Best Practices in Management – Page 18 – Public Intelligence Blog

2007/04/272009/12/04

Review: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Best Practices in Management, Biography & Memoirs, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Country/Regional, Democracy, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Leadership

National Enema With Wit and Character,

April 27, 2007

Lee Iacocca

This book earns my vote for top transpartisan book of the decade, along with “All Rise” (see link below). This great man is saying things that I and others have been saying since 2000, but because of his stature, we now finally have the national enema that we all need. Lee Iacocca, in my personal view, should link up with Reuniting America, and volunteer to form a Sunshine Cabinet of transpartisan retired leaders (corporate, military, law enforcement, education, and others). We need to show America that it is possible to create a balanced sustainable budget, and to have common sense priorities.

The book opens with a discussion of the nine C's of leadership: Curiosity, Creativity, Communicator, Character, Courage, Conviction, Charisma, Competency, and Common Sense. In evaluating the current crop of candidates for President, all fail with the exception of Joe Biden for President and John Edwards for Vice President.

He stresses people and prioities, and for the first time in any book I have read, he calls for all presidential candidates to appoint their Cabinet BEFORE the election so the people can evaluate the team and not just the Man. This is something I have advocated since 2000, see the original documents at Citizens-Party.org.

His comments on Bush-Cheney cronism are devastatingly on the mark. He points out that the insider game excludes top talent.

He finds Congress to be failing at the five top issues for all Americans: Iraq, Jobs, Health Care, Education, and Energy.

He is critical of the Executive for telling lies to get a war with Iraq, for condoning torture, and for being reactive instead of proactive.

To make his point, he notes that for what we have spent in Iraq, we could have instead hired 8 million teachers, 8 million police, fire, and medical support specialists; funded 25M college scholarships, and given every citizen a year of free gas and health care.

In criticizing the Iraq strategy, he points out that unlike Gulf I, there are no Arab nations in the coalition this time, and that is the truth-teller. He specifically laments the loss of “America the Good” in the eyes of the world.

Among the top issues he personally focuses on in the book are Energy, Fair Trade vice Free Trade, restoration of moral capitalism and an end to the CEO looting of companies at the expense of workers; the protection of the middle class, the reduction of medical (and I would add, educational) bureaucracies, and the US brain gap–South Korea, Japan, and Singapore are getting a reverse brain drain from the US, as well as training their own better than we are.

He slams James Carville for representing the worst of the structured political process, where a candidate is told what their policies will be based on political consultants and focus groups.

The book closes with a discussion of four traits he learned from others: Optimism; Common Sense; Discipline; and–from his mother–Love.

At the end, he calls America to action, asking each of us to give something up, put something back in, and elect a LEADER.

I do NOT agree with those who are critical of either the author or the book. This is an easy to read totally straight-up book that is now, along with “All Rise” and “The Tao of Democracy” among my top-rated Transpartisan books. See my varied lists on Transpartisan, democracy, immoral capitalism, impeachment of Cheney, etc.

If he will help form a Sunshine Cabinet, and Reuniting America can raise $500M a year ($20 from 25 million Americans, or $100 from 5 million Americans) we can close down the Republican and Democratic partisan machines that have corrupted our democracy, and we can restore informed engaged democracy. We need this man's common sense now more than ever.

All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People

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2007/04/202009/12/04

Review: All Rise–Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Democracy, Education (General)

Manfiesto for Transpartisan Democracy and Moral Capitalism,

April 20, 2007

Robert W Fuller

Over the many years, roughly 3,000 books of which 850+ have been reviewed here at Amazon, with a few exceptions all of the authors at the top of their game, I have never encountered a book quite so straight-forward or quite so vital to our future. At 54, I simply did not understand the fundamentals of “all men are created equal” until this author pointed me to the one word I was missing: “dignity.”

This book is nothing less than revolutionary, nothing less than the manifesto for the new politics of transpartisanship and being developed by Don Beck and Jim Turner and Reuniting America (80 million strong and growing).

