bookpagedev

FictionWorld Fiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

n October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik I, into space. It orbited the earth for three months before re-entering the atmosphere and burning up. Widely regarded in the West as a military threat, Sputnik I simply sent a static-laden signal back to earth, each beep heralding the dawn of the space race that would dictate East-West relations for two decades.

Half a lifetime later, Haruki Murakami brings us Sputnik Sweetheart, a wise, sad and loving look at how we are each satellites in sometimes decaying orbit around one another. Three characters dominate the book: the unnamed male author, a grade-school teacher in modern day Japan; Sumire, the object of his unrequited affection, a free-spirited post-beatnik he has known since his college days; and Miu, a glamorous and successful businesswoman who has rather unexpectedly captured Sumire’s heart. “Sumire sighed, gazed up at the ceiling for a while, and lit her cigarette. It’s pretty strange if you think about it, she thought. Here I am in love for the first time in my life, at age twenty-two. And the other person just happens to be a woman.” When Miu invites her new protŽgŽ to accompany her on a whirlwind business trip to Europe, Sumire happily agrees. On an unnamed Greek Island off the coast of Turkey (Lesbos?), however, things go horribly awry. The teacher awakens to a frantic phone call from Miu summoning him to Greece in search of Sumire, who has gone missing in the wake of a cataclysmic evening. The teacher establishes a tenuous yet intimate bond with Miu as they ransack the beach cottage for clues. Bit by excruciating bit, pieces of Sumire’s last days float to the surface as the police and her loved ones try to make sense of her disappearance. In Sputnik Sweetheart, his seventh novel translated into English, Murakami again displays the minimalist craftsmanship that has made him a critic’s darling both in Asia and the West. Perhaps better than any contemporary writer, he captures and lays bare the raw human emotion of longing.

An interesting factoid picked up in the reading: the ominous Sputnik, which held the world in paranoid thrall for months, was about the size of a beach ball.

Bruce Tierney is a Nashville-based writer.

n October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik I, into space. It orbited the earth for three months before re-entering the atmosphere and burning up. Widely regarded in the West as a military threat, Sputnik I simply sent a static-laden…
Business & Finance

Briefly noted

Review by bookpagedev

In The Great American Tax Dodge (Little, Brown, $22.95, ISBN 0316811351), Time Inc. senior writers Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele take on the inequities and iniquities of the American tax system. In the tradition of firebrand financial populism exemplified by William Greider’s Who Will Tell the People?, they expose the loopholes that allow thousands of people with six-figure incomes to pay no income tax at all, as well as the fact that millions don’t even file returns.

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management (Random House, $26.95, ISBN 037550317X), by Roger Lowenstein, narrates the inside-the-boardroom drama of the 1998 collapse of a hedge fund whose failure threatened to plunge the world’s financial system into chaos. Lowenstein not only explains the excruciatingly complex dealings of the fund in clear layman’s prose, he also spins a gripping and minutely detailed tale of the torturous negotiations among Wall Street titans and the Federal Reserve that led to a bailout involving $3.6 billion in private funding.

Howard Kurtz, dean of U.S. press critics, unmasks Wall Street’s hype machine in The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street’s Fame of Money, Media, and Manipulation (Free Press, $26, ISBN 0684868792). The role of financial media outlets like CNBC in whipping up the stock-trading frenzies of recent years was ripe for scrutiny, and Kurtz lays bare the log-rolling dynamics of a new media industry that needs overblown stock stories as badly as stock promoters do.

Journalist and entrepreneur E. Thomas Wood is working with author John Egerton on a book about Nashville.

In The Great American Tax Dodge (Little, Brown, $22.95, ISBN 0316811351), Time Inc. senior writers Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele take on the inequities and iniquities of the American tax system. In the tradition of firebrand financial populism exemplified by William Greider's…

Fiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

magine if you and your nearest neighbors had chalkboards hanging outside your homes and rather than communicating by talking, you wrote messages to each other on these boards. While the medium might be somewhat limiting, curtailing “dialogue” to brief missives, it might prove liberating in other ways. Without having to risk a face-to-face confrontation, or the entanglement of a protracted conversation, people might feel free to speak their minds, airing issues perhaps as openly as in the traditional chat over a cup of coffee or as curtly as the rigid warning sign, “Beware of Dog.” Melinda Haynes uses this peculiar, yet intriguing premise to create an isolated and bizarre setting for her riveting new novel, Chalktown. The mysterious aura of Chalktown beckons Hezekiah Sheehand, a 16-year-old boy who literally and figuratively has “the weight of the world on his shoulders.” One day he cuts school, bundles his mentally and physically disabled little brother, Yellababy, on his back, and heads out to visit this curious, small village.

From this simple beginning, Haynes weaves a provocative tale that intertwines the lives of her numerous characters, each struggling toward some measure of peace and self-respect. Before Hezekiah even sets out for Chalktown, we are introduced to Susan Blair, his abusive mother, who fills their shabby home with other people’s cast-off clothing to sell on consignment, and Marion Calhoun, the Sheehand’s black neighbor who is treated with derision by his white neighbors. As Hezekiah makes his way to Chalktown, the plot and list of characters expands like ripples from a stone thrown in a lake, but Haynes masterfully reins the ripples in, tying diverse elements like love and murder, racism and romance, kindness and cruelty into a cohesive, fascinating tale of hope and redemption.

Readers who reveled in the artistry of Hayne’s debut novel, Mother of Pearl (a highly acclaimed, New York Times bestseller and Oprah book club selection) will be no less impressed with Chalktown, a stunning second book which reaffirms Haynes’ stature as a gifted writer and incredible storyteller. If I had a chalkboard outside my home and my neighbors were anxiously awaiting my words of wisdom regarding Haynes’ latest book, I would simply go outside, pick up my chalk and write, “Wow!” Linda Stankard writes from Cookeville, Tennessee.

magine if you and your nearest neighbors had chalkboards hanging outside your homes and rather than communicating by talking, you wrote messages to each other on these boards. While the medium might be somewhat limiting, curtailing "dialogue" to brief missives, it might prove liberating in…
Business & Finance

Advice on navigating the new financial terrain

Review by bookpagedev

Individual investors face a whole new set of challenges in today’s markets. An understanding of p/e ratios and balance sheets is no longer sufficient in the dot.com world, where stock prices sometimes bear little relationship to old-fashioned concepts like sales and profits. Whether you’re a neophyte in the financial world or a more accomplished investor, several new books offer help on negotiating this new territory. Here are four of the best: Investing 101 (Bloomberg, $14.95, ISBN 1576600440) by Kathy Kristof is a reader friendly introduction to the basics of investing and personal finance. Kristof leads investors through assessing a starting point, determining their adversity to risk, building an emergency fund, and determining how to save for such big ticket items as a car or a house and for such long term goals as retirement or a child’s college education. Kristof educates the reader on fundamentals like diversification and assessment of how different investments fit into their goals. One of the best features of the book is a chapter on picking individual stocks. Kristof teaches the reader how to read a financial statement and make some basic calculations to determine whether or not to buy or sell a stock. If I had to suggest a book on investing and personal finance to an absolute beginner, it would be Investing 101.

Victoria Collins combines a doctorate in psychology with years of experience as a financial planner to examine the impact of the Internet on investing and financial markets in Invest Beyond.com: A New Look at Investing in Today’s Changing Markets (Dearborn, $18.95, ISBN 0793138175). Collins explains many basic issues ranging from what the Dow Jones Industrial average is and how it is compiled to what a p/e ratio is and how it is useful to an investor. Collins also tells the reader where to get information and how to establish a relationship with a financial advisor. She examines how markets have changed and why the investment philosophies of such Wall Street gurus as Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, and George Soros may or may not be applicable in the new Internet-influenced market. Invest Beyond.com is not only a very helpful tool for those interested in making sense of investing since the advent of the Internet, it can serve as an extremely valuable reference for the beginning investor as well.

Former Motley Fool columnist Robert Sheard defines financial independence not as the date when one retires, but the point at which a person has the ability to live indefinitely on the growth of an investment portfolio. In Money For Life: The 20 Factor Plan for Accumulating Wealth While You’re Young (Harper- Business, $25, ISBN 0066620430), Sheard directs the reader to determine how big a portfolio must be for an investor to live on its growth. He then shows what steps to take to reach that financial goal. Sheard’s final step is to teach the reader how to manage a portfolio once the financial goal is reached. Sheard advocates what he calls a "charitable foundation" approach to personal investing. Money for Life is written in a straightforward manner well suited for readers who are beginning to take hold of their financial life, as well as the more experienced person who wants to learn how to maintain his or her finances.

The days when a woman could rely on the man in her life to manage financial decisions are long past. To guide women on how to take hold of their financial futures, personal finance expert Marsha Bertran has written A Woman’s Guide to Savvy Investing: Everything You Need to Know to Protect Your Future (AMACOM, $16.95, ISBN 0814470998). Newly released in paperback this month, this book is an excellent guide for women who want to learn about investing. In this age, investing to most people means mainly stocks and bonds, but Bertrand examines various investment approaches, including buying stocks with puts, calls, shorts, and margins, real estate investment trusts, unit investment trusts, and initial public offerings. One of the best features of the book is that Bertrand holds the reader’s hand as she explains and then demonstrates how to run the numbers on an investment to calculate ratios, gains and losses, investment returns, and income tax ramifications. She also explains where to find public investor information, how to read annual reports, select a broker, and start an investment club. A Woman’s Guide to Savvy Investing is an excellent resource for any man or woman interested in improving their investing skills.

Jeff Morris is CPA in Nashville and has worked with investments and personal finance since 1992.

Individual investors face a whole new set of challenges in today's markets. An understanding of p/e ratios and balance sheets is no longer sufficient in the dot.com world, where stock prices sometimes bear little relationship to old-fashioned concepts like sales and profits. Whether you're…

Food & Drink

Review

Review by bookpagedev

BETWEEN THE WINES Hugh Johnson’s pretty mini-coffee table book, Tuscany and Its Wines is purely an excuse to daydream over Andy Katz’s chiaroscuro-edged photographs of that lovely region. Castles, churches, vineyards, grapes, hearths, mists, and monasteries you’re unlikely to dawdle long over the text, but if you’ve ever visited the region, or longed to, you’ll nod along with his every compliment.

This is not a wine book in the usual sense: There isn’t much in the way of description or even label definitions, though there are tributes to the ancient palaces and vineyards of the older families. This is an elaborate postcard collection, with a bit of history about varietals and a few palate-sharpening whiffs of wild mushroom and artichokes and olives. But as a gift book, an invitation or a personal indulgence, it practically demands a drinking partner, and a rich, earthy, dreamy one, at that.

Because the American distribution of Tuscan wines is so uneven, we offer a short course in our favorite styles instead of listing a specific wine.

In recent years, the big push in Italian wines has been for the so-called Super Tuscans, a term that refers to blends of Sangiovese given depth, a little steel, and stamina by the addition of Merlot and dashes of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon or Franc. Super Tuscans offer lots of body and fruit without lengthy aging five or six-year-old vintages are ripe and rewarding, although some, particularly the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, can take another year or so and more often play up the sunny Sienna tones (berries, aromatic woods) rather than the shadows (mushroom, burnt sugar).

The Mondavi-Frescobaldi collaborations, the more expensive Luce (a reference not to that painterly Tuscan light but to the brilliant color of the Sangiovese wines) and the slightly more reticent Lucente, have helped lift the profile of Super Tuscans in American, just as the Mondavi-Mouton Rothschild collaboration, Opus One, sparked a new interest in meritage wines in California. Luce, like many of the Super Tuscans, is fairly expensive, around $50, but the blend of Brunello (the Sangiovese clone dominant in Montalcino) and Merlot is sumptuous and luxuriantly aromatic, worth saving for a special occasion.

The Tignanello wines from the ancient house of Antinori are similarly priced, but even more impressive, especially the older ones (buy now, put down). Unusually long and strong, they have layers of chocolate, cassis, cedar, and tobacco, and in some vintages even allspice and vanilla. Antinori makes several Chianti Classicos, ranging from as little as $10 or $11 to $38 or $40, that frequently show more spice and anise at the lower end, and grow up gracefully.

Montepulciano is a narrow, clay-colored town high on a ridge Henry James likened it to a ship riding the hill, and if the James doesn’t make you want to drink deep, you shouldn’t be reading this column best known for its Vino Nobile (named not for its pretensions but for its aristocratic admirers).

Five centuries back, Pope Paul III’s sommelier was calling the region’s wines “absolutely perfect,” and while it’s hard to gauge the competition, it has a nice sort of blessing to it.

Like Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is a big and somewhat pricey Sangiovese made there from a clone called Prugnolo Gentile. But the lesser designation, Rosso di Montepulciano, often made by the same winemakers, is less expensive, aged only a year or so and thus lighter, with softer tannins and a bit fruitier, which many people like. Antinori also makes both a Vino Nobile and a Rosso, via its La Braccesca label; and the Folonaris of Ruffino own a label called Lodola Nuova.

And if you stumble on the Danzante Sangiovese, grab it: It’s a bright, accessible $10 table offshoot of the Mondavi-Frescobaldi merger.

Eve Zibart is a restaurant critic for the Washington Post.

BETWEEN THE WINES Hugh Johnson's pretty mini-coffee table book, Tuscany and Its Wines is purely an excuse to daydream over Andy Katz's chiaroscuro-edged photographs of that lovely region. Castles, churches, vineyards, grapes, hearths, mists, and monasteries you're unlikely to dawdle long over the text, but…

Technology

On the road again

Review by bookpagedev

Travel just isn’t what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior’s life is one hassle after another. It doesn’t have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business travelers. At last, someone has written a quick, sensible book of lists, reminders and advice for the occasional traveler, seasoned pro or neophyte. Organize Your Business Travel: Simple Routines for Managing Your Work When You’re Out of the Office by Ronni Eisenberg with Kate Kelly is a compact solution to many of the dilemmas, questions and organizational conundrums the confused business traveler encounters every time he steps out of the office.

Travel is a major headache for many professionals these days, but in the global corporate environment, it’s a necessary part of doing business. And for a successful trip, being organized is the best preparation. From who’s watching the kids to what kind of luggage works best for toting that new business casual wardrobe, organizing travel takes mental preparation. Organize Your Business Travel addresses an amazing number of these issues with rapid ease. It even covers car travel and how to organize your business life in an automobile.

Eisenberg has thought of everything. I tucked this book under my arm on a recent trip, and from mail management to childcare, I conquered the major obstacles keeping me from getting to my plane on time. With her encouragement I took a long, hard look at my travel gear and bought a new briefcase. Even my luggage was repacked with some practical advice from Eisenberg. I reassessed my need and understanding of the Palm Pilot and learned how to use one. If I can change my ways, anyone can. Organize Your Business Travel makes a great travel companion for consultants, or anyone else who travels frequently, for business or pleasure.

Down time is a major impediment to business travel. Airport delays, layovers and unscheduled time between appointments eat up productive work time. A new audiobook, Extreme Management: What They Teach at Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program by Mark Stevens provides an excellent alternative to wasted minutes. The audio outlines the key components of Harvard Business School’s elite Advanced Management Program (AMP), a nine-week course whose alums include CEOs and CFOs of many Fortune 500 companies. At its heart, Extreme Management is about excellence in leadership, uncovering financial and strategic tactics of the world’s best companies in amusing and informative anecdotal stories and interviews with AMP alums.

Stevens, president of a global marketing firm and author of several books on financial figures of the ’80s and ’90s, identifies the lessons and insights that faculty and students of the AMP found most compelling and sets out to condense what is ordinarily a nine-week, $44,000 regimen into a crash course that can be absorbed in the space of an airplane flight. The two-tape audio provides a simplified but not bare bones outline of the book and an easy way to pass travel time. While AMP raises mid-level managers to elite status, Extreme Management prompts the average business traveler to re-evaluate the office status quo. That’s hitting two birds downtime and leadership with one stone.

Speaking of travel-friendly business reading, The Power of Six Sigma: An Inspiring Tale of How Six Sigma Is Transforming the Way We Work by Subir Chowdhury is a quick book, easily finished on one airplane flight, that explains in a fictional format the principles behind the business initiative, Six Sigma.

For the uninitiated, Six Sigma is the latest fad in management strategy. Embraced by Allied Signal, GE and other major corporations, Six Sigma is a top-down approach used to develop quality in products, empower employees and fatten the corporate bottom line. The focus, experts say, is to eliminate waste, mistakes and inevitable rework by following a scientific structure to achieve results. Following on the heels of ISO 9000 initiatives and Total Quality Management, many are skeptical of Six Sigma’s charms.

The Power of Six Sigma is an antidote to the skepticism. Chowdhury explains in simple, interesting fashion the basic principles behind the initiative. Anyone who wonders why businesses don’t seem to respond to what customers want should read this intriguing little book, and as always, anyone in business should understand the latest management initiatives. Improvement is the name of the game in any business, and Six Sigma is another way to approach the game of business and win at it.

Have time in the airport to sink your teeth into something a little meatier? e-Volve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow by Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is a witty, intelligent look at the business culture created by emerging Internet companies and the resulting changes in the playing field for traditional businesses and other digital wannabes. Smart, clever and right on target, e-Volve is a valuable look at the coming age in the workplace.

When you open this book and see the song Kanter wrote to celebrate the e-volution, you may check the book jacket (as I did) to make sure this is a Harvard Business School title. But Evolve! The Song illustrates one main corollary of this tale.

Why are you so silent, has the cat got your tongue? Tech talk is what the older folks can learn from the young.

But the Net generation must absorb from the past, enduring values of service, how to build things that last. Yes, this is a big book to carry in your briefcase, but an excellent place to visit and revisit the trends of the New Economy and the cultural changes that economy has wrought. Often a flight is the only chance to catch up on reading and thinking about new ideas and business trends. The next time your airline announces Flight 207 has been delayed for an hour while we track down our flight crew, don’t get angry . . . look at it as an opportunity to expand your horizons.

Briefly noted The Thing in the Bushes: Turning Organizational Blind Spots into Competitive Advantage by Kevin Graham Ford and James P. Osterhaus. The thing in the bushes is a metaphor for core personnel problems that undermine the strategic advantage of great companies. Ford and Osterhaus, a consultant and a psychologist respectively, develop relational principles that help firms hunt down and destroy the thing. Even if your business doesn’t have a lurking bogeyman, The Thing is an interesting study in organizational behavior and its consequences for developing strategic plans.

Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty by Paul R. Timm, Ph.D. A lot of companies flirt but never get married to customer service, says Timm. These days one of the main thrusts of Six Sigma initiatives is to provide customer-focused improvements in quality and service. Seven Power Strategies fills in the missing blanks with a seven-step employee empowerment process that helps build customer retention. Timm provides evaluation exercises and short, pointed stories to teach customer strategy step-by-step and gives the impetus for companies to walk down that wedding aisle.

Sharon Secor is a Nashville-based business writer.

 

Travel just isn't what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior's life is one hassle after another. It doesn't have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business…

Technology

Review

Review by bookpagedev

n the road again Travel just isn’t what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior’s life is one hassle after another. It doesn’t have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business travelers. At last, someone has written a quick, sensible book of lists, reminders and advice for the occasional traveler, seasoned pro or neophyte. Organize Your Business Travel: Simple Routines for Managing Your Work When You’re Out of the Office by Ronni Eisenberg with Kate Kelly is a compact solution to many of the dilemmas, questions and organizational conundrums the confused business traveler encounters every time he steps out of the office.

Travel is a major headache for many professionals these days, but in the global corporate environment, it’s a necessary part of doing business. And for a successful trip, being organized is the best preparation. From who’s watching the kids to what kind of luggage works best for toting that new business casual wardrobe, organizing travel takes mental preparation. Organize Your Business Travel addresses an amazing number of these issues with rapid ease. It even covers car travel and how to organize your business life in an automobile.

Eisenberg has thought of everything. I tucked this book under my arm on a recent trip, and from mail management to childcare, I conquered the major obstacles keeping me from getting to my plane on time. With her encouragement I took a long, hard look at my travel gear and bought a new briefcase. Even my luggage was repacked with some practical advice from Eisenberg. I reassessed my need and understanding of the Palm Pilot and learned how to use one. If I can change my ways, anyone can. Organize Your Business Travel makes a great travel companion for consultants, or anyone else who travels frequently, for business or pleasure.

Down time is a major impediment to business travel. Airport delays, layovers and unscheduled time between appointments eat up productive work time. A new audiobook, Extreme Management: What They Teach at Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program by Mark Stevens provides an excellent alternative to wasted minutes. The audio outlines the key components of Harvard Business School’s elite Advanced Management Program (AMP), a nine-week course whose alums include CEOs and CFOs of many Fortune 500 companies. At its heart, Extreme Management is about excellence in leadership, uncovering financial and strategic tactics of the world’s best companies in amusing and informative anecdotal stories and interviews with AMP alums.

Stevens, president of a global marketing firm and author of several books on financial figures of the ’80s and ’90s, identifies the lessons and insights that faculty and students of the AMP found most compelling and sets out to condense what is ordinarily a nine-week, $44,000 regimen into a crash course that can be absorbed in the space of an airplane flight. The two-tape audio provides a simplified but not bare bones outline of the book and an easy way to pass travel time. While AMP raises mid-level managers to elite status, Extreme Management prompts the average business traveler to re-evaluate the office status quo. That’s hitting two birds downtime and leadership with one stone.

Speaking of travel-friendly business reading, The Power of Six Sigma: An Inspiring Tale of How Six Sigma Is Transforming the Way We Work by Subir Chowdhury is a quick book, easily finished on one airplane flight, that explains in a fictional format the principles behind the business initiative, Six Sigma.

For the uninitiated, Six Sigma is the latest fad in management strategy. Embraced by Allied Signal, GE and other major corporations, Six Sigma is a top-down approach used to develop quality in products, empower employees and fatten the corporate bottom line. The focus, experts say, is to eliminate waste, mistakes and inevitable rework by following a scientific structure to achieve results. Following on the heels of ISO 9000 initiatives and Total Quality Management, many are skeptical of Six Sigma’s charms.

The Power of Six Sigma is an antidote to the skepticism. Chowdhury explains in simple, interesting fashion the basic principles behind the initiative. Anyone who wonders why businesses don’t seem to respond to what customers want should read this intriguing little book, and as always, anyone in business should understand the latest management initiatives. Improvement is the name of the game in any business, and Six Sigma is another way to approach the game of business and win at it.

Have time in the airport to sink your teeth into something a little meatier? e-Volve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow by Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is a witty, intelligent look at the business culture created by emerging Internet companies and the resulting changes in the playing field for traditional businesses and other digital wannabes. Smart, clever and right on target, e-Volve is a valuable look at the coming age in the workplace.

When you open this book and see the song Kanter wrote to celebrate the e-volution, you may check the book jacket (as I did) to make sure this is a Harvard Business School title. But Evolve! The Song illustrates one main corollary of this tale.

Why are you so silent, has the cat got your tongue? Tech talk is what the older folks can learn from the young.

But the Net generation must absorb from the past, enduring values of service, how to build things that last. Yes, this is a big book to carry in your briefcase, but an excellent place to visit and revisit the trends of the New Economy and the cultural changes that economy has wrought. Often a flight is the only chance to catch up on reading and thinking about new ideas and business trends. The next time your airline announces Flight 207 has been delayed for an hour while we track down our flight crew, don’t get angry . . . look at it as an opportunity to expand your horizons.

Briefly noted The Thing in the Bushes: Turning Organizational Blind Spots into Competitive Advantage by Kevin Graham Ford and James P. Osterhaus. The thing in the bushes is a metaphor for core personnel problems that undermine the strategic advantage of great companies. Ford and Osterhaus, a consultant and a psychologist respectively, develop relational principles that help firms hunt down and destroy the thing. Even if your business doesn’t have a lurking bogeyman, The Thing is an interesting study in organizational behavior and its consequences for developing strategic plans.

Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty by Paul R. Timm, Ph.

D. A lot of companies flirt but never get married to customer service, says Timm. These days one of the main thrusts of Six Sigma initiatives is to provide customer-focused improvements in quality and service. Seven Power Strategies fills in the missing blanks with a seven-step employee empowerment process that helps build customer retention. Timm provides evaluation exercises and short, pointed stories to teach customer strategy step-by-step and gives the impetus for companies to walk down that wedding aisle.

Sharon Secor is a Nashville-based business writer.

n the road again Travel just isn't what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior's life is one hassle after another. It doesn't have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road…
Business & Finance

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Cents-able advice for teenagers Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re too young to make money, say two new books for budding teenage millionaires. How to be a Teenage Millionaire offers the young entrepreneur advice on business ideas, start-up funding, even advertising strategies for kids whose marketable ideas can’t wait until after college. StreetWise: A Guide for Teen Investors says kids can invest the money they make. It teaches teens how to pick stocks, handle the ups and downs of the market, covers tax concerns, and even pitches Wall Street careers teenagers might want to tackle someday. For parents who worry these books will turn their kids into money-hungry land sharks, don’t sweat. While both books offer sound small business and investing advice, the real power of these books is to build money-making and spending confidence for teens who may feel they have no monetary power. Teenage Millionaire says babysitting is a surprisingly effective way to earn income and build a business. StreetWise makes age-old investing advice on compound interest sound appealing. Far from luring your teenager with the promise of glittering riches, these books teach teens to earn and save their money. After reading them, teens might be willing to share their newfound financial wisdom with the rest of the family even their parents.

Cents-able advice for teenagers Don't let anyone tell you that you're too young to make money, say two new books for budding teenage millionaires. How to be a Teenage Millionaire offers the young entrepreneur advice on business ideas, start-up funding, even advertising strategies for kids…

On the road again

Review by bookpagedev

Travel just isn’t what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior’s life is one hassle after another. It doesn’t have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business travelers. At last, someone has written a quick, sensible book of lists, reminders and advice for the occasional traveler, seasoned pro or neophyte. Organize Your Business Travel: Simple Routines for Managing Your Work When You’re Out of the Office by Ronni Eisenberg with Kate Kelly is a compact solution to many of the dilemmas, questions and organizational conundrums the confused business traveler encounters every time he steps out of the office.

Travel is a major headache for many professionals these days, but in the global corporate environment, it’s a necessary part of doing business. And for a successful trip, being organized is the best preparation. From who’s watching the kids to what kind of luggage works best for toting that new business casual wardrobe, organizing travel takes mental preparation. Organize Your Business Travel addresses an amazing number of these issues with rapid ease. It even covers car travel and how to organize your business life in an automobile.

Eisenberg has thought of everything. I tucked this book under my arm on a recent trip, and from mail management to childcare, I conquered the major obstacles keeping me from getting to my plane on time. With her encouragement I took a long, hard look at my travel gear and bought a new briefcase. Even my luggage was repacked with some practical advice from Eisenberg. I reassessed my need and understanding of the Palm Pilot and learned how to use one. If I can change my ways, anyone can. Organize Your Business Travel makes a great travel companion for consultants, or anyone else who travels frequently, for business or pleasure.

Down time is a major impediment to business travel. Airport delays, layovers and unscheduled time between appointments eat up productive work time. A new audiobook, Extreme Management: What They Teach at Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program by Mark Stevens provides an excellent alternative to wasted minutes. The audio outlines the key components of Harvard Business School’s elite Advanced Management Program (AMP), a nine-week course whose alums include CEOs and CFOs of many Fortune 500 companies. At its heart, Extreme Management is about excellence in leadership, uncovering financial and strategic tactics of the world’s best companies in amusing and informative anecdotal stories and interviews with AMP alums.

Stevens, president of a global marketing firm and author of several books on financial figures of the ’80s and ’90s, identifies the lessons and insights that faculty and students of the AMP found most compelling and sets out to condense what is ordinarily a nine-week, $44,000 regimen into a crash course that can be absorbed in the space of an airplane flight. The two-tape audio provides a simplified but not bare bones outline of the book and an easy way to pass travel time. While AMP raises mid-level managers to elite status, Extreme Management prompts the average business traveler to re-evaluate the office status quo. That’s hitting two birds downtime and leadership with one stone.

Speaking of travel-friendly business reading, The Power of Six Sigma: An Inspiring Tale of How Six Sigma Is Transforming the Way We Work by Subir Chowdhury is a quick book, easily finished on one airplane flight, that explains in a fictional format the principles behind the business initiative, Six Sigma.

For the uninitiated, Six Sigma is the latest fad in management strategy. Embraced by Allied Signal, GE and other major corporations, Six Sigma is a top-down approach used to develop quality in products, empower employees and fatten the corporate bottom line. The focus, experts say, is to eliminate waste, mistakes and inevitable rework by following a scientific structure to achieve results. Following on the heels of ISO 9000 initiatives and Total Quality Management, many are skeptical of Six Sigma’s charms.

The Power of Six Sigma is an antidote to the skepticism. Chowdhury explains in simple, interesting fashion the basic principles behind the initiative. Anyone who wonders why businesses don’t seem to respond to what customers want should read this intriguing little book, and as always, anyone in business should understand the latest management initiatives. Improvement is the name of the game in any business, and Six Sigma is another way to approach the game of business and win at it.

Have time in the airport to sink your teeth into something a little meatier? e-Volve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow by Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is a witty, intelligent look at the business culture created by emerging Internet companies and the resulting changes in the playing field for traditional businesses and other digital wannabes. Smart, clever and right on target, e-Volve is a valuable look at the coming age in the workplace.

When you open this book and see the song Kanter wrote to celebrate the e-volution, you may check the book jacket (as I did) to make sure this is a Harvard Business School title. But Evolve! The Song illustrates one main corollary of this tale.

Why are you so silent, has the cat got your tongue? Tech talk is what the older folks can learn from the young.

But the Net generation must absorb from the past, enduring values of service, how to build things that last. Yes, this is a big book to carry in your briefcase, but an excellent place to visit and revisit the trends of the New Economy and the cultural changes that economy has wrought. Often a flight is the only chance to catch up on reading and thinking about new ideas and business trends. The next time your airline announces Flight 207 has been delayed for an hour while we track down our flight crew, don’t get angry . . . look at it as an opportunity to expand your horizons.

Briefly noted The Thing in the Bushes: Turning Organizational Blind Spots into Competitive Advantage by Kevin Graham Ford and James P. Osterhaus. The thing in the bushes is a metaphor for core personnel problems that undermine the strategic advantage of great companies. Ford and Osterhaus, a consultant and a psychologist respectively, develop relational principles that help firms hunt down and destroy the thing. Even if your business doesn’t have a lurking bogeyman, The Thing is an interesting study in organizational behavior and its consequences for developing strategic plans.

Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty by Paul R. Timm, Ph.D. A lot of companies flirt but never get married to customer service, says Timm. These days one of the main thrusts of Six Sigma initiatives is to provide customer-focused improvements in quality and service. Seven Power Strategies fills in the missing blanks with a seven-step employee empowerment process that helps build customer retention. Timm provides evaluation exercises and short, pointed stories to teach customer strategy step-by-step and gives the impetus for companies to walk down that wedding aisle.

Sharon Secor is a Nashville-based business writer.

Travel just isn't what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior's life is one hassle after another. It doesn't have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business…

Business & Finance

Parables reveal possibilities

Review by bookpagedev

Everyone knows the fable of the slow but steady tortoise and the excitable, ambitious hare. One animal won the famous race, and the other didn’t. Implicitly we know why. Once upon a time lessons were conveyed through stories, passing collected common wisdom from one age to the next without overt preaching.

Stories give us possibilities. In them we travel down the same path traveled by the person telling the story. We see what he saw and heard and felt. We don’t need scientific explanations of the event or statistics to tell us what happened. A story is short-hand to an experience. It is also a lesson.

Three recent business books rely on the short-hand of parables to help business executives consider approaches to leadership challenges. Some things can’t be communicated with statistics; their nature is most clearly revealed with stories. Leadership is one of those illusory qualities.

The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life is an energetic new book that beautifully illustrates this idea. Written by Boston Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander and his wife, Rosamund Stone Zander, a family therapist, The Art of Possibility whisks together a collection of stories, psychology, and references to classical music for an unusual illustration of the Zanders’ unique personal approach to developing leadership potential. One of the unusual steps they recommend is "Giving an A" individually telling every employee he or she is the most important member of a firm to promote risk-taking and allow team-building. Rule Number 6 don’t take yourself too seriously encourages team members to have fun with work and erase calculating personal competitiveness that destroys goal reaching. As anyone who has been on a team (or even a PTA committee) knows, almost everyone who attends a meeting brings along personal issues. Good leaders, say the Zanders, help people find the possibilities to be the best at whatever they do.

The Zanders’ steps to leadership possibility rely on common sense. We all know the things they say are true, but it’s the stories that best illustrate how to implement positive leadership changes in our own workplace. Like any good parable, it’s that little kernel of the unsaid in Zanders’ stories that allows this book to impart real wisdom. The Zanders tell this story: when he retired from the Supreme Court, Justice Thurgood Marshall was asked to name his proudest accomplishment. He replied, "That I did the best I could with what I had." Zander says Marshall gave himself an A. He gave himself infinite possibilities for success. Through this story the Zanders convey the short-hand message that everyone has the possibility of success.

Learning Journeys: Top Management Experts Share Hard-Earned Lessons on Becoming Great Mentors and Leaders, edited by Marshall Goldsmith, Beverly L. Kaye, and Ken Shelton, shares the Zanders’ enthusiasm for story-telling. More than 35 American business executives relate the hard knocks, mistakes, and plain old-fashioned good luck that made them successful executives.

Written in narrative style, Learning Journeys accomplishes in 37 short chapters what a whole volume of MBA texts cannot tell you: leadership is a life-long process. In Learning Journeys, recognizable names in leadership literature share intimate tales of growth and learning. These journeys may be short stories but all share lessons of found personal truths. Executive trainers recognize stories are the foundation for creating an "aha!" moment for employees.

Collective voices, the authors say, will allow almost everyone to find a resonant personal voice.

Elizabeth Pinchot, author and executive coach, says sometimes it takes an elbow in the ribs to make leadership potential appear. Attending a conference, she relates, noted anthropologist Margaret Mead entered the conference hall, sat down in the chair next to her, and fell asleep. Pinchot says the conference turned toward debunking the ecological agricultural issues Pinchot had studied, but Pinchot was too nervous to raise her voice above the crowd. She started to talk to herself in hushed tones, arguing her point. From Mead’s chair a quick elbow was dispatched to Pinchot’s ribs. "Stand up and make yourself heard," Mead hissed. Yes, it’s true; sometimes we all need a mental elbow in the ribs.

The Leadership Investment: How the World’s Best Organizations Gain Strategic Advantage Through Leadership Development, by Robert M. Fuller and Marshall Goldsmith, follows a more traditional business case-study model. The theme of this new book is that companies which develop outstanding leadership within their ranks can weather any business storm. Companies as different and diverse as computer-maker Hewlett-Packard or the World Bank identify key leadership problems and solve those problems to ensure long-term success. The Leadership Investment puts the parables of possibility to the test.

One of six organizations profiled, the World Bank recently restructured its leadership training program to include a Grass Roots Immersion Program. GRIP requires bank employees to live for a week in a poor area potentially served by World Bank programs. Hewlett-Packard developed ethnic and gender diversity programs to attract and retain the best and brightest people to run the company’s many units. Both companies play out the parables of possibility on the real-life playing field.

The Leadership Investment identifies leadership potential at a company-wide level, and the stories of change are macro-level parables. What can happen to an organization when fresh bold thinking emerges? The Leadership Investment tells you. Sharon Secor is a business writer based in Nashville.

 

Everyone knows the fable of the slow but steady tortoise and the excitable, ambitious hare. One animal won the famous race, and the other didn't. Implicitly we know why. Once upon a time lessons were conveyed through stories, passing collected common wisdom from one…

Business & Finance

Parables reveal possibilities

Review by bookpagedev

Everyone knows the fable of the slow but steady tortoise and the excitable, ambitious hare. One animal won the famous race, and the other didn’t. Implicitly we know why. Once upon a time lessons were conveyed through stories, passing collected common wisdom from one age to the next without overt preaching.

Stories give us possibilities. In them we travel down the same path traveled by the person telling the story. We see what he saw and heard and felt. We don’t need scientific explanations of the event or statistics to tell us what happened. A story is short-hand to an experience. It is also a lesson.

Three recent business books rely on the short-hand of parables to help business executives consider approaches to leadership challenges. Some things can’t be communicated with statistics; their nature is most clearly revealed with stories. Leadership is one of those illusory qualities.

The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life is an energetic new book that beautifully illustrates this idea. Written by Boston Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander and his wife, Rosamund Stone Zander, a family therapist, The Art of Possibility whisks together a collection of stories, psychology, and references to classical music for an unusual illustration of the Zanders’ unique personal approach to developing leadership potential. One of the unusual steps they recommend is "Giving an A" individually telling every employee he or she is the most important member of a firm to promote risk-taking and allow team-building. Rule Number 6 don’t take yourself too seriously encourages team members to have fun with work and erase calculating personal competitiveness that destroys goal reaching. As anyone who has been on a team (or even a PTA committee) knows, almost everyone who attends a meeting brings along personal issues. Good leaders, say the Zanders, help people find the possibilities to be the best at whatever they do.

The Zanders’ steps to leadership possibility rely on common sense. We all know the things they say are true, but it’s the stories that best illustrate how to implement positive leadership changes in our own workplace. Like any good parable, it’s that little kernel of the unsaid in Zanders’ stories that allows this book to impart real wisdom. The Zanders tell this story: when he retired from the Supreme Court, Justice Thurgood Marshall was asked to name his proudest accomplishment. He replied, "That I did the best I could with what I had." Zander says Marshall gave himself an A. He gave himself infinite possibilities for success. Through this story the Zanders convey the short-hand message that everyone has the possibility of success.

Learning Journeys: Top Management Experts Share Hard-Earned Lessons on Becoming Great Mentors and Leaders, edited by Marshall Goldsmith, Beverly L. Kaye, and Ken Shelton, shares the Zanders’ enthusiasm for story-telling. More than 35 American business executives relate the hard knocks, mistakes, and plain old-fashioned good luck that made them successful executives.

Written in narrative style, Learning Journeys accomplishes in 37 short chapters what a whole volume of MBA texts cannot tell you: leadership is a life-long process. In Learning Journeys, recognizable names in leadership literature share intimate tales of growth and learning. These journeys may be short stories but all share lessons of found personal truths. Executive trainers recognize stories are the foundation for creating an "aha!" moment for employees.

Collective voices, the authors say, will allow almost everyone to find a resonant personal voice.

Elizabeth Pinchot, author and executive coach, says sometimes it takes an elbow in the ribs to make leadership potential appear. Attending a conference, she relates, noted anthropologist Margaret Mead entered the conference hall, sat down in the chair next to her, and fell asleep. Pinchot says the conference turned toward debunking the ecological agricultural issues Pinchot had studied, but Pinchot was too nervous to raise her voice above the crowd. She started to talk to herself in hushed tones, arguing her point. From Mead’s chair a quick elbow was dispatched to Pinchot’s ribs. "Stand up and make yourself heard," Mead hissed. Yes, it’s true; sometimes we all need a mental elbow in the ribs.

The Leadership Investment: How the World’s Best Organizations Gain Strategic Advantage Through Leadership Development, by Robert M. Fuller and Marshall Goldsmith, follows a more traditional business case-study model. The theme of this new book is that companies which develop outstanding leadership within their ranks can weather any business storm. Companies as different and diverse as computer-maker Hewlett-Packard or the World Bank identify key leadership problems and solve those problems to ensure long-term success. The Leadership Investment puts the parables of possibility to the test.

One of six organizations profiled, the World Bank recently restructured its leadership training program to include a Grass Roots Immersion Program. GRIP requires bank employees to live for a week in a poor area potentially served by World Bank programs. Hewlett-Packard developed ethnic and gender diversity programs to attract and retain the best and brightest people to run the company’s many units. Both companies play out the parables of possibility on the real-life playing field.

The Leadership Investment identifies leadership potential at a company-wide level, and the stories of change are macro-level parables. What can happen to an organization when fresh bold thinking emerges? The Leadership Investment tells you. Sharon Secor is a business writer based in Nashville.

 

Everyone knows the fable of the slow but steady tortoise and the excitable, ambitious hare. One animal won the famous race, and the other didn't. Implicitly we know why. Once upon a time lessons were conveyed through stories, passing collected common wisdom from one…

FictionPoetry

Review

Review by bookpagedev

ID VIDEOS Quiet time music Does listening to Mozart really increase one’s IQ? After viewing Mozart Nature Symphonies, you will probably decide that it doesn’t really matter. What really matters is where this video takes you. With birds in flight and swirling schools of fish matching Mozart’s soaring notes and spinning melodies, rich and colorful footage of animals in their natural habitats eases viewers young and old into a wonderful calmness. If it increases the IQ, so much the better but if not, this tape is still a keeper.

Recommended for ages 0Ð2 Let’s make music Pre-schoolers adore Steve, his imaginary dog Blue and the rest of the Blue’s Clues fanciful cast. In Blue’s Big Musical Movie, real-person Steve awakens in an animated, boldly colored world where he and Blue are planning to produce a backyard musical. Steve, using the Blue’s Clues format of tracking down clues, shows his viewers as well as his imaginary friends how to organize such an event. What sets this piece apart from the rest is its fabulous lesson on writing music. The affable G Clef (Ray Charles) explains notes, harmony, rhythm and tempo to Steve, who jumps from one piano key to the next to demonstrate how the written music sounds. It’s a terrific introduction to music that bridges the abstract and the concrete.

