The Directory of Executive Recruiters 2004: Corporate Edition (Directory of Executive Recruiters: Corporate Edition)

Book Description

A step-by-step guide to organizing a limited liability company in the state of Michigan. Discusses pros and cons, makes entity comparisons with other forms of doing business (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation). Considers federal and state tax angles. All needed forms are included in appendices and on our web site. Completely revised and updated second edition.

Book Description

Everything I Needed to Know About Business I Learned in the Barnyard How to succeed in business - we all want to know. We've plowed through all kinds of heavy serious volumes and sat through many an endless class and seminar, to find out. Now here's a book that promises to make it all much, much easier. And fun, too. This book was born out of Don's desire to "write a better book on business, one so simple anyone could understand it, whether running their first lemonade stand on the corner, or going for their MBA.

128 pages; Illustrated.

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Great Middle Eastern Recipes

Wish I Found it Sooner

if you like Middle-eastern cuisine, BUY THIS BOOK NOW

Essential Middle Eastern Cooking: Authentic Recipes from an Intriguing Cuisine (Contemporary Kitchen)
Soheila Kimberley
Manufacturer: Lorenz Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Middle Eastern | Regional & International | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
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Lebanese Cuisine: More than 200 Simple, Delicious, Authentic Recipes

The New Book of Middle Eastern Food

ASIN: 0754804836

Book Description

Featuring over 70 authentic recipes, including traditional classics like Taramasalata and Rose-scented Baklava, and little-known specialties like Persian Chicken with Walnut Sauce.

Customer Reviews:

Great Middle Eastern Recipes.......2005-08-05

I'm really happy with my latest cookbook, Essential Middle Eastern Cooking. A nice selection of dishes from Turkey, Lebanon, Morrocco and other Middle Eastern countries including fish, poultry, rice, lamb,and a lot of vegetarian dishes. I was very relieved almost all the ingredients were easily found in my local grocery store! The desserts are absolutely delicious. And it's really a healthy cuisine which is especially important today.

Wish I Found it Sooner.......2004-03-18

I love Middle Eastern food, in general, but I am sometimes disappointed when one place's hummous is not as good as another...or the variyng qualities of bab ghanoush available at restaurants. This book has the best recipes for every dish that I am familiar witha nd introduced me to new dishes that have become new favorites for me as welll. I particularly like the fish baked in tahini, which I've not seen at any restuarnat. Unfortunately, I recently moved to a region of the south US that sorely lacks Middle Eastern eatries, but this book has been a life saver.

The instricutions are simple and easy to follow, and the ingredients are well explained and usually acessible even where I live now. There are picutres to give a better idea about foods that may initially be unfamilar to you. I wish that the book included a few more vegetarian alternatives, but in general, am so happy with the product, that my only genuine complaint is aimed at myself - for not having bought the book earlier.

if you like Middle-eastern cuisine, BUY THIS BOOK NOW.......2001-08-16

Among the several middle-eastern cuisine books I have bought, this book still ranks first for me. Soheila Kimberley has obviously a deep knowledge of Persian cooking, but also has a number of very interesting recipes from other parts of the Middle-east, all the way to Morocco. I had been looking for the Omm Ali (Egyptian bread pudding) for a long time. Finally, I got it in this book. Just looking at the pictures makes me hungry. Most of the recipes are written in 4 to 6 clear steps that will transform you in a Middle-Eastern Chef in no time. If you love Middle-Eastern food as much as I do, you won't regret buying this book.

Amazon.com

Carl von Clausewitz was a 19th-century Prussian general and is considered by many to be the millennium's preeminent strategist. Clausewitz on Strategy is a newly translated collection of sections from Clausewitz's classic work On War that's aimed at helping 21st-century executives and entrepreneurs grapple with the unpredictability of today's business climate. The Strategy Institute of The Boston Consulting Group, which pens an insightful essay introducing and connecting Clausewitz's thinking to the realities of today's business environment and which also supplements the book with historical notes and excerpts, thinks Clausewitz is cool. After reading this book, you may think so as well. --Harry C. Edwards

