all the sites and services of particular interest to travelers. Text and photographs offer a wealth of valuable tourist information including "10 sights you shouldn't miss", plus information on transportation, visas, currency, important telephone numbers, emergency services, and more.

Book Description

Focusing on the proliferation of political cartoons that appeared during the women's suffrage movement, this is an illustrated history of the struggle to gain women the right to vote in the United States. Published in newspapers such as The Suffragist and The Women's Protest, these cartoons illustrate the inventiveness of cartoonists in constructing visual arguments for the enfranchisement of women.

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