5 comments about Care Packages for the Workplace: Dozens of Little Things You Can Do To Regenerate Spirit At Work.

1. This book is just okay. There are a lot of examples of how to improve morale at work, but the writing isn't that great, and the book isn't very well organized. There are much better books on the topic...try Managing to Have Fun by Matt Weinstein or 1001 Ways to Energize Employees by Bob Nelson.



2. Barbara Glantz has written a life altering book--at least a life at the workplace altering book. It is easy to read and filled with hundreds of big and little things that can change the way you spend 40 hours a week. Very positive, super ideas.



3. This book provided a great deal of information and ideas to draw from. I enjoyed that I could read it quickly. I was able to apply some of the ideas or variations of them at work !



4. I am so please to be able to say that product was shipped early and great condition!!!!!!!!!



5. This delightful small book skillfully shows you how not to stress out at work. Another way to get a perspective of your job situation is to learn to laugh at things that stress you out. WorkLaughs:Quips, Quotes, and Anecdotes about Making a Buck can provide you with the laughs to do just that-- from job interviews to meetings to dealing with the boss, WorkLaughs will show you that all aspects of the job can be a laughing matter. (WorkLaughs is also available on Amazon).

5 comments about Million Dollar Habits: Proven Power Practices to Double and Triple Your Income.

1. This audio Book really helps to focus your mind on wealth creation.
   Every time you listen to it you pick up something new.
   My Advice is to have your pen and note pad ready to jot down the ideas.



2. I decided to buy the Audio book version of the Million Dollar Habits, and this book is loaded with a lot of AWESOME life changing information, techniques and methods.
   
   Brian Tracy will help you improve your emotional and financial intelligence that a lot of people are lacking! Most people make a lot of financial decision based on their emotion, and their emotion gets them into a lot of trouble, like buying a luxury car that they can't afford! They look good but they go no where financially.
   
   If you are really serious of trying to improve your financial life, this book is must read! Thank you again Brian Tracy for putting together a great program like this one!
   
   Must buy!



3. I bought Million Dollar Habits and Getting Rich Your Own Way, both by Brian Tracy. The only reason I bought these books is because of the many good reviews. I was sorely, I underscore, sorely, disappointed. The books are nothing but a collection of re-hashed, common sense, and common knowledge information. On top of that, it's all very surface level, with very basic and general ideas on the topic of wealth and wealth accumulation. There's absolutely no depth to these two books, and a typical page has anywhere from 2-6 different topics covered (tell me, how you can possibly explain good wealth building strategies when you devote half a page or a fourth of a page to each one? It's ludicrous at best.)
   
   Furthermore, most information found in the two books, is nothing but a rip-off, and again-surface level at that, of previous bestselling, in-depth, well-researched, credibly authored, and truly helpful books like:
   
   The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People-Stephen Covey,
   Think and Grow Rich- Napoleon Hill,
   How to Win Friend and Influence People- Dale Carnegie,
   The Success System That Never Fails- W. Clement Stone,
   
   and many others that have stood the test of time and critique of millions of minds.
   
   Please, save your money, as you will become wealthier through not buying this book. Go read the books I mentioned before, they provide much more in-depth and valuable information which will really help you in succeeding in any area of life you apply the techniques that are presented to you.



4. I love the specific tips that are given in this book. Sure we all know some of them but seeing them in print, staring at you, makes them easier to put into practice.
   Knowing something is not enough. You have to put it into practice to get any good out of it.
   I got the title of this review from just one little passage in the book...
   ***"No matter what you have done or not done in the past, at any time, you can draw a line through your previous life and make the decision that your future is going to be different."***
   
   Two other Tracy books that I also recommend are The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success and Advanced Selling Strategies: The Proven System of Sales Ideas, Methods, and Techniques Used by Top Salespeople Everywhere. The advice in them and this book can be applied by anybody although the books are mostly aimed for business owners or salesmen .
   
   Just as Dan Kennedy's No BS time management book is mandatory if you want to get the most out of your time, this book is just as powerful when it comes to developing habits to follow throughout your business life.
   
   I'll leave you with one more quote from the book. It is filled with good advice but the following quote should be taken to heart by you.
   ***"If you are willing to work on yourself long enough and hard enough, you can form and shape yourself into the kind of excellent person that you were designed to be."***



5. I had read many of the author's books. I rated most of them four or five stars. So far I had only rated one with less than or equal to three stars. This should be the second. I am not saying that this is not good. However, as a fan of the author, I really cant shake away the feeling that he had simply summarized his brilliant ideas in various books into one. Perhaps he wanted to save time for his target audience. The problem is, plenty of fantastic and useful stuff had been missed. By the way, there is no quick fix, isnt it? Please read "Victory!", "Eat that frog", "The Power of Charm" and so on instead of this. Take the banquet and put down the fast food. You will thank me for that.
   
   p.s. Despite my comment, below please find some of my favorite passages for your reference.
   