Book Description

Think about strategy and sharpen judgment in an unpredictable environment
Carl von Clausewitz is widely acknowledged as one of the most important of the major strategic theorists; he's been read by Eisenhower, Kissinger, Patton, Chairman Mao, and numerous other leaders. In Clausewitz on Strategy, the Boston Consulting Group's Strategy Institute has excerpted those passages most relevant to business strategy from Clausewitz's classic text On War, the most general, applicable, and enduring work of strategy in the modern West and a source of insight into the nature of conflict, whether on the battlefield or in the boardroom. This book offers Clausewitz's framework for self-education--a way to train the reader's thinking. Clausewitz speaks the mind of the executive, revealing logic that those interested in strategic thinking and practice will find invaluable. He presents unique ideas, such as the idea that friction--unexpected interference--is an intrinsic part of strategy.
The Boston Consulting Group is one of the world's leading management consulting firms whose clients include many of the world's industry leaders. Tiha von Ghyczy (Charlottesville, VA) has been a faculty member and Director of Business Projects at the Darden School of Business since 1996. While with The Boston Consulting Group, he assumed responsibility for the practice groups in manufacturing/time-based competition and high technology. He has published numerous articles and books on vision and strategy. Bolko von Oetinger (Munich, Germany) is a Senior Vice President of BCG. Christopher Bassford (Washington, DC) is presently a Professor of Strategy at the National War College in Washington, DC, and the author of several books, including Clausewitz in English: The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815-1945.

Customer Reviews:

3 great points.......2007-10-16

(1) If you still don't understand the difference between war and business [or war and anything else], read this book.
(2) If you have a boss who doesn't understand that "a" strategy must always be revised and the test of a great employee is one who always has a Plan B, send him/her a copy.
(3) That book learning isn't the same thing as experience - "Yet this is nothing but wretched book learning." p. 91.
(4)FRICTION! "Friction is what makes the seemingly easy so difficult.", p. 89, a concept before it's time, one you should know well. p. 89 "Rather, the general [and the rest of us trying to do anything] must have knowledge of friction in order to overcome it, where possible, and in order not to expect a level of precision in his operations that simply cannot be achieved owing to this very friction." p.87
(5) the great love affair between Clausewitz and his wife
(6) Negativity capacity - "being at ease when in bafflement or doubt and not seeking escapes at any cost." p. 86 (don't panic when it starts falling apart)
(7) The many times von C mentions "heart" as well as "mind."
(8) and that this great soldier started fighting at 13, died of cholera.

Strategy is one of my top stengths on the StrengthsFinder(r), so to me it is innate. However, that does not mean my FIRST strategy is my only one, or the one that eventually works. In war, love, coaching, or trying to motivate a recalcitrant teenager.

And how's this for an interesting point: "The weaker the defender's morale, the more brazen the attack must be." p. 121

I ordered this book by mistake - well, as von Clausewitz says, if you wish to enter that theater of strategy you "must abandon all hope of finding the certainties and control to which they are accustomed in other pursuits and consider the surrender of such hopes as a rite of passage in strategy."

Many good things happen to the intelligent, experienced, philosophical and seasoned strategist by accident.

Good read.

Perhaps the worst book of its kind I had ever read.......2006-02-15

I had read many business strategy books based on the writings of Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Machiavelli, Miyamoto Musashi etc. So bad that this is the worst I had picked. Clausewitz is great, but the authors are real bad in that they try too hard to impress by using superficial, vague, clumsy, English literature type of writing that complicates or even deteriorates Clausewitz's teachings instead of making them into something analytical and well structured, with relevant examples of real business world applications, even if it cant be as useful as the famous BCG Model (Stars, Question Marks, Cash Cows & Dogs). For those really interested in Clausewitz, please read his originals instead of wasting your valuable time on this disorganised and incoherent work of some.....

Dreadful book.......2005-08-13

If you have interest in Clausewitz or business strategy, you can do much better buying other books. This is a very poorly written outing, practically incoherent. Embarassingly bad and jumbled. Do not be afraid to read Clausewitz directly: as this book illustrates, there are no easy shortcuts.

Avoid.

A Superb Leadership Resource.......2004-10-19

It probably requires having some experience with business strategy before any of Clausewitz's advice can resonant with you. However, for those who have been involved in executive decision processes, Clausewitz's messages are remarkably fresh and insightful (almost two hundred years later). His advice is particularly fascinating in context with the current "Information Age."

Clausewitz's message is simple, but you have to be ready for it to appreciate it. Information will never be complete. Some information will be totally wrong. If you wait for perfect information/intelligence, you will lose (and your competitor will win). In the fog of war, you must find that "faint light" and have the courage to go toward it. Don't wait for the fog to clear, and don't wait for the light to get brighter. It will be too late if you do.

Too often in the Information Age, companies and their executives mistakenly believe that it is possible to get complete and accurate information before making a decision. However, despite vaste improvements in technology, information will never be complete, perfect, or even 100% accurate. Clausewitz understood this almost two centuries ago. He points to what true leaders must have. They must have the ability to detect the most relevant patterns among incomplete and sometimes erroneous information. They must be able to identify the goal (the faint beacon of light). Finally, they must have the courage to focus and align an organization's limited resources to accomplishing this goal. In business speak, business leaders must have a vision and must be willing to take risks to achieve that vision.

This message is hard for some people to take. I guess many are looking for a "how to" book that anyone can use. Clausewitz talks about "genius," and his concept of genius implies that not everyone is up to the challenges of leadship. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it is true. More than anything, this book affirmed beliefs I formed after years of observation, trial, and error.

Some may mistakenly believe that perfect information may not have been possible in Clausewitz's time, but it certainly is today. As a business analysis professional, I can attest that "complete" information is still not a reality. No amount of data mining, neural networks, or statistics can replace the qualities of leadership Clausewitz so clearly and eloquently expresses.

Information certainly has the potential to help make better business decisions, but faith is still required to act. Many of the information tools available today are not used, because our business leaders lack the faith to implement them (they're still waiting for complete information). A great companion to this book (in relation to information and decision making) is Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein.

A shameful endeavor in quick profits.......2004-01-22

5 Stars for Clausewitz
0 Stars for the authors

Impression on Clausewitz:
Strategy has been defined as 'the employment of the battle as the means towards the attainment of the object of the war'. Properly speaking it has to do with nothing but the battle, but its theory must include in this consideration the instrument of this real activity -- the armed force -- in itself and in its principal relations, for the battle is fought by it, and shows its effects upon it in turn. It must be well acquainted with the battle itself as far as relates to its possible results, and those mental and moral powers which are the most important in the use of the same.

Strategy is the employment of the battle to gain the end of the war; it must therefore give an aim to the whole military action, which must be in accordance with the object of the war; in other words, strategy forms the plan of the war; and to this end it links together the series of acts which are to lead to the final decision, that is to say, it makes the plans for the separate campaigns and regulates the combats to be fought in each. As these are all things which to a great extent can only be determined on conjectures some of which turn out incorrect, while a number of other arrangements pertaining to details cannot be made at all beforehand, it follows, as a matter of course, that strategy must go with the army to the field in order to arrange particulars on the spot, and to make the modifications in the general plan which incessantly become necessary in war. Strategy can therefore never take its hand from the work for a moment.

That this, however, has not always been the view taken is evident from the former custom of keeping strategy in the cabinet and not with the army, a thing only allowable if the cabinet is so near to the army that it can be taken for the chief headquarters of the army.

Theory will therefore attend on strategy in the determination of its plans, or, as we may more properly say, it will throw a light on things in themselves, and on their relations to each other, and bring out prominently the little that there is of principle or rule.

If we recall to mind from the first chapter how many things of the highest importance war touches upon, we may conceive that a consideration of all requires a rare grasp of mind.

A prince or general who knows exactly how to organize his war according to his object and means, which does neither too little nor too much, gives by that the greatest proof of his genius. But the effects of this talent are exhibited not so much by the invention of new modes of action, which might strike the eye immediately, as in the successful final result of the whole. It is the exact fulfillment of silent suppositions, it is the noiseless harmony of the whole action which we should admire, and which only makes itself known in the total result.

The inquirer who, tracing back from the final result, does not perceive the signs of that harmony is one who is apt to seek for genius where it is not, and where it cannot be found.

The means and forms which strategy uses are in fact so extremely simple, so well known by their constant repetition that it only appears ridiculous to sound common sense when it hears critics so frequently speaking of them with high-flown emphasis. Turning a flank, which has been done a thousand times, is regarded here as a proof of the most brilliant genius, there as a proof of the most profound penetration, indeed even of the most comprehensive knowledge. Can there be in the book-world more absurd productions?

It is still more ridiculous if, in addition to this, we reflect that the same critic, in accordance with prevalent opinion, excludes all moral forces from theory, and will not allow it to be concerned with anything but the material forces, so that all must be confined to a few mathematical relations of equilibrium and preponderance, of time and space, and a few lines and angles. If it were nothing more than this, then out of such a miserable business there would not be a scientific problem for even a schoolboy.

But let us admit: there is no question here about scientific formulas and problems; the relations of material things are all very simple; the right comprehension of the moral forces which come into play is more difficult. Still, even in respect to them, it is only in the highest branches of strategy that moral complications and a great diversity of quantities and relations are to be looked for, only at that point where strategy

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Public Manager, published by Bureaucrat, Inc. on December 22, 2001. The length of the article is 550 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Don't rely on fixed theory. (book review)
Author: R. Gordon Schmidt
Publication: The Public Manager (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 2001
Publisher: Bureaucrat, Inc.
Volume: 30 Issue: 4 Page: 62(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Product Description

In 1978, Californians passed Proposition 13, severely restricting the ability of local governments to raise revenue through property taxes. Since then, the voters and public officials have engaged in an almost continual tug-of-war over public finances, with state and local governments seeking creative ways to increase their revenues and taxpayers frequently using the initiative process to prevent new fees and taxes. One of the questions that has arisen in the debate over public finances is whether Proposition 13 has succeeded in reducing the tax burden of Californians. This report answers that question.