Recommended for ages 5Ð8 Flying colors Mac, a 150-year-old talking parrot (voice by John Goodman), is The Real Macaw in this high-flying adventure that includes pirate treasure, the South Pacific, a villainous curator and a somewhat eccentric Grandpa played by Jason Robards. Mac is a brilliant bundle of color and one-liners that leads teenager Sam away from his home in Australia to recover a treasure chest of riches for Grandpa, whose debts threaten to force him from his home. The music, like the script, is hip, upbeat and funny. Fantasy melding with real-life family issues will also appeal to older teens, and a noble, culturally sensitive ending redeems Sam’s run-away behavior. Recommended for ages 8Ð12 VIDEO PICK OF THE MONTH Dreams of many colors This year, April is the month of Easter and the Jewish Passover, a perfect time to share an Old Testament story of forgiveness. The privileged youngest son of Jacob loses his famed coat of many colors but not his dreams in Joseph: King of Dreams and, in the end, forgives his brothers for their betrayal. Animation can sometimes exceed real-life acting because portrayals are not colored by our knowledge of the mortal actors, and such is the case in this animated musical masterpiece. Joseph (Ben Affleck) is convincing as a human who grows into a hero. Saturated colors, artistic rendering and an inspiring score do this timeless story justice. And Joseph’s Vincent van Gogh-like dreams may color the dreams of your teens at a time in their lives when they are just beginning to build them. Recommended for ages 12 and up Deborah Cool is the jury coordinator for the Coalition for Quality Children’s Media. The Coalition’s KIDS FIRST!¨ project evaluates and rates children’s videotapes, CD-ROMs, DVD, audio recordings and television programs, using a volunteer jury of child development professionals, teachers, parents and children of diverse geographic, socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. KIDS FIRST!¨ (www.cpcm.org) publishes The New York Times/KIDS FIRST!¨ Guide to the Best Children’s Videos.

ID VIDEOS Quiet time music Does listening to Mozart really increase one's IQ? After viewing Mozart Nature Symphonies, you will probably decide that it doesn't really matter. What really matters is where this video takes you. With birds in flight and swirling schools of fish…
Business & Finance

Review

Review by bookpagedev

arables reveal possibilities Everyone knows the fable of the slow but steady tortoise and the excitable, ambitious hare. One animal won the famous race, and the other didn’t. Implicitly we know why. Once upon a time lessons were conveyed through stories, passing collected common wisdom from one age to the next without overt preaching.

Stories give us possibilities. In them we travel down the same path traveled by the person telling the story. We see what he saw and heard and felt. We don’t need scientific explanations of the event or statistics to tell us what happened. A story is short-hand to an experience. It is also a lesson.

Three recent business books rely on the short-hand of parables to help business executives consider approaches to leadership challenges. Some things can’t be communicated with statistics; their nature is most clearly revealed with stories. Leadership is one of those illusory qualities.

The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life is an energetic new book that beautifully illustrates this idea. Written by Boston Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander and his wife, Rosamund Stone Zander, a family therapist, The Art of Possibility whisks together a collection of stories, psychology, and references to classical music for an unusual illustration of the Zanders’ unique personal approach to developing leadership potential. One of the unusual steps they recommend is “Giving an A” individually telling every employee he or she is the most important member of a firm to promote risk-taking and allow team-building. Rule Number 6 don’t take yourself too seriously encourages team members to have fun with work and erase calculating personal competitiveness that destroys goal reaching. As anyone who has been on a team (or even a PTA committee) knows, almost everyone who attends a meeting brings along personal issues. Good leaders, say the Zanders, help people find the possibilities to be the best at whatever they do.

The Zanders’ steps to leadership possibility rely on common sense. We all know the things they say are true, but it’s the stories that best illustrate how to implement positive leadership changes in our own workplace. Like any good parable, it’s that little kernel of the unsaid in Zanders’ stories that allows this book to impart real wisdom. The Zanders tell this story: when he retired from the Supreme Court, Justice Thurgood Marshall was asked to name his proudest accomplishment. He replied, “That I did the best I could with what I had.” Zander says Marshall gave himself an A. He gave himself infinite possibilities for success. Through this story the Zanders convey the short-hand message that everyone has the possibility of success.

Learning Journeys: Top Management Experts Share Hard-Earned Lessons on Becoming Great Mentors and Leaders, edited by Marshall Goldsmith, Beverly L. Kaye, and Ken Shelton, shares the Zanders’ enthusiasm for story-telling. More than 35 American business executives relate the hard knocks, mistakes, and plain old-fashioned good luck that made them successful executives.

Written in narrative style, Learning Journeys accomplishes in 37 short chapters what a whole volume of MBA texts cannot tell you: leadership is a life-long process. In Learning Journeys, recognizable names in leadership literature share intimate tales of growth and learning. These journeys may be short stories but all share lessons of found personal truths. Executive trainers recognize stories are the foundation for creating an “aha!” moment for employees.

Collective voices, the authors say, will allow almost everyone to find a resonant personal voice.

Elizabeth Pinchot, author and executive coach, says sometimes it takes an elbow in the ribs to make leadership potential appear. Attending a conference, she relates, noted anthropologist Margaret Mead entered the conference hall, sat down in the chair next to her, and fell asleep. Pinchot says the conference turned toward debunking the ecological agricultural issues Pinchot had studied, but Pinchot was too nervous to raise her voice above the crowd. She started to talk to herself in hushed tones, arguing her point. From Mead’s chair a quick elbow was dispatched to Pinchot’s ribs. “Stand up and make yourself heard,” Mead hissed. Yes, it’s true; sometimes we all need a mental elbow in the ribs.

The Leadership Investment: How the World’s Best Organizations Gain Strategic Advantage Through Leadership Development, by Robert M. Fuller and Marshall Goldsmith, follows a more traditional business case-study model. The theme of this new book is that companies which develop outstanding leadership within their ranks can weather any business storm. Companies as different and diverse as computer-maker Hewlett-Packard or the World Bank identify key leadership problems and solve those problems to ensure long-term success. The Leadership Investment puts the parables of possibility to the test.

One of six organizations profiled, the World Bank recently restructured its leadership training program to include a Grass Roots Immersion Program. GRIP requires bank employees to live for a week in a poor area potentially served by World Bank programs. Hewlett-Packard developed ethnic and gender diversity programs to attract and retain the best and brightest people to run the company’s many units. Both companies play out the parables of possibility on the real-life playing field.

The Leadership Investmentidentifies leadership potential at a company-wide level, and the stories of change are macro-level parables. What can happen to an organization when fresh bold thinking emerges? The Leadership Investment tells you. Sharon Secor is a business writer based in Nashville.

arables reveal possibilities Everyone knows the fable of the slow but steady tortoise and the excitable, ambitious hare. One animal won the famous race, and the other didn't. Implicitly we know why. Once upon a time lessons were conveyed through stories, passing collected common wisdom…

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