   When you put the Laws of Cause and Effect, Control, Belief, Expectations, Attraction, and Correspondence together, you arrive at the great universal principle that explains your life and everything that happens to you: You become what you think about - most of the time. pg 9
   
   The most powerful words that you can repeat, over and over, to neutralize and overcome the fear of failure, are "I can do it! I can do it!" pg25
   
   The only skill that will be important in the 21st century is the skill of learning new skills. Everything else will become obsolete over time. - Peter Drucker pg 96

5 comments about Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work.

1. Fun and work might not always seem to fit in the same sentence. However, this book by Leslie Yerkes makes fun at work seem all the more likely. Combining the ideas of fun at work with emphasizing a productive and successful company is the perfect mix for this one of a kind book.
   
   Ms. Yerkes' work/fun fusion is brings the relaxed atmosphere of a get together with friends together with driving the success of a business. She does this with eight simple principles to fuse work with fun. Impossible? Think again! Not to spoil the book for you, but with a principle entitled "Celebrate", who wouldn't be enticed to read such a book? Ms. Yerkes' gives employees and management the courage to be themselves and to the best that they can be. The line between management and employee is blurred with the brilliance of Yerkes' ideas. This book encourages an equal playing field amongst all in the office without creating a fantasty, this can really happen! The days of chains of command and lack of communication with upper management could be on their way out the door with the ideas presented in this book.
   
   The principles, examples, and tests in this book provide an unbelievable amount of insight as to how to integrate fun and work. This 200 page book is overflowing with ideas that could easily provide employees with a whole new outlook on your company and work in general. Fun/work inventories allow readers to find out their current view of fun at work. Examples from well-known, successful companies also provides proof that fun at work really does work!
   
   This book is a must read regardless of your position in a company. Entry-level career to president of a major corporation, we all can learn a lot from Leslie Yerkes. She encourages us all not to be so serious at work and let fun happen!
   
   Ms. Yerkes' talks about risk taking in her book, so why not take a risk and go out and read this book. I assure you, you will not be disappointed! Fun most definitely works!



2. This is not only a fun book to read but, if you take it's advice, it will show you, through examples,
   how to put more fun into your workplace. And if you like this book, you are sure to enjoy
   WorkLaughs: Quips, Quotes, and Anecdotes about Making a Buck. (also available on Amazon).



3. Remember what happened to many of the companies featured in Peter's On Search of Excellence? For various reasons many of those companies ended up under-performing and others did much worse.
   
   Contrast this with the track record of the companies Leslie Yerkes profiled and studied six years ago. Of eleven, two were snapped up outright, and the other nine have continued their successful ways. Even Isle of Capri, a resort and casino business battered by Katrina, leveraged its advanced organizational culture to survive and thrive through catastrophe.
   
   Fun Works is a hybrid: it uses the case company approach to derive eleven accessible and practical principles (of organizational development.) Fun Works 2 is not an academic book but it's not "all principle," (and no meat !) either.
   
   For the second edition, Ms. Yerkes has latched upon the distinction between hard and soft organizational science to help her elaborate on the positive, high performance culture she discovered in her research on the featured companies.
   
   It's this 'soft,' human-centered, science she's neatly described in this very worthwhile revision of Fun Works. "Fun" in the workplace, as she points out, has unfortunate connotations going back to the industrial revolution. Smartly, this time around, she's developed a much larger and more nuanced picture of how it is high-performance companies rely on positive and appreciative company culture to synergize and support the so-called hard science.
   
   Another important aspect to Fun Works is that it is not just about corporate behemoths. She's cast her trained eye on companies ranging in scale from a regional architecture firm, to a large university dining service to, admittedly, a paragon of large-scale organizational innovation, Southwest Airlines. It's a great strength of Fun Works that the book's testable principles--obviously--can be tried out in any sized business environment.
   
   It seems five years later many more businesses are coming to understand how critical are the people side of performance and the interpersonal side of positive culture. Yerkes's hybrid of case study and practical manual remains in its second edition, a keystone kind of book about organizational development and, yes, fun at work.
   
   The new edition's updating improves on the first go-round. Heck, the original was the best book on fun at work, so I guess the new version is better than best!



4. In reading the second edition of Fun Works I expected little change from the first edition I reviewed in 2001. I was wrong!
   
   In her revised edition Leslie Yerkes coins the term "hard science," to include great products, effective strategy, work process improvement, service orientation and strict financial controls, as a fundamental requirement for any successful organization. She applies the term "soft science," including the way people in organizations interact and their culture, as the principal requirement for any sustainable organization.
   
   Leslie Yerkes then revisits eleven companies she first examined in 1999 as examples of her eleven principles for effectively integrating fun and work. Two companies in particular, Southwest Airlines and Isle of Capri Casino, survived & prospered after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Their "hard science" positioned them to survive, but it was their "soft science" that actually saw them through these events.
   
   This book is a must read if your goal is to create and sustain a culture in your organization where people are allowed to and want to do their very best.



5. FUN WORKS: CREATING PLACES WERE PEOPLE LOVE TO WORK appears in its second updated, expanded edition to explore connections between work and fun. The original book detailed how eleven different companies blended fun into the course of business for improved results: this revised second edition includes follow-up interviews with all the companies in the first edition to see how they have maintained a fun environment in the face of recession, 911, and natural disaster alike. All the original eleven companies featured have continued to thrive - largely because of their 'fun and work' atmosphere - and business libraries will appreciate a book which documents a series of real-life success stories.

5 comments about Warfighting.

1. Elegant in its simplicity, powerful and profound in its application -- this is a superb, practical primer on leadership.



2. If you're into winning any sort of competition, not just warfare, this is an excellent book to read, concise and to the point. You can read it in a few hours and be forever changed by it. My only criticism is that, judging from the endnotes, it leans a bit too much on Carl von Clausewitz and too little on modern thinkers such as John Boyd, a USAF fighter pilot whose impact on Marine Corps tactics is considerable and widely acknowledged. As the disasters of subsequent German history would demonstrate, war is not, as Clausewitz believed, diplomacy taken to a new level. Wars are much more costly and difficult to extract oneself from than a conference in Geneva.
   
   Also keep in mind that it's not enough to win a war. You also need to win the peace that follows. During World War I and for several years afterward there was a fierce debate over how to make a peace that would last. Pacifists thought the world would come to learn that wars don't pay, an idea so absurd no one mentions it today. Internationalists thought the League of Nations could keep the peace, even though it soon failed its first test, a war between Poland and Russia that immediately followed the war. Militarists, a group little seen immediately after such a bloody war, continued to insist on the importance of bigger and bigger battleships. Even Churchill, although he later regretted it, thought for a time that disarmament would work.
   
   In retrospect, there was only a few who got it right and the one who got it right the best was a popular English writer, G. K. Chesterton. In 1932 he would warn that Germany was going to find itself a dictator and that the next war would break out over a border dispute between Germany and Poland, precisely what happened in 1939.
   
   If you want to win a war, read this book. If you want to learn how one war can be used to prevent the next war, read Chesterton, who bluntly wrote in 1917 that, "Peace without victory is war without excuse." Chesterton also gave some of the most telling arguments against pacifism ever put into print, noting that: "the real point against the cause of Pacifism is that it is not a cause at all, but only a weakening of all causes. It does not announce any aim; it only announces that it will never use certain means in pursuing any aim. It does not define its goal; it only defines a stopping-place, beyond which nobody must go in the search for any goal."
   
   --Michael W. Perry, Editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II



3. Good book to instill leadership qualities in your workforce. This should be the basis for required college course in all business degree programs.



4. Warfighting has a very rare characteristic for a book: it depictes much more than it expresses across its pages.
   
   I'm a former Alumnus of the most prestigious Italian Military School (Nunziatella, est. 1787), and in a sense a bit of someone with the military gene inside, having had my grand-grandfather in the Army and my father in the Air Force.
   
   Presently I'm a manager involved in the medical field, working for one of the top pharma companies worldwide.
   
   Looking at this book with both types of spectacles, I found a very remarkable piece of work, which deserved a very special place in my library, side to side with groundbreaking books like "The Prince" by Machiavelli, "The art of war" by Sun Tzu and "About war" by von Clausewitz.
   
   Warfighting depicts the operating modalities of a recognized military Corp, the US Marines, and gives precious insights to commanders, for example about how leveraging skills and manouvering when fighting against a numerically stronger adversary.
   
   When simply substituting the words "officer" or "commander" in the text with "manager", Warfighting becomes a leading-edge manual about ways of conducting business in the modern world, by lean, mobile and highly professional organizations more than by the old-style molochs.
   
   Only tens of pages, dense of significance, something you will never forget.
   
   Amazing.



5. I realize that this is standard reading for the USMC, but it is billed as a tome for the civilian as well. I found it a bit too general for tactics, both for personal protection, as well as for law enforcement. OK as a general overview of battlefield/global warfare, but not easily adapted to other uses.

5 comments about The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It.

1. Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter's groundbreaking book debunks myths about burnout and holds organizations accountable for this epidemic, which has swept the work world. The authors detail how organizations can treat and prevent burnout, and take a critical look at its deep-rooted causes, including lack of engagement and conflict between employees' values and their jobs. Conversationally and with great impact, the authors support their points and suggestions. We recommend this book to executives, managers and employees. Now go home and get some rest.



2. tretise on what most of us already know about bureauracracies. I've not finished reading the "what to do about it." yet, but already know my first questions when contemplating a new job will be "How many people were fired or quit in the past 6-9 months?"



3. Christina Maslach is well-known in psychology as the person who has championed the problem of burnout over more than two decades. For quite a time she was something of a lone voice.
   
   Burnout is a prolonged response to chronic physical, emotional and interpersonal stressors at work, leading to exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy. In a memorable term the authors describe it as erosion of the soul.
   
   Burnout has to be seen in the larger organizational context of people's relationship with their work: it's usually the job and the organization rather than the individual, although there are clearly differences in individuals' resilience to burnout.
   
   There are many symptoms of burnout, including trouble sleeping, constantly worrying, feeling unappreciated or "used" at work and feeling less effective or competent. Many people find that they easily becoming angry or irritated and altogether too many start drinking or abusing other substances.
   
   Burnout is immensly costly, not just for individuals, but also for organizations. I agree with another reviewer who lamented the paucity of data on just how costly burnout is to a company's bottom line. But judging by the number of corporations now asking epxerts to go in and help them deal with the burnout problem, I think that the message is getting through.
   
   This is an excellent overview of the problem nearly ten years ago. If anything, the situation is becoming worse, and Maslach, and now an expanding band of other psychologists has continued to do empirical research on the problem, and have been coming up with ever more sophisticated solutions.
   
   But even with the passage of time, this book remains highly recommended.



4. "The Truth about Burnout" was written a decade ago, but its analysis and recommendations may be more valid today than they were when the book was published. The first couple of chapters are a bit tedious, but the book takes off once the authors start digging into causes of burnout and laying out ways to overcome burnout.
   
   The authors describe the causes of burnout in terms of six mismatches between people and their jobs: "work overload, lack of control, insufficient reward, breakdown in community, absence of fairness, and conflicting values." These six mismatches provide a framework for developing interventions to address burnout and build employee engagement.
   
   For me, the most encouraging feature of the book is the authors' suggestion that the intervention can be bottom up as well as top down. The authors provide roadmaps for both kinds of intervention.



5. I bought it as a gift for my sister. She's graduating psychology on the subject of burnout. She said the book was very useful.

5 comments about If Aristotle Ran General Motors.

1. I purchased the audio version of this book to listen to during my commute, and a year after the original purchase I realized that I've played this tape more than any other.

   Why?

   Aristotle's ideas can be like knives cutting through cluttered thinking, but his presentation can be a bit long and dry. Morris does a nice job of presenting Aristotle's virtues of Truth, Goodness, Unity, and Beauty as they can be applied to business while putting a fun and popular face on them.

   You can find good arguments in many books for being honest in business as well as doing good and creating a sense of unity. Beauty was a surprise, but Morris argues well for it. I felt that the combination of ancient wisdom with modern examples made Morris' message meaningful and more inspirational than many other business books.

   I've gotten a lot of mileage out of these ideas, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking to find Aristotle's virtues in the workplace.




2. I had never been a philosophy
   buff, but reading this book has changed my mind . . . I now
   see that the subject can be fun (if you can believe that), as
   well as interesting to study . . . Morris takes ancient truths
   and effectively relates them to the business world, as well
   as to life overall . . . i'm now looking forward to getting his
   first effort, TRUE SUCCESS: A NEW PHILOSOPHY
   OF EXCELLENCE, which somebody else has
   recommended to me.

   I know i'm really "into" a book if I find myself taking all
   sorts of notes on it, not only for my own use--but to share
   others . . . the biggest problem I now
   face is to edit these down to just a few passages, but let
   me try:
   If Aristotle ran General Motors, everyone employed there would
   think of it as one large partnership, encompassing myriads
   of smaller partnerships for the purpose of living well. If he
   ran the corner grocery store, he would instill in everyone there
   the same mindset. And if he offered you advice, I think that this
   would be at its core: Always think of yourself as entering with
   other people into partnerships for living well. This highly general
   truth about the deep beauty of business can provide us with an
   important perspective on many specific decisions we face. We
   should always be asking ourselves whether what we contemplate
   doing will enhance or diminish this crucial function of the
   business within our own domain of influence. Are we building
   partnerships for living well?

   I saw the professor later that day and asked him about it. He
   answered with a big smile, "At Hampden-Sydnery, we have a rule
   that every student must greet everyone they pass on campus."
   I said, Why do you have a rule like that?" And he explained, "At
   Hampden-Syndey, we believe that etiquette is where ethics
   meet everyday life. . . . If we don't help our students get
   it right in the little things, they'll never be in a position to get
   it right in the big things. We teach them to be courteous,
   hoping that this will help them to be moral."

   In an office building full of hundreds of Ph.D.s, whenever anyone
   faces a personal challenge, has trouble at home, is bothered by
   any sort of worry or fear, or just needs a spark or renewed energy,
   they easily discovered that the wisest course of action is to seek
   out the one man in the building who didn't graduate from high
   school, Brother Jeff. He whistles while he works, he sings,
   he greets everyone with a big smile and a kind word: "How
   are you today, my friend?" An otherwise dour face may
   brighten and respond, "Fine, Jeff and how are you?" The
   inevitable answer: "Everything's pretty!" A conversation
   then may or may not ensure, on almost any topic imaginable.
   But if it does, it always ends with a hearty send-off: "You
   have yourself a great day, my friend!"




3. Despite a provocative and promising title, Tom Morris delivers neither a new nor a true approach to the art of business leadership. While the book is occasionally clever and sometimes humorous, the vast majority of this book is mostly just a hodgepodge of relativism only somewhat related to the art of management and leadership. In short, the content of the book leads the reader miles away from what might result from the title scenario.

   Morris falls short perhaps because he is simply a mediocre scholar of Aristotle, perhaps because he was a professor of philosophy at a Catholic university, or perhaps because he is simply just a below-average writer. Regardless, the author comes up lacking in both the style and substance of a book premise that could be truly great in more capable hands.

   As to style, the book is replete with anecdotes that sometimes illustrate points quite well and sometimes are clearly inserted only because the author had them at his disposal. Likewise, the book is peppered with quotations that interrupt the flow of the narrative and only rarely have anything more than a tangential relevance to the text surrounding it. One such quote, from the author himself, neatly summarizes my view of this production: "Obscurity is not a mark of profundity, however many confused writers have hoped to bully us into believing otherwise." How true, how true indeed: I wonder how many of his students felt the same way after one of his philosophy lectures.

   As to substance, the book is almost a complete loss. I say almost because, to be fair, Morris does come close to painting an Aristotelian view of life when he delves into the meaning of life. The author frames up his answer beautifully but then promptly undermines it in his attempts at clarification. To be more specific, Morris claims that the meaning of life is to be found in "creative love" (or, more accurately, in the love of creativity). While this sounds at first blush to be both logical and promising, not unlike the true motive power behind human innovation, Morris explains his surmise so ineptly that it becomes readily apparent to the reader that any proximity to the truth was merely an accident. Far from leading the reader closer to any meaningful answers, Morris abandons the audience as if in mid-thought, convincing them that his conclusions were as much the product of coincidence as of rational thought.

   This is just one example of the sort of philosophical inconsistency that exists throughout this book. In nearly every chapter, Morris makes sweeping, unsubstantiated statements and then proceeds as if these statements were self-evident truths. This might be passable if the author were able to consistently proceed from these sweeping statements in a logical progression. However, the reader frequently gets no more than one or two steps away from an assertion masquerading as immutable law when the author creates transparent straw man arguments to bolster his tenuous premises. Even if the reader can forgive (and accept as true) the first premise of the author's progression, the subsequent steps are so disorienting and fallacious that it is hard to move past them.

   Perhaps the most obvious example of this is how Morris routinely equates rational self-interest with intellectual myopia. For instance, in painting the entire philosophical landscape, he cites only three schools of thought: Nihilism, Relativism, and Absolutism. While he aptly defines the concepts of Nihilism and he readily betrays himself as a Relativist, he casts Absolutism as the province solely of religious zealots.

   Morris's emphatic use of the relativist's scale on which to measure thought is perhaps the fundamental flaw of his book. It is a small wonder that he finds no thematic consistency when he shows us a different yardstick for the measurement of each new topic. This changing standard sometimes becomes outright silly. For instance, on nearly a half dozen occasions, Morris attempts to weave coherent messages by juxtaposing concepts from the writings of Aristotle next to those of prominent theologians. The result of this sort of conceptual looseness is that better than half of the supposed insights delivered by the book turn out to be little more than fortune cookie proclamations-statements devoid of both context and independently verifiable meaning.

   All of this should be hardly surprising from someone who openly claims that any "unifying principle of philosophy is a dream." The question that remains for the reader, however, is: Why choose Aristotle if you believe philosophical unification is unachievable? Why co-opt the one Philosopher who may have come closest to philosophical unity than any other? Why not be honest with your readers? Why not entitle the book: If Dale Carnegie Ran General Motors? Even Plato or Immanuel Kant or William James would have been better choices, but that discussion is for another time.

   Like so many academic philosophers and modern business writers, Morris selects philosophical concepts based on their emotional appeal rather than with regard to any underlying consistency. This book, like virtually every business book on the market (with a few highly worthwhile exceptions) simply promotes the art we witness in greeting cards and long-distance phone commercials on television. From it, we get nothing more than the regurgitation of unthinking, it-takes-a-village drivel that characterizes so much of todays supposed non-fiction writing. Morris' entire effort seems to be very much like a Hollywood production-aiming to tug at heartstrings with nothing more substantive as a goal. In the end, that is all this book is equipped to do: provide us with a feeling...sadly, that feeling is simple, straightforward disappointment.




4. When you ask business people what they think about ethics and morality, they usually answer that these are important things in today's business environment. When you ask them what they REALLY think about ethics and morality, most of them don't want to answer you in any detail. A few will reply that morality is "idealistic" and that one must be "pragmatic" in everyday business practice. The belief that "morality is a topic to be debated after the bills are paid" seems to be the dominant belief in business (and other) circles.

   This book, brilliant in every way, attempts, and succeeds, in arguing that wisdom and its concrete manifestation in ethics, should be the cornerstone of business life. The author is a philosopher, and not a business owner, but with his insight into the dynamics of the marketplace and its optimization, his ideas are clearly thinking "out of the box". One can only hope that business leaders (and others) will discover the ideas in this book or some other like it. With today's headlines in corporate fraud and other scandals (some justified and some not), business people need to start believing in the efficacy of ethics in optimizing their business ventures.

   The preface to the book concerns "reinventing corporate spirit", the author drawing on the thoughts of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to set up the foundation for his arguments in the book. He recognizes correctly that it is ideas that fundamentally move the world.

   Throughout the book are many interesting insights into the psychology of business practices. When speaking of happiness for example, in relation to Aristotle's notion of eudaemonia, one of these is the recognition that money is frequently not the end goal for business people, the real goal being to achieve admiration in the eyes of others. The resulting ostentatious lifestyle is primarily done to impress, this being a transient and ultimately unsatisfying motivation in the eyes of the author.

   The book is divided up into four parts: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. Each of these stand for respectively, the intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and spirtual necessities for achieving true happiness.
   In "Truth" the discussion is interesting in that it emphasizes the importance of telling the truth not just from the standpoint of what it will do in relation to others, but what it will do for the individual involved. Telling a lie damages one's self confidence. Individuals who practice the telling of falsehoods are intimidated by truth and do not have any confidence in the efficacy of their own minds. In addition, the author discusses the importance of "open-book management": that the sharing of knowledge results in greater productivity among the employees. This is to be contrasted with the nervous attitude among some managers who feel threatened by information, again lacking self-confidence and are in a perpetual state of worry that the dissemination of knowledge among employees or co-workers will result in their comptetitive demise. These views on truth are most refreshing. "Lying is the most dangerously corrosive and subtly destabilizing activities to be found in human life" he says. He's right.

   Quoting the Hindu proverb "The true nobility is in being superior to your precious self", the author encourages the view of competition as being one in which individuals surpass their former abilities, instead of worrying about their status in relation to others. He's right.

   Even more important is that the author addresses the influence of philosophy in the development of ethical attitudes in business. Ethical relativism and nihilism have wreaked havoc in society as a whole, not just in business, and the author emphasizes the need for coming to grips with these beliefs, and replacing them with sound philosophical systems that are both rational and meshed with common sense. "Ideas rock the world" he states. He's right.

   Most refreshingly, the author does not shy away from addressing the issue of self-interest. Confronting the "What's in it for me?" question that is asked by some, he clearly believes that self-interest is not something to be swept under the rug in discussions on ethics and morality in business. "The view that ethics requires total personal disinterestedness is a dangerous distortion of the truly moral point of view", he states. He's right.

   Peer pressure and "going with the flow" are always issues that everyone has to deal with in the business environment. Not being labeled as a "team player" can be detrimental to one's growth in a particular organization. The author asks the reader to count the costs of conformity and not to "associate with evil men, lest you increase their number", quoting George Herbert. He's right.

   But ethics is not merely a collection of arbitrary rules to follow, the author argues. The right course of action is built into the nature of reality and meshes with human nature and human needs. Since this is the case, the practice of true ethical norms is not only productive, but pleasureful to the individual, and instead of causing boredom as some might believe, alleviates it, argues the author. He's right.

   Some might label, and the author does unashamedly, the framework outlined in the book as "spiritual". Goal-oriented, truth-valuing, truth-loving conduct results in a productive, life-loving spiritual individual, in complete antithesis to that of a sterile, non-creative, cynical one who views life as a burden with crosses to bear.

   Some of course might view this book, and one on ethics in general, as being "idealistic" or "naive". Such individuals may not wish to even pick it up, let alone read it. But individuals who practice these ideas, or ones very similar, haved moved the world, and will continue to do so.




5. 
   This book is neither about Aristotle nor General Motors. Do not be fooled into believing it is in any way an application of Aristotelian ethics in modern business; it is not. Morris consistently contradicts Aristotle throughout the book.
   
   An example is Morris' proselytizing conclusion that leadership requires humility. To make his point Morris quotes ancient Hasidic verse and the Tao Te Ching to establish that we are all worms. Nobility, Morris suggests, is lowness.
   
   Did Aristotle ever say this? No. Could Aristotelian writing lead us to these conclusions? No again. Is Taoism consistent with Aristotelian reason and logic? No, no, no. Is Hasidic verse? Definitely not. So what is going on? Did Morris forget to read Aristotle?
   
   Aristotle understood Man as a rational being with happiness as the moral purpose of his life. Morris does not. This book does not.
   
   Morris peppers his book with quotes at the furious rate of no less than one or two per page. He quotes every thing from fortune cookies to Einstein. Ironically with all this mad quoting he never once, ever, (I checked) quotes Aristotle - never.
   
   This book could better be titled, "If an irrational populist ran a non-profit organization."
   
   The prefaces of basic economic texts usually contain better discussions of the practical intersection of business and philosophy.

5 comments about Leave the Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro Shows You How to Do More in Less Time...and Feel Great About It.

1. I recommend this book for anyone who has lost the big picture of their life and where work fits into it. I have been very dissatified with work as of late. I feel like I work hard, I am there for long hours, but have not been as productive as others. Working through the exercises in the book has helped me more then I could have imagined! You have to do the work sheets. It is not a book to just skim through. As a result my goals are more streamline and priorites adjusted and as a result I get out of work earlier. I was spending time doings tasks that I felt were important but in reality were not. I just bought two more for my partners. Note I beleive this is very helpful for women, in particular, who spread themselves too thin and do too much multi-tasking. Women see all the little things at work that need done, do not necessarily delegate, and do those little things that others may not even notice. All of which in the end only waste time. I believe it is good for those work-a-holics who think they need to stay. On your death bed you will not say to yourself I should have spent more time at the office. Thank You. Nicole Bunch



2. I found this book so useful, and it has certainly influenced my productivity. She had a lot of great, practical advice, written in an easy to use form. I would reccommend this book to anyone who needs to become more productive at work, and even at home. She has practical advice for home as well as work. It was worth my time to read this book (and I consider my time very valuable).



3. Ever watch all your co-workers leaving on time while you stay and work into the night? Today, so many office workers are burning the late-night oil, especially office managers. Laura suggests, rightfully so, that this can be completely eliminated by staying focused on completing tasks during the day. Her tips for managing tasks and time are to the point, practical, and, most importantly, easy to remember and easy to implement. Laura has provided numerous articles for OfficeOurs magazine, all of which have been very popular with our office manager and office worker readers. There is good reason she is in such demand as a speaker and we are looking forward to her keynote presentation at our annual office manager conference and her future articles and books.



4. This is the best book I have read on the time management.
   It covers not only the principles, but also the guidelines you can follow to improve your productivity.



5. I bought this book while juggling a difficult job which required more time at work and on the road than I anticipated. There were many good ideas for organization which were easy to put into practice. It helped me to put some living back into my life. Although a person can read it cover to cover, information can be gleaned at random when only a few minutes are available.
   
   I have also loaned this book to other struggling young mothers and it has been interesting to see how they have chosen different tactics to improve their quality of life.

1 comments about Kiss, Bow, Or Shakes Hands, Latin America: How to Do Business in 18 Latin American Countries (Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands).

1. I bought this for my daughter who does a lot of business travel. She never leaves home without it. Valuable resource for business travelers doing business in Latin America.

5 comments about Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy.

1. This book left me with a double feeling. Happiness, about being able to read about ancient wisdom and the sense it all made. Sadness, not being able to apply all knowledge in our era.
   
   As Sun Tzu's Art of War was written even more abstract than this book, I found it easier to convert its knowledge into practice. As this book is more focussed on the inner-self of a human being, I strongly recommend you first read some Zen books before digging in on this one. Then I would recommend Zen Mind, Beginners Mind.
   
   The knowledge of this book is definitly four-star material, but this translation into English misses out on some key points. Excellent to read, but don't expect any miracles without years of dedicated training.



2. Musashi, like every great warrior, knew that strategy was as important as tactics and techniques in combat. This book will teach you things that were learned in combat and will enhance your survival potential on the battlefield, street and life.
   
   It is not the easiest book to interpret and understand, but that hardly matters, as for the information in this book is worth your time and effort. One good book is worth a hundred crummy ones, and this book is one outstanding book. This book is divided into various distinct sections, and the serious and professional warrior should extract as much information as possible from each section. Every time I pick this book up I learn something new. This is the warrior's bible.
   
   I highly recommend this book to all readers.



3. It's a good translation of the book of Five Rings. Although, I haven't read the original, and I can't read Japanese so I don't know if this is a correct translation or not. but, it makes sense, and it's not in Engrish like some other translated books...



4. Being able to focus successfully is a key to creating business empires; Musashi's book is packed with insights that all of us who are entrepreneurs and executives can learn from. It is the tactical equivalent of Sun Tzu's strategic wisdom in The Art of War; both are immensely powerful.
   
   -k



5. An old martial treatise that is more philosophical than one might expect. There are very few how-to sections of the work, but the very ambiguity of many passages allow deep inspection. The author of the second work translated here, Munenori, in fact reminds the reader - constantly - that everything written herein required careful consideration, practice, and reflection. As a glimpse into the warrior ethos of martial culture from 17th-century Japan, both are valuable books. The reader would most likely find this book even more rewarding after reading similarly-themed books from the near geographical area, such as Sun-tzu's "Art of War," or even the "Tao Te Ching."

5 comments about Power of An Hour: Business and Life Mastery in One Hour A Week.

1. An Hour! Just one short HOUR! What can the Author Dave Lakhani teach me to do in one hour?
   
   Dave teaches you that your whole life, you very being and your futures can all be determined within how you spend a single hour. When was the last time you sat down, emptied you head of daily rubbish and focus on a task for the solid hour? No interruptions, no requests for coffee, no can you do this for me? I read the book and was astounded about just how much time I give up to help others who should know how to help themselves and all at the determent of my own success.
   
   FEARSOME FOCUS: Remember this term as this book will coin the term and i can be sure that other books, companies and tv programs will start to use the phrase. It's an awesome book and my hat goes off to Dave and the work he has produced. Superb!
   
   Gary May
   Author: SELLING: Powerful New Strategies for Sales Success
   www.garymay.co.uk



2. A must book if you are serious about your productivity. You should seriously consider implementing the authors suggestions into your daily routine.
   
   Andrew Radford
   
   - Author of 'The Radford Luck'
   
   The Radford Luck: Earning Power doesn't need luck, it needs...



3. I've taught time management and organization for years and always had the challenge of getting people to understand what is behind or below all the tools. Dave has hit it on the nose!
   
   It's not about having organizational tools. It's about focusing your mind and heart! Dave does a great job of helping you see it and how to do it!



4. Intense writing, with a perfect blueprint for making a better life.Helped me FINALLY get organized!!! One of the best books on this subject, and written from a different perspective (that of just using an hour a day to get there)....that makes sense to the truly busy person!!!



5. This is for sure an easy read very suitable for business executives who long for improvement amidst their busy work life. Apparently the 23 chapters (with great summaries and questions in each of them) which can be read independently are real quick fixes. The problem is: Self improvement always comes with change, which is very difficult unless readers already own the mindset or the urge to confront their own psychological blockades and to take action. The author had definitely provided the tools, but not the fuel nor the inspirations. If you seldom read self improvement books at all and you want to learn acquire some tools, this is helpful. If you had already read more than three, please give this a pass.
   
   p.s. Below please find some of my favorite passages for your reference.
   
   45 minutes are spent in Fearsome Focus and 15 minutes are spent at the end of the hour doing necessary nonfocus activities like returning e-mail......You must be ruthless in following the 45/15 rule. pg 7
   
   By asking yourself to frame your answers in someone else's voice and ideology you'll come up with new ideas. Are you channelling Einstein? Of course not; you are simply giving your brain permission to work outside the normal set of boundaries and structures that you use to keep it reigned in. pg 31
   
   It is imperative that you identify the energy thieves early and either exorcise them from your life or, at minimum, control their impact by giving them only limited access. pg 64
   
   Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. Japanese proverb. pg 99
   
   First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. - Epictetus pg 101
   
   There is only one success - to spend your lfie in your own way. - Christopher Morley pg 103