At the very highest level, the author suggests that “rankism” or the abuse of rank, not to be confused with the proper use of rank and authority for the good of the group, is an umbrella term that encompasses racism, sexism, fascism, and even (I add) fundamentalism that excludes “the others” and offers an almost cult-like sense of belonging to the “initiated.” We are all in this together, and with one word, DIGNITY, the author has completely shredded all excuses for abusing others, and opened the door for a new politics of one for all and all for one. The Republican and Democratic parties are, in my personal view, toast. Not their individual candidates, mind you, but the two parties, both of which violated their Article 1 responsibilities for keeping the White House in check, both of which have treated “the other” party as the enemy, with arrests, venomous attacks, slander, and other monstrous behavior.

Norman Cousins and his book, “The Pathology of Power” is still the best all-around dissection of the corrupt nature of unchecked power, but this book is in my view the single best lifeline for those who would seek to embrace bottom-up power, the power of the We, the Us, the collective intelligence of everyone from janitor to Epoch B swarm leader.

As an intelligence professional, and as an estranged moderate Republican who did what he could to oppose the war on Iraq based on lies from Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, I found the author to be utterly compelling and relevant when he reviewed how rankism silences or ignores dissent, and consequently leads to disaster. His examples are brilliant, from the shuttle disasters to nuclear power plant short-cuts that have almost led to Chernobyl-level melt-downs in the USA.

Bottom line: the dignitarian approach dramatically increases the chances that we will get a particular policy or budget or process RIGHT.

The author teaches us that insulting behavior from above is a precursor to exclusion, abuse, and I would add, genocide–see the work of Dr. Greg Stanton on the web. Isolating any one group is the first step in making them “sub-human” and thus acceptable as targets for mass murder.

I worked hard in the 1980's to shift the US Government away from its focus on military hardware geared to the Soviets and Chinese, and toward what General Al Gray, then Commandant of the Marine Corps, called “peaceful preventive measures.” I am warmed and impressed as this author makes the point that “dignity for all” is the ONLY “pre-emptive” strategy that will work both at home and abroad. See my reviews of “Class War,” “Working Poor,” “Rogue Nation,” “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and “The Soul of Capitalism” for a broader understanding of how all that our American leaders are disgracing America and making us less safe.

The author tells us that DIGNITY respects every contribution at every level. From this I take dignity to be the foundation for TRANSPARTISANSHIP, which embraces all individuals while recognizing that “Unity08” like the takeaway of the debates from the League of Women Voters, is a thinly guised effort to keep the two-party spoils and pork system alive.

The author teaches us that dogma is neither dignified nor sacrosanct. It is the opposite of dignity.

The author devotes an entire chapter to the importance of creating new models of understanding, something that humans are uniquely qualified to both do, and communicate and discuss.

He teaches us that humility is essential to an open mind, and essential to successful leadership. I fear that I have been lacking in this area my entire life, but now I embrace this term and am moving forward.

The author equalizes the role of the experts (who we learn are wrong 45% of the time in “The Wisdom of the Crowd” and the end-users, the citizens.

The author brings together and simplifies an entire literature in four ideas: shared governance; 360 degree reviews and evaluations, collaborative problem solving, and–this is huge–CONSTITUTIONAL reviews every five to ten years. Henry Kissinger in “Does American Need a Foreign Policy” and General Tony Zinni in his most recent book both tell us that our current government is DYSFUNCTIONAL. In my view, the most dysfunctional aspect is the “winner take all” approach to both the Cabinet and to Congressional leadership positions. We need a COALITION government that restores both the balance of power and the balance of ideas.

The author tells us that when authority loses credibility, the ship of state is on the rocks. See Max Manwaring's “The Search for Security” and Will and Ariel Durant's “The Lessons of History” to understand why legitimacy and morality, respectively, are the non-negotiable foundation for our future.

The author provides 10 ways to combat rankism, and provides a 17 item conclusion as a guide for leaders. Finally, the author joins with the relatively recent declaration of the United Nations, to wit, that sovereign nations should NOT be allowed to violate human rights, a universal right. On this see Philip Alcott's extraordinary book, “The Health of Nations.”

The author errs in identifying only 1 billion in poverty. Not only is the number five billion. See C.K. Prahalad in “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.”

This author and this book save our Republic and the world with one word: DIGNITY.

The Pathology of Power
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
The Lessons of History
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

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2007/03/142009/12/04

Review: Green to Gold–How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Environment (Solutions), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Best Available Primer for Top Management,

March 14, 2007

Daniel C. Esty

I have read and praised Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, The Ecology of Commerce and Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things here at Amazon, and I mention them to emphasize that this book, “Green to Gold,” is the hands-down no-contest best primer for top management. The others are intellectual presentations. This is a business oriented primer with lots of facts, lists, and resources.

It is a pro-business book that focuses on opportunities. It is extremely well-organized, with three parts, twelve chapters, and three appendices including a superb list of active web sites relevant to doing well by doing good.

This book is based on hundreds of interviews over four years, and every aspect of it is professional presented, including boxes with “10 second overviews” interspersed throughout.

The authors are compellingly pointed in their discussion of how the environment, and attendant regulations and attendant risks of catastrophic costs, is no longer a fringe issue. Mistakes in cadmium content of connecting cables can cost hundreds of millions.

The authors excel at discussing the new pressures from natural limits that are now visible (changes that used to take 10,000 years now take 3–see my reviews on Ecological Economics, the Republican War on Science, the varied books on Climate Change, etc) and the fact that there is a growing range of stake-holders who are altering the balance of power.

The authors are clear in noting that environmental compliance and wisdom is neither easy nor cheap, but they are equally detailed in documenting that most investments to reduce environmental costs are recouped within 12-18 months. In one cited example, 3M saves $1 billion in the first year alone on pollution reduction, and over the course of a decade, was able to reduce its pollution by 90%.

On page 33 they list the top 10 environmental issues and I like this list very much as an expansion on “Environmental Degradation” which is the over-all threat that the High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations ranked as third out of ten, to Poverty and Infectious Disease. They are:

01 Climate Change
02 Energy
03 Water
04 Biodiversity and Land Use
05 Chemicals, Toxics, and Heavy Metals
06 Air Pollution
07 Waste Management
08 Ozone Layer Depletion
09 Oceans and Fisheries
10 Deforestation

The authors do a superb job in summarizing each of these in several pages perfectly suited to the busy manager. For those desiring more in-depth looks, see my many reviews across the board, including Priority One: Together We Can Beat Global Warming; various books on energy, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource; Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy, Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness; and The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink.

The bottom line for the first part of the book: extremes can no longer be dampened down; and we now recognize the eco-system value of the wetlands that we have paid the Army Corps of Engineers to eradicate for decades.

The authors devised a schema for businesses to develop an understanding and then a strategy for reducing their environmental footprint. The authors do extremely well with their organized examination of Aspects, Upstream, Downstream, Issues, and Opportunities (AUDIO), and anyone looking at the book in a store can go directly to pages 62-63. This is an operational management handbook.

There is an excellent overview of the many new stake-holders (or significantly matured stake-holders including NGOs, religions, and local citizens. Business can no longer bribe government–government cannot “deliver” the way it used to (see my review of The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back for a sense of how corruption of other elites by our elites has accelerated all the ills of the world).

Regulations, according to these authors, should be seen as vital incentives and parameters for both reducing costs and gaining trust.

Forty global banks, and many insurance companies, now demand proper examination of ecological costs as a condition for funding or coverage.

The authors remind me of General Tony Zinni, whose books I have reviewed, in their emphasis on relationships developed over time. They urge a strong focus on relationships NOW, across the board, as a means of building a “trust bank” as well as a deeper understanding. Blocks that used to be labels “not our problem” or “not legally liable” are now labeled “IMPORTANT TO US.”

In the middle of the book they explore the digital information advantages that can accrue to those who get out of their closed loops and increase innovation. In one instance, simply adding load to trucks reduced fuel consumption and emissions considerably.

The middle of the book contains 8 detailed “Green to Gold” plays, and I won't spoil it by listing them. A box in this section says “Truth Matters” and I applaud silently.

The authors stress that mind-set, not just a check-book, is required to get this right. Five basic rules are 1) See the forest; 2) Start at the top; 3) No is not an option; 4) Feelings are facts; and 5) Do the right thing, morality DOES pay.

Pages 168-169 are sheer brilliance, and illustrate why the value chain must be completely integrated into the environmental strategy of each element of that value chain and most especially the largest and most powerful of the elements, which must carefully consider and accept responsibility for demanding improvements by the smallest elements.

Eight lessons of partnering, 13 problems and their solutions, and a final chapter of very specific actions that managers can take, conclude the book.

My final note on this book: a pleasure to read, easy to read, so well done I got through it in half the time characteristic of denser or less well designed books. This is first rate stuff!

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2007/02/252014/03/27

Review: Serious Games–Games That Educate, Train, and Inform

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Education (General), Education (Universities), Games, Models, & Simulations, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public)

Superb Overview for both Novice Games, and Non-Gamer Sponsors of Games,

February 25, 2007

David Michael, Sande Chen

This book is exactly what I hoped for when I ordered it from Amazon. In fact, it is much more. The first part, in three chapters, talks about new opportunities for game developers, defines serious games, and talks about design and development issues.

Then the book surprises. It has entire chapters on EACH of the following: Military Games, Government Games, Educational Games, Corporate Games, Healthcare Games, and a chapter on Political, Religious, and Art Games.

Following final thoughts, the book surprises again. The appendices are world-class. Appendix A is a tremendous listing of Conferences (13 in all), and Organizations (6), Contests (1, Hidden Agenda, $25K prize–we need MORE); web sites (6, less impressive than I hoped), and publications (5). Appendix B is a survey with results, and Appendix C is a very fine bibliography as well as a very helpful Glossary of terms in the field, and an index.

Ever since I saw the US Army sponsor the Serious Games summit, and then saw the emergent success of Games for Change, I realized that we were at the beginning of a major explosion of innovation that could change the world.

In my view, Serious Games need to become the new hub for life-long education, for inter-cultural understanding, and for simulating belief systems, including evil belief systems, at both the macro and micro neuroscience levels. The Earth Intelligence Network was just created this year in order to feed free real-world public intelligence to all Serious Gamers as well as to Transpartisan policy and budget developers.

In my humble opinion, Serious Games is the next big leap in the global Internet, especially when integrated with the Way of the Wiki such that open source software standards can allow games on every threat, every policy, every budget, every location, to interact and to empower the public with tools for sense-making and consensus-building that were once limited to a small elite.

This book was everything I hoped for, and much more. I am not now and never intend to be a game developer. I want to see Serious Games expand from isolated toy-like games that focus on one small issue in isolation, to a vibrant “Co-Evolution” Sphere that in an increasingly accurate representation of the Earth, past, present, and future. This book is my ground zero in observing this field, and I have very high hopes for the future of Serious Games.

2007/02/172009/12/04

Review: The Seventeen Traditions

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Civil Society, Communications, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Education (General), Leadership, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

A Gift to Newlyweds of Decency and Traditional Values,

February 17, 2007

Ralph Nader

This is an absolute gem of a book, and the PERFECT GIFT for newlyweds.

I read it in an afternoon, and I confess to it's being a long afternoon of nagging dismay, as I reflected on how many of these lessons we have not taught our three cyber-era teenagers.

The seventeen lessons cover listening, family table, health, history, scarcity, equality, education, discipline, simple enjoyments, reciprocