Jeffery Harvey

I really enjoyed this text.

I read it for pleasure and yes, I realize it is a text book. Yes, it is one you might read for a college course.

But still...I really enjoyed this text.

Olshansky and Johnson write in an authentic way and they tell the story not as academics, but as parties to the process they were. I imagine a dinner where we talk about some of the biggest events we've experienced, and this is the story Olshansky and Johnson tell.

The authors do an excellent job of working through the preconceived notions an outsider has after only seeing the media coverage of Katrina. I had the benefit of knowing others who responded personally, and perhaps that helped my understanding of the subject matter. I don't think that is entirely the case, though. Olshansky and Johnson present what happened, but not in a “told you so” way. There is reflection, but not in a critical way. They celebrate the victories and they report on the defeats. I appreciated that tone.

The message that effective planning is both top-down and bottom-up is abundantly clear. I also was surprised at how the books recognized the contributions of the multiple simultaneous planning efforts. Where many would see these efforts as competitive, the language in the text points out the unique contributions of each along with the similarities. I engage communities in emergency preparedness planning through my work where we often compete with concurrent planning efforts. These efforts need not hinder our progress; rather, we should seek to compliment them to the overall benefit of the community for which the plans are being written. The lessons presented in this book will inform future consulting to my clients.

After reading the text, I am not left with only roses and candy. The lack of leadership in the immediate aftermath of the storm was frustrating. The overt political wrangling through the early attempts to coordinate a planning process for New Orleans bordered on embarrassing (my opinion, of course). I am convinced now, more than ever, that a concerted effort to share the leadership of an impending response and recovery is critical to the success of that response and recovery.

Clear as Mud: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans certainly exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend it.

Vale and Campanella provide a series of essays exploring what it means to “recover” from disaster. The reader may glean several best practices and lessons learned. Most salient to this one was the reminder that recovery cannot be judged solely by the physical (e.g., rehabilitation of the building stock). Recovery includes a psycho-social element and to overlook it is to do a severe disservice to those impacted by disaster.

The text explores a fanciful notion that cities are inherently resilient, yet simultaneously resist resilience. History is replete with examples of cities that have built back, which implies resilience on a grand scale. However, can the return of the city be attributed to resilience or does it say more about the options available to those impacted. Home is home and it is difficult to leave home behind, no matter the circumstances. Residents may understand that it would be beneficial to relocate, yet find their options limited. Regulations and politics hinder building back “better.”

The writers anthologized in the book seemingly converge around the theme that a city is more than its buildings. Cities are their people and, as such, all of the emotions, attachments, etc. those people carry with them.

On Writing resided on our shelf for some time before I had the chance to read it. Peg Boyle-Single cited it in her guidance for writing doctoral dissertations, which was the kick-in-the-pants I needed to pick it up.

I'm glad I did.

For one, this book reminded me how much I like King's writing. His prose is easy to read, conversational almost, but not in the ways we typically mean. “Conversational” is code for “not well done” or “amateurish,” which does not apply to King. His writing communicates in a way a friend would, supporting comprehension when necessary and encouraging progress.

I appreciate King's writing advice. He celebrates the basic rules of grammar and reminds us that brevity can be beautiful. Most applicable to my own writing were his notes on adverbs and revision. I have applied those in much of what I have written since finishing the book. In a world that seems to be removing the need to learn and internalize grammar (reference text and Twitter speak), King does not apologize when he says that our writing is judged and, by extension, we are critiqued by those judgments of our writing.

I enjoyed the opening passages, all of which are autobiographical. I will admit to not knowing much about Stephen King the man. There are, of course, numerous websites with all the facts you would ever want to know. Few, though, dig into why and how he became a writer. Interesting stuff, to say the least.

I recommend this book, but I will not go so far as to say it will substantially change one's writing. As King says, several times, this is not a textbook. To me, its intent is not how-to; rather, it prompts reflection. It encourages the writer to undertake the hard work of improving his/her own writing.

Now, get to work.

The Single System attempts to distill what is certainly a complex process into a more manageable set of steps. I admire her for the effort. Many of these activities - citeable notes; reading an article clear through with minimal marking, then revisiting key passages; developing a writing routine - speak clearly to the process that researching and writing is. Others, like the steps from a one-page outline to a long outline, are logical, but not for everyone.

Key to Single's advice is the encouragement, at the first draft stage, to just write. Get the pencil (or keyboard) going and let it all out on the page. There will always be time for cleaning it up and it often proves easier to succinctly say what you mean when you have a sloppy, first-draft version from which to build.

