The X-Factor: Getting Extraordinary Results from Ordinary People

Book Description

Ross Reck is a consultant who spent the last 15 years developing a four-step management process to help his global clients add millions to their bottom lines. His philosophy is built around what he terms as the "X-factor" -- the secret of getting ordinary people X-cited about going the X-tra mile to help their managers achieve X-traordinary results. The process he builds around it is comprehensive, easy to understand and use, and universal in its application. Presenting his techniques as a business parable, Reck shows how any manager can harness the "X-factor" to achieve extraordinary results from ordinary people.

Customer Reviews:

I cried out of joy while reading this book........2002-01-15

Very good book.
I had to pinch myself many times to make sure was it I enjoying this book.
One can finish reading it in less than six hours.
Packed with useful information.
I find it extremely useful to impress my boss and fellow-colleagues.
This book is the output of author's 15 years' research on the topic.
I bought 10 copies so far, to send them to my managers and friends.
Long live Ross.

A Proven Formula.......2002-01-02

What a breath of fresh air! The X-Factor is loaded with new knowledge about managing and motivatiing. The book's subtitle says it all, "Getting Extraordinary Results From Ordinary People." Instead of providing armchair advice on how to succeed as a manager, The X-Factor delivers a proven forumla on the ultimate management issue: how to get people to perform at peak levels indefinitely.

It's THAT good!.......2001-12-23

The X-Factor is the most complete and practical management/leadership/motivation book ever written. It picks up where "In Search of Excellence" left off and is the perfect compliment for "Good to Great". This book is incredibly well researched and thought through -- the author leaves few, if any, stones unturned. At the same time, The X-Factor is a wonderfully compelling story and an easy read. Once you start this book, you literally can't put it down...IT'S THAT GOOD!

A Plan you can actually follow.......2001-11-06

With so many books available, it is nice to find a book that actually talks about things you can do for longer than 3 months. This is an easy process to get things done in all aspects of your life. By following the basic points of the book, you can get started today. The book is organized well, and tells a story while teaching you in the process. By implementing the concepts spelled out in The X-Factor, you can get extraordinary results from ordinary people. The nice thing about this is that your people won't roll their eyes, because it is not a gimmick that will go away over time, it is a natural way to get things done and give people more satisfaction in their jobs. Ross Reck has proven that the key to solving the management puzzle is not very complicated. Take a few hours with this book and you will be well on your way to getting ordinary people x-cited about going the x-tra mile to help you, the manager, achieve x-traordinary results. It is the best Leadership book I have read this year.

Book Description

In America, almost all the money in circulation passes through financial institutions every day. But in Nigeria's "cash and carry" system, 90 percent of the currency never comes back to a bank after it's issued. What happens when two such radically different economies meet and mingle, as they have for centuries in Atlantic Africa?

The answer is a rich diversity of economic practices responsive to both local and global circumstances. In Marginal Gains, Jane I. Guyer explores and explains these often bewildering practices, including trade with coastal capitalism and across indigenous currency zones, and within the modern popular economy. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, Guyer demonstrates that the region shares a coherent, if loosely knit, commercial culture. She shows how that culture actually works in daily practice, addressing both its differing scales of value and the many settings in which it operates, from crisis conditions to ordinary household budgets. The result is a landmark study that reveals not just how popular economic systems work in Africa, but possibly elsewhere in the Third World.

Customer Reviews:

superb!.......2004-03-20

what an amazing book! i loved the style of short lectures that were easily disgestible.

Marginal Gains Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa

Average customer rating:

Marginal Gains Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa
Guyer Jane I.
Manufacturer: University of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UF3DYA

Average customer rating:

Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa
Jane I. Guyer
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OP1PZU

Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa (Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture Series)

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Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa (Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture Series)
Jane I. Guyer
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OP1PKU

Book Description

The 2004 Pfeiffer Annual: Consulting is a ready-made toolkit of ideas, methods, techniques, and models that assist and support your work as an organizational consultant. The materials provide a highly accessible means of interacting with a variety of systems and processes as diverse as collaborative work systems and executive coaching to strategic planning and organization development.

The book is divided into four sections: Experiential Learning Activities (ELAs), Editor's Choice, Inventories, Questionnaires, and Surveys, and Articles and Discussion Resources.

ELAs are the mainstay of the Annual and cover a broad range of consulting topics. The activities are presented as complete and ready-to-use designs for working with groups; facilitator instructions and all necessary handouts and participants materials are included.

Editor's Choice pieces are material that doesn't fit the other categories and take advantage of "hot topics."

Book Description

Build a productive and committed workforce with The 2006 Pfeiffer Annuals: Training and Consulting. Get these cutting-edge resources together in a set and you'll have all the material you need to improve workplace performance.

Why Don't You Want What I Want: A Download from The 2004 Pfeiffer Annual (Volume 2, Consulting) (Pfeiffer Electronic Downloads)

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Why Don't You Want What I Want: A Download from The 2004 Pfeiffer Annual (Volume 2, Consulting) (Pfeiffer Electronic Downloads)

Manufacturer: Pfeiffer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Human Resources & Personnel Management | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0787973270

Book Description

At times, knowing how to increase support and minimize resistance can be extremely challenging. In this targeted 6-item assessment, participants will begin to understand that when they attempt to influence others, they need support at three levels:

Level 1 focuses on understanding. Do people “get” it or don’t they?
Level 2 focuses on the emotional reaction people have to the idea itself. Do they like it or dislike it?
Level 3 focuses on the participants relationship with the other person or group. Do they have trust and confidence or don’t they?

Includes scoring instructions and follow-up instructions. Contributed by Rick Mauer.

Book Description

Edited by the National Business Employment Weekly, today's leading career resource, the NBEW Guide to Self-Employment tells you how to benefit from the downsizing and reorganizing work trend, exploring such specific career alternatives as consulting, freelancing, temping, buying or launching a business, purchasing a franchise, and others.

Key topics covered include:

Determining your aptitude for working independently through diagnostic quizzes and self-assessment exercises
Starting a business, including market research, planning, financing, and more
Setting up your work environment, including office space and equipment needs, professional services, network resources, and hiring
Buying an existing business or franchise—the different types of businesses, valuing and pricing the acquisition, and negotiating an agreement
Launching a consulting practice—defining your services and markets, selling yourself, pricing, billing, and building a clientele
Professional temping and outsourcing—how and when they work best

Supplemented with dozens of useful case studies and handy resource materials, the NBEW Guide to Self-Employment offers a complete and in-dispensable look into a whole new world of career opportunities outside corporate life.

SPECIAL BONUS: A FREE issue of the National Business Employment Weekly, plus a 4-week free trial offer of The Wall Street Journal, plus a free booklet, "Best of the NBEW: Before the Job Search." A $23.95 newsstand value!

Average customer rating:

ABSTRACT

Changing Firm Boundaries in a New Information and Communication Environment: Evidence from the Manufacturing and Music Industry (Europaische Hochschulschriften. ... V, Volks- Und Betriebswirtschaft, Bd. 2996.)
Christian Bender
Manufacturer: Peter Lang Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0820464945

Customer Reviews:

ABSTRACT.......2004-07-05

The nature of the firm has changed since Ronald Coase invented the theory of the firm in 1937. An important change is the advent of modern information and communication technology (ICT) that altered the business environment. This book studies the transformation of corporate organization by analyzing the impact of a changing information and communication environment on firm boundaries. Therefore I look at firm boundaries in the manufacturing and the media sector. These two sectors are selected to illustrate important differences in the change of firm boundaries. Although both showed an impact of ICT, the direction of this change has been different because of contrary product characteristics. The reason is that ICT in the manufacturing sector mainly leads to communication and coordination improvements, while it induces problems to protect intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the media sector.

In the first part the manufacturing sector is analyzed. Hypotheses regarding the impact of ICT on the governance of business activity are developed based on arguments from Transaction Cost Economics (TCE). I subsequently check these hypotheses against manufacturing industry data in a panel regression design. It is explored to what extent the international dissemination of ICT acted as a catalyst in changing organizational structures. Therefore I compare the degree of vertical integration of manufacturing firms in different countries over time and analyze the role of ICT in this context. The analysis is controlled for alternative determinants of firm boundaries including the institutional, economic and political environment. Vertical disintegration, i.e. slimmer firms, can be found particularly in business environments with high ICT penetration. This can be regarded as tentative evidence for ICT-triggered outsourcing.

The second part focuses on firm boundary changes in the media sector. Media firm boundaries appear to move in the opposite direction: recent increases in vertical integration by major media firms are analyzed regarding the impact of ICT. Using an eclectic theory synopsis, IPRs are identified as an important variable in the relationship between ICT and media firm boundaries. Hence, the impact of ICT on media firm boundaries is studied indirectly by looking at the connection between ICT and IPRs: I test the effect of ICT penetration on recorded music sales figures in a panel regression. The tests show a significant negative impact of ICT on music sales what can be interpreted as a loss of IPRs via ICT-enabled music piracy. Music firms loose sales in business environments with enhanced technological copying capabilities. I conjecture that vertical integration increases are a response of media firms to regain and maintain control over the production and distribution of their products. In addition, the effect of IPR protection is taken into account. Recent regulatory action in form of international treaties initiated by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) seems to contribute to contain IPR loss.

In my empirical analyses I find evidence that supports the view that the ICT shock has an ambivalent impact on firm boundaries. The comparison of the manufacturing and the media sector shows that distinct product characteristics like intangibility determine the direction of the ICT-induced shift in firm boundaries. ICT plays a role in the fragmentation of value-chains in the manufacturing sector but can provide vertical integration incentives in the media sector.

Average customer rating:

A great book

business and recipes

Standing In the Heat

Very Good Overall, but Bogs Down in Places

A Good Overview

If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs
Dawn Davis
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Guides | Job Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Essays | Gastronomy | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
History | Gastronomy | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Professional | Professional Cooking | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection

The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute

Becoming a Chef

Letters to a Young Chef (Art of Mentoring)

Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)

ASIN: 0140281584

Book Description

What's the restaurant business really like? Expert chefs share their stories, secrets, and recipes for success.

Chefs and restaurateurs are today's most glamorized professions. But for every person who starts their own eatery, thousands more merely dream about it. Whether you are seriously considering making a career out of your passion for the kitchen or you're an armchair foodie, If You Can Stand the Heat is essential reading. This informative and dishy insider's collection of interviews with some of the country's leading chefs and food professionals shows what it takes to make it in the world of food, and helps answer such questions as: What are the first steps in opening up a restaurant? What can I expect if I make a mid-life career change?

Among the many stories here, Edna Lewis, the grand dame of Southern cuisine, talks about the importance of mentoring; Bobby Flay of Mesa Grill and Bolo discusses the chef as entrepreneur; and Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill shows how to pick the perfect spot for a restaurant. Each chef or restaurateur offers a recipe from his or her own personal collection, and numerous sidebars provide essential facts about every aspect of the business. From bad burns to bad luck, from five-star restaurants to corner cafes, these professionals reveal how incredibly difficult, but immensely rewarding, it is to work your way to the top of the food chain.

Customer Reviews:

A great book.......2006-08-05

If you can stand the heat is a really interesting book that tells you the lives of a few chefs that they invterviewed along with a few recipes. I read that it provided insight into the kitchen and things like that, but I hardly saw that going on. Luckily though, there stories and what they had to say were interesting enough. Recommended for all cooks looking to work in a kitchen.

business and recipes.......2006-07-11

There are any number of books on the market that purport to tell you how to start and run your own restaurant. They tend to make up in enthusiasm what they lack in rigor in depicting a slice of the business world that is, at best, quirkily unpredictable. But If You Can Stand the Heat: Tales from Chefs and Restaurateurs is an exception.

The book is organized around four ingredients, er, themes: "Breaking In and Moving Up," "A Taste of America's Regional Cuisines," "Border Crossing," and "Chef-Owners on the Business of the Business." Because the book is liberally sprinkled throughout with short profiles of chefs' and restaurateurs' experiences, the reader comes away with a good sense of the trials involved. We learn how Anne Kearney, the owner of Peristyle, in New Orleans, struggled to get a grip on monthly expenses. One of her most costly lessons came when she realized that her payroll budget had been based on the previous owner's records, which hadn't included payroll taxes. The result, she discovered, was that her own budget was way out of whack.

The book is full of such stories. And the author also has included resources, ranging from thoughts on projecting an annual budget, to an item on the top four reasons restaurants fail (lack of capital, insufficient experience, poor menu planning, and disagreement among partners).

For an added treat, interspersed among the hands-on advice and profiles of restaurateurs are recipes for the signature dishes of the featured chefs. Kearney offers a recipe for the perfect meatless starter: hand-rolled ravioli with roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, and goat cheese with artichoke brown butter. Mmm.

Standing In the Heat .......2005-03-03

This book is an awesome resource for people who hope to become cooks or chefs. In it you will read about the lives of people who started out doing something they thought they loved and then just decided that they wanted to cook and ended up becoming great at it. Then there is also the stories of people who had an intense desire to cook and had to struggle just to get someone in the culinary indusstry to even look at them. The people in this book either own their own restaurants or are working in the most top quality food establishments there is. It evens gives some of these chefs most favorite recipes. It gives you alot of valuable informaiton from the top schools to attend,to what can shut down a first time restaurant opener's establishment. It's a great book to read and it's guaranteed to lead to great success!

Very Good Overall, but Bogs Down in Places.......2004-05-11

If You Can Stand the Heat is a collection of experiences of some of the best cooks in the country. It is intended primarily for those who might be considering going into the food service industry, but is also fun and informative reading for home cooks. It covers how to get into a kitchen, what education you may need or might find useful, the basics of running the business, and even how to open your own restaurant. It also shows other resources that can be turned to for additional support and research. Each chapter also ends with a sampling of the chapter's featured cook's recipes that you probably will not want to try at home.

A Good Overview.......2002-12-01

I used the excuse of ordering some books for my Dad's Birthday to pick up a few for myself. "If You Can Stand the Heat", (Tales from Chefs & Restaurants) by Dawn Davis is the one I'm reading first.

Written a couple years ago, it's a pretty good overview of what's going on today in food and restaurants. It includes brief but well done interviews with chefs and food industry professionals, and manages to focus on many different aspects of the food business.

The interviews cover a wide range of topics like training, chefs as entreprenuers, restaurant location, mentors, regional cusines and such and are interesting to read as well as informative. The book also includes some recipes following each chapter, and has useful appendices with sources of information about the food business.

Among those interviewed are celebreties like Tony Bourdain, Rick Bayless, Bobby Flay and Thomas Keller but the roster consists mostly of people best known only to the inner circle of foodies.

This would be a very interesting and useful read for somebody new to food literature or thinking of entering the business.

Average customer rating:

The Best

Something for everyone

Gives basic money cents.

The Consumer Reports Money Book: How to Get It, Save It, and Spend It Wisely (Consumer Reports Money Book)
Jeff Blyskal , Emily Card , Aileen Jacobson , and Greg Daugherty
Manufacturer: Consumer Reports Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Public Finance | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Reference | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need

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Personal Finance For Dummies, 5th edition

ASIN: 0890438838

Customer Reviews:

The Best.......2002-08-24

This is the best, comprehensive book ever written for financial management for individuals and families.

Something for everyone.......2001-03-21

I've always relied on Consumer Reports for information and I'm glad I used this book as my financial/monetary reference. I've learned so much about a number of topics from IRAs to wills, credit unions to buying my first house mortgage. Consumer Reports provides great statistical data to back up their suggestions or findings (for example, different compounding results for loans vs. leases). They don't just provide definitions for each topic, they give helpful, advanced suggestions and advice (for example, a regular IRA will compound much more than a Roth IRA because a Roth IRA gets taxes pulled out of it right at the contribution). I guess the younger you are, the more I can recommend this book. Anyone who is just breaking in to the real world will find this book extremely valuable. Everyone else will at least find further insight to topics they might already know about and also get their money's worth from the book.