Book Description

Praise for Battling for Competitive Advantage

"[Battling for Competitive Advantage] systematically unravels and explains the complexities of modern business and warfare. This excellent book will prove helpful to business leaders as well as the academic community charged with explaining successful leadership of large organizations."
-General Barry R. McCaffrey, U.S.A. (Ret.), Professor of International Security Studies at West Point and NBC News Commentator

"Colonel Ken Allard doesn't just have supreme military intelligence, his operational brilliance extends to the business world as well. Battling for Competitive Advantage teaches you that business is war and that Ken is the perfect commander-in-chief to follow into your business battles."
-Ron Insana, Coanchor, CNBC's Business Center

"In war, they don't give out medals for second place. In business, as in war, you can't win without first surviving. [This book] offers the hard-won wisdom from one warrior's world to another. Read, laugh, squirm, survive, and win!"
-Scott A. Snook, Associate Professor, Organizational Behavior Harvard Business School

"In the post-9/11, post-Enron environment, Ken Allard's Ten Commandments of Military Leadership are directly applicable to today's business CEOs."
-Tom Petrie, Chairman and CEO, Petrie Parkman & Co.

Download Description

A 21st-century business strategy for succeeding in a tough global economy

To succeed in today's turbulent business environment operating in a "business as usual" mode will no longer work. Conflict and competition can come from anywhere. Kenneth Allard-a well-known military strategist and management expert-knows that in business, just as in the war on terrorism-losing cannot be an option in your playbook.

Business as War draws numerous parallels between the strategies and tactics used by the United States military and the challenges businesses face in the no-holds-barred competition of the global economy. Allard believes that success in this new competitive climate can be achieved by applying cutting-edge military perspectives to the everyday world of business. These tools include the traditional military arts-leadership and strategy-as well as information age techniques such as business intelligence, enterprise security and streamlined information-sharing. Using first-person examples from his media, military, and business experiences, Allard demonstrates how the military learned their lessons-and how businesses can profit by meeting similar challenges.

Customer Reviews:

Misleading book - No business as war.......2005-05-21

I ordered this book to read about business war games.
There is nothing about business. Only comments about his military life. I learned nothing. A wast of time and money.

If you want prosperity, prepare for paucity..........2004-03-10

I was a student of Col. Allard at Gerogetown University. In his class, Technology and National Security, one of his most important lessons was the continuing way in which the offense is guaranteed to adapt to whatever defense you can mount. And vice versa... In his new book, Col. Allard takes such lessons, accumulated by milennia of warfare, and applies them to the modern business world. I recommend this book for anyone truly interested in implementing effective leadership and strategy in their organization.

A Badly Neglected Subject.......2004-03-06

Given the large number of business books it's surprising that so few have drawn out the similarities between business and war. Col. Allard's Business As War does an especially good job of making the comparison, and of noting the differences. It will be important for business readers especially because it focuses on the essential constants of war and business.

Paul Bracken
Professor of Management
Yale School of Management

Great to read. Great ideas.......2004-01-26

It is so very refreshing to read a book that takes a critical look not only at business practices, but at business schools and business literature as well. Allard's basic thesis is that
character and systems matter. He rightly criticizes business schools for failing to instill values and ethics into its graduates. He also criticizes business books for easy, flashy solutions to what are really complex problems. Integrated systems, strategy, intelligence and ethical and moral leadership are what matters in Allard's universe. It is also a very well written (and entertaining) book. Read it if you are in business. Read it if you just want to understand how business should operate.

If you liked Colonel Allard on TV, you will love him now.......2004-01-26

What a fantastic, funny and practical book. Full of funny stories and outrageous comments. Colonel Allard has written a business book with a difference. His style of writing is punchy and easy to read. His points of view are clear: much of business literature is taken up with quick and easy fixes and the latest trend. Instead of that, he offers a precise model of how the military does its business -- from management, to leadership development, to training. Chapters on corporate security and intelligence are very good indeed.

Book Description

A vivid, often humorous slice of autobiography, We Went To England spans the Atlantic Ocean - Rochester, New York to London, the Great Depression and the second World War. Children of an American mother and an English father, Elaine and her sisters have a privileged, sheltered life - more akin to the world of Jane Austen than that of Angela's Ashes. Elaine, though, finds there is always a BUT. You have to learn to be a Lady. To obey a set of rigid rules - what's "done" and "not done". Too many of the rules she learns only after breaking them.

With the War in 1939 everything changes. Being a Lady is no longer so important - surviving is. There are gas masks, air raids, bombs and the constant fear of death.

After September 11, 2001, Elaine's story has fresh relevance. As a young girl she learned that in the presence of constant low-level fear, life goes on - and so do laughter and purpose.

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