Duckworth's style in writing the summary of grit, her research focus, is deft and clear; I enjoyed it. As in many books of this style, she leans heavily on the stories of a number of people, some famous, others not so. Personally, I would rather read about the empirical research behind the concept of grit. I realize, however, this book is for mass market and not specifically for the scholar. All-in-all, an enjoyable read that prompts an interest.

For me, a very dry read. It was informative, though. I can appreciate a down-to-earth view on accounting. Though I knew what a balance sheet was, for example, I was not aware of the logic behind it (nor how to derive it without the help of a software such as Quickbooks). I am glad I read the book, though in all honesty I cannot say I enjoyed it.

First, I enjoyed the case studies included in the text. However, I challenge the authors' success in accomplishing their stated goal - that is, the show how we have moved away from the “Great Man” theories of leadership. The case studies do show collaborative leadership, joint decision-making at several levels, etc., yet the final section reiterates the importance of the leader.

True, we have moved away from the purest sense of the “Great Man” theories. Yet Davenport and Manville have stumbled upon a modernization the definition of a “Great Man” theory - call it the “Great Leader” theory. Though the responsibility for decision-making is not as frequently vested solely in an organization's leader, decisions are still resultant from the strategic course upon which an organization is set by its leader.

I read Kegan and Lahey's An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization as an optional “assignment” as part of my doctoral program. I will be reviewing the text with the other fellows in our program and I am sure it will make for a lively discussion.

First, I should admit that I am a proponent of adult development and I have an interest in individual and organizational leadership development. That interest undoubtedly biased my reading of this book. I found the approach of the three exemplar organizations interesting and further found myself looking up supplemental information on all three. I admire their attention to personnel development and gaze enviously upon the ways in which they have built development into their routine operations.

Kegan and Lahey have done a solid job of distilling the commonalities between the exemplar organizations into a coherent narrative. The book reads easily and is an appropriate mix between research reporting, self-help guidance, and personal stories. The personal tidbits ground the material and bring it to life. The chapter that makes the traditional business case for the deliberately developmental organization is ambitious, but from the perspective of a business owner, leaves me slightly wanting. Still, though, the text functions as a compelling call to DDO-hood and, if taken in the proper spirit, the exercise in the penultimate chapter can be revealing for the reader.

The authors make their most convincing argument surrounding the need to invest in people. I appreciated that the went well beyond presenting such platitudes as “employees are the first priority” or “our employees are our greatest assets”. This text talks about how to walk that talk. I can also appreciate the authors' take that rewards go beyond financial compensation. People do bring their humanity into the workplace and, as such, provide insight as to what motivates them. Cultivating such relationships makes the process of the work more meaningful.

For those with any type of management/leadership role in their organization, An Everyone Culture is a worthwhile read.

Klein's discussion of ten common claims relative to decision-making in organizations is an interesting take on a frequently-covered topic. The author goes to great lengths to indicate a state of ‘partial disagreement' with the claims, noting that most work in well-ordered situations yet break down in complex and/or ambiguous environments. Rather than writing a handbook on decision-making, what Klein is really doing is lending support to the notion that humans and the sciences that study them cannot be entirely reduced to formulas, checklists, and statistics. And with that, I whole-heartedly agree.

There are times when Klein is overselling his point. Chapter 16 regarding common ground is one such instance. He offers one grand insight for the chapter - and it is a good one - but then needs to describe it, re-describe it, and tell it again.

Overall, though I read this for a course on executive decision-making, I found myself genuinely enjoying it and mentally applying it to the contexts in which I find myself. What more can we really ask from our non-fiction?

Remler's text was not a ‘fun' read, but it certainly was an informative one. She and her colleagues did an admirable job of distilling the finer points of quantitative research (generally) and statistics (more specifically) down to a level where they could be understood by the student at the introductory (to research) level. The text includes numerous real world examples, which helped with comprehension. Further, Remler and Van Ryzin were careful to highlight the importance of practical significance throughout. For those that are interested in both the scholarship and practice-based ramifications of research, such inclusion was refreshing.

Though Remler was diligent in recognizing the benefits and contributions of qualitative research, the text was a bit light on qualitative measures (to be considered a summary book on research methods. Rather, I would rather it be called what it is - an introduction to quantitative research. The text covers numerous quantitative methods, types of studies, etc. and includes basic introductory language on certain statistical calculations.

An interesting read, made more so by the fact that I enjoy Taffer's television show. John Taffer has an exercises a number of good ideas related to doing business generally. For example, his thoughts on four-walls marketing certainly apply to the bar/hospitality business, but also apply to other retail and commercial offerings. Those in consultancies can certain embody the services they provide as well as integrate walking the talk into numerous facets of their business.

I appreciate Taffer's reliance on data. It shows that he is well-read and personally vested in the industry in which he has chosen to work. The sources and types of data he mentions in this book also shows creative interpretations of seemingly bland data. Taffer has a way of making demographics come to life.

This book suffers from what I like to call the “snapshot in time” phenomena. Many of Taffer's examples from television (e.g., America Live) are all over the Internet as failed conversions and the former owners have gone on to negatively relate their experiences on the show. These issues do not affect the validity of the example Taffer is making in the book; they simply create incongruities in the value the reader assigns to the topic being exemplified. Think - if it worked that well, would the business have closed? The answer, of course, is that myriad factors play into the closure of a business and, if there is anything that Bar Rescue teaches, it is clear that businesses on that show had a number of problems at the onset.

This book was a portion of the required reading for a class on quantitative research. Though I have not read every page, I am finished with it (for the purposes of the class). As an initial caveat, I am not mathematically inclined. I did well in math as a primary/secondary school student, but my advanced studies have been in the social sciences (qualitatively) and liberal arts. Math, and especially statistics, have been beyond the scope of my thinking for some time.

All that is to say that I was intimidated by this (and the other) text for the class. Salkind, though, does an excellent job of describing statistical analysis in lay terms, and my statement extends beyond the sometimes snarky, fun language he chooses to use in this text. It is one thing to understand what a correlation coefficient is; quite another to understand how and why one would want to know what it is. Salkind does an admirable job and providing insight into the latter. The Microsoft Excel material in this text is also top notch. Very helpful indeed.

The one qualm I have with this text is that there appear to be a number of typos throughout. For example, I was able to find Data Set 3 for Chapter 5, yet only the column headings were listed, not the data. As such, I could not work through the practice problems referencing that data set. In full disclosure, we were required to utilize the third edition; perhaps some of these discrepancies have been tidied up in the fourth version.

Designing Resilience: Preparing for Extreme Events is an excellent text for introducing students to the notion of resilience and how it differs from traditional conceptualizations of disaster preparedness. An edited text, the variety of authors approach resilience from numerous angles, which indirectly explains why ‘resilience' has been notoriously difficult to define.

Particularly insightful are Comfort's chapter regarding the input and synthesis of information and the resulting “bow-tie architecture” she presents; Demchak's chapter on the Atrium model; and Boin's chapter analyzing resilience and leadership. The collection, synthesis, and subsequent dissemination of information becomes critical in disaster events and serves as the foundation of resilience. All of these (and the remaining) chapters hint at the level of collaboration and partnership that are needed to design truly resilient systems.

The editors conclude the book with a call for future study, which is the trend in texts such as this. However, in this case, the future study that is noted would push the resilience agenda in an extremely positive direction. Studies should continue working toward a definition of resilience, for usage in both scholarly and practitioner arenas. Further, it would be most beneficial to see this text in the hands of practitioners so that the unique perspectives of both academia and technical practice contribute to our burgeoning understanding of resilience.

David Day and colleagues embark on the development of a theory of leader development in this text. They make a compelling case as to the need for a theory. Further, they go on to do a thorough job of linking leader development with adult learning theory.

Perhaps most interesting is the distinction made between leader development and leader-SHIP development. According to Day, et al., leader development focuses on the development of human capital while leadership development builds social capital in an organization. This concept is compelling, somewhat provocative, and entirely under-developed in this text. In reading other scholarly articles by Day (from as far back as 2001), he has been toying with this concept and it is somewhat disappointing to see that An Integrative Approach to Leader Development does not serve as a summary/hypothesis to his thoughts on leadership development as studied through more than a decade of research. This comment is not meant to suggest that the leadership development topic should supplant the leader development work in this text; however, an additional section of the book (perhaps prior to laying out Day's theory of leader development) would have been a substantial addition from both a content and an enjoyment perspective.

This text was required reading for a doctoral-level course on leader development. For that, it served its purpose well and was a meaningful addition to the course curriculum. Day, Harrison, and Halpin succeeded in effectively communicating their ideas and did not lose themselves in scholarly verbosity as is so often the case in research-based texts. Day, et al.'s use of the US Army as a sort of practical example also proved helpful, though questions as to how these concepts could be expeditiously applied in private sector business settings could be raised.

In conclusion, this text is a solid entry to the leader development literature and provides a helpful basis for students of leadership (in general) and leader development (in particular).

Dan Baum's exploration of New Orleans' evolution from the 1960s through the mid-2000s works on a number of levels. Framed by the occurrence of two major hurricanes: Hurricane Betsy in September of 1965 and Hurricane Katrina in August of 2004. From inception, the reader thinks this will be a piece about disaster and its physical, social, economic, and psychological impacts. Yet, by the middle of the book, it is clear that hurricanes merely highlight the real disaster occurring in so many U.S. urban cores. Strife uncovers years of neglect, both of physical infrastructure and communities as well as entire segments of populations.

Baum skillfully manages to avoid the trap of being overtly political with the writing. Though some of those he interviews and whose stories he retells are politically active and tell stories designed to offer scathing commentary on the state of social affairs, Baum presents this information neutrally and allows the reader to pick a side. Baum is sentimental to the plight of New Orleanians, but he presents such sentiment in a human way such that the reader empathizes with the story subjects rather than feels sorry for the them.

Lost in the conversation about the rebuilding of New Orleans and the revitalization of our urban areas (in general) is the connection these places have with their residents. I am from a small town in central West Virginia; here, we frequently hear references to the role of place in our lives. Cities are often thought of as emotion-neutral and city-dwellers as connected to other things. Not so. Within cities lie individual communities that function more as autonomous small towns than gridded street patterns. City-dwellers function with dual identities; those of their entire city and those of their tightly-knit neighborhoods. We must recognize the divides between urban and rural in our country, seek to bridge those divides, all while preserving the uniqueness of both the urban and rural. Salvation of and advantage for one at the expense of the other is a failed attempt.

Resilience is sometimes thought of as a character trait - something innate the some people have and others don't. I study resilience and believe strongly that it can be nurtured. To nurture it is to recognize that it is unique to every individual, every community. To nurture it is to understand that what works for New Orleans would not work for Pittsburgh, nor Tulsa, nor my small town in West Virginia. The system must realize that social differences are a part of New Orleans' fabric; its residents have learned to account for those differences, having experienced a number of successes, a number of failures, and holding close the knowledge that many challenges remain. Supporting that process lays the groundwork for resilience in that community, more so that repeatedly imploring residents to set aside supplies for 72 hours. It is only by working to overcome the daily disaster that we build capability to survive and thrive through and following the rare catastrophe.

Bazeley's text on qualitative data analysis is full of helpful tricks, tools, and techniques. As such, it is a terrific reference and students studying research should keep this one handy. The screen shots from qualitative data analysis programs enhance the discussion. Further, Bazeley should be commended for the creativity she advocates when discussing the many different ways researchers may break down and break open qualitative data.

The course for which I read this text was condensed into an eight-week timeframe, which was far too short to develop a complete understanding of the content of this text (especially when considering we had other texts to read in the course as well). Personally, I would like to see a slightly more lengthy discussion of validity concerns, though this was not the focus of the text and Bazeley provided more than enough techniques that could be used for triangulation efforts.

I found Bazeley to be biased toward qualitative data analysis software. I appreciated her acknowledgement of the benefits of software tools and I agree that such tools can significantly streamline data analysis. The text, at times, seemed to actively discourage students from employing manual techniques, frequently pointing out the overwhelming nature of everything from printing off multiple copies of data, to the potential for losing certain versions from one's pile, to the difficulty of creating complete code lists.

Ultimately, I would recommend this book to qualitative research students.

I read this text as part of a qualitative research course. It provided an adequate overview to qualitative research. I found the early chapters that defined the different types of qualitative study (e.g., phenomenology, ethnographic studies, grounded theory, etc.) much more informative than later chapters. The course for which this text was used was condensed into an eight-week timeframe, which was too brief to develop a more fond appreciation of the text.

While the Guest, et al. text provides was helpful (overall) and certainly applicable to the course in which I used it, I would much prefer texts by Joseph Maxwell (Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach) and David de Vaus (Research Design in Social Research) as introductory texts for qualitative research.

Reading this at the encouragement of a classmate, I can say I was not disappointed as The Dice Man certainly lived up to his review as random. The book starts out normally enough and progresses through a fantastic story in a fairly normal way. Sure, the main character goes on a number of rather shocking escapades, but the ultimate end of the book was expected.

The central ‘theory' of the book is that the personality should be destroyed. It's an interesting concept, but The Dice Man proves that destroyed personalities turn out to be just as mundane as intact personalities.

The narrative is engaging and, at times, quite humorous. Many passages, though, are sarcastic to the point of being snarky. Though possibly for effect, to show the general foolishness of established society as a whole, it comes off as overly cynical.

Johnson's text is a suitable introduction to a variety of normative ethical perspectives. As a student with only a working (i.e., non-taught) knowledge of ethics, it was a helpful book. Johnson's use of case studies and movie examples are helpful for contextualizing ethical challenges and make the book feel fresh and appropriate in today's world. The central metaphor - casting light or shadow - is over-used by the end of book, but effective at demonstrating the author's proposition.

This book turned out to be a suitable introduction to a pragmatic view on strategy. While not going so far as to be a book about ‘strategy-as-practice', the text does lean strongly toward the view that strategy is fluid and should be based on the actions of an organization and the people that comprise it. The contrasts of eastern views (i.e., those of, for example, Confucius) and western views (i.e., those of Aristotle and others) was interesting. Most helpful are Nonaka & Zhu's real-world examples; they helped to solidify the concepts and also made a good portion of each chapter fun and easy to read. I found myself skimming some chapter-introductory material to more quickly get to the example, at which time I would slow down and enjoy the writing.

Very tough text to read. Nooteboom's ideas are interesting and applicable to the modern organization, but they are not presented in a way that is easily-digestible. This text is rated three stars because of the quality of the material, certainly not the writing or organization.

Having to read this for an organizational dynamics course, my initial impression was that the book would not be useful and barely applicable to real organizations. As it progressed, however, Nooteboom's notion of dynamic capabilities (to build off of Teece's and others' earlier work) proved interesting. It was the introduction of cognitive distance, though, and further the notion of optimal cognitive distance that I really found useful (and was the ‘saving grace' for the book, in my opinion). Broadening an organization's capabilities through strategic alliances so as to stretch cognitive distance (the range of concepts, actions, capabilities, etc. an organization can effectively cover) was particularly poignant for me as a small business owner.

I read this for a Leadership Research and Design Logic post-graduate course. The writing was accessible. There were times when the book took direct aim at validity and supported actions that I would have intuitively considered threats to research validity (particularly internal validity). Upon reflection, though, it seems perfectly logical that the researcher should be allowed to let on-going research influence the original research questions. The researcher, though, MUST be forthcoming in subsequent write-ups as to why such influence was present. In qualitative research, evidence as to the evolution of research questions could form the primary helpful-ness of the study.

This text serves as a suitable introduction to qualitative research. Maxwell's examples and activities are quite helpful at strengthening comprehension of the book's content. It should not be read lightly, though, as there are passages that feel incomplete or, as I noted earlier, some counter-intuitive for the novice researcher.

I read this text for a Leadership Research and Design Logic post-graduate course. Previously, though I had done action research projects and completed a number of what could be considered case studies as part of my job, I had not actively explored formal research design. In that sense, this book was enormously helpful. The writing was accessible. There were times, in the latter sections, when references to earlier concepts hindered comprehension. Ultimately, though, this is a good introductory text for those wishing to learn a little more about basic research design.

Concise read about the core tenets of crisis leadership. Dr. Klann breaks crisis leadership down into three principals: communication, clarity of vision/values, and caring. He further organizes his discussion according to three of the phases of incident management (preparedness, response, and recovery). Dr. Klann's efforts to distill the elements of crisis leadership to a small number of succinct elements are both effective and serve to make a complex phenomenon accessible. Further, the brief, direct style of the text is appropriate given the crisis context.

The title of this book suggests that successful crisis leadership in the military will be a strong theme, and it is via the U.S. Army. Dr. Klann does a nice job of using military lessons learned and translating those to the civilian context. The book focuses on corporate America (as opposed to crisis leadership in the community disaster context). I continue to look for more discussions set in a non-military context because I strongly feel that while the military is an excellent example of leading in crises, the community sector offers a number of excellent examples as well. Dr. Klann, however, does not hold the military over the reader's head. He skillfully includes examples from well-known military campaigns and quickly relates those the business world. From my perspective, that was much appreciated.

I read this text for a post-graduate course. As someone with a degree in writing, the book was only moderately helpful, though I can imagine that it would be helpful for those with less background in writing. There is a worksheet the guide the critical analysis of a work that I have found repeatedly helpful. As I move forward with my post-graduate education, I envision using it again and again.