Gives basic money cents........1999-11-19

If you've never been interested, never had enough, or pay for everything but attention-when it comes to finances, well here's a good place to start learning the basics about money management and its nomenclature.

The Consumer Reports Money Book, How to Get it, Save it, and Spend it Wisely

Average customer rating:

The Consumer Reports Money Book, How to Get it, Save it, and Spend it Wisely
Janet, Blyskal, Jeff and Etal Bamford
Manufacturer: Consumer Reports Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000S5YC2O

Average customer rating:

The Consumer Reports Money Book: How to Get It, Save It, and Spend It Wisely
Janet Bamford , and Emily Card
Manufacturer: Consumers Reports Books Yonkers, NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IB670S

Average customer rating:

The Consumer Reports Money Book: How to Get It, Save It, and Spend It Wisely
Aileen; Card, Emily; Blyskal, Jeff; Bamb Jacobson
Manufacturer: Consumer Reports Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QCJ95O

Book Description

This book grows out of a five-year collaborative research project undertaken by the authors in East Asia. They have worked with firms and institutions in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, to inquire into the micro-processes of firm-level organizational learning that underpin technology leverage in an industry such as semiconductors. The processes investigated are not specific to microchips, but can be seen working in one knowledge-intensive sector after another. Mathews and Cho argue that indeed these are the processes that will shape industrial evolution in the twenty-first century, not just in East Asia but in the developed world as well. Tiger Technology concludes with an important observation - that wealth can be generated just as much through management of technology diffusion as through conventional concerns with innovation, provided the institutions of leverage are carefully constructed.

Customer Reviews:

How to build new industries through knowledge leverage.......2002-11-26

I approached this book thinking that it might give a few ideas as to how countries today might get themselves started in high technology industries. I was surprised to find that Mathews' and Cho's story is as relevant to developing countries today as it is to the East Asian tiger economies with which they are concerned. In particular, their story of how Korea, Taiwan and Singapore all used different leverage vehicles for the creation of knowledge intensive industries in their countries, seems to be applicable very much to the case of China today, or India, or any other country with a serious state looking seriously to become a player in industries where technology is a prime factor. Countries don't have to reinvent everything from zero!

Congratulations to these authors for stating this as clearly as I've seen in recent years. The book stands comparison with Amsden, Wade and other contributors to the industrial upgrading literature.

Tiger Technology: The Creation of a Semiconductor Industry.......2000-06-27

The creation of high technology firms and industries is increasingly an important source of national industrial competitiveness. Harnessing and diffusing new technologies, leveraging knowledge and developing new collaborative mechanisms demand new corporate strategies and arrangements between business and government. Tiger Technology by John Mathews and Dong-Sung Cho provides new insights into these issues. In explaining how late comer firms establish themselves in one of the most technologically demanding industries, their book sheds light on the process by which East Asian countries - Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan have developed technology leveraging strategies and capabilities that enable them to compete in high technology industries. Furthermore they argue the East Asian countries have developed institutional systems for rapid technology transmission and diffusion.

Part two of the book draws this argument out by examining in detail the various national case studies. However, it is in Part three of the book that the authors draw together the comparative detail of the national case studies.Here they identify three models of high technology industrialisation that the East Asian economies have pioneered.The book raises interesting issues for managers, public administrators and scholars - focusing on the need to develop strategies for learning at the firm level and developing institutions that can foster cooperative relations between business and the public sector.

Tiger Technology: The Creation of a Semiconductor Industry.......2000-06-27

Book Description

This digital document is an article from ASEAN Economic Bulletin, published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) on December 1, 2001. The length of the article is 1455 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Tiger Technology: The Creation of A Semiconductor Industry in East Asia. (Book Reviews). (book review)
Author: Neil Saker
Publication: ASEAN Economic Bulletin (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2001
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)
Volume: 18 Issue: 3 Page: 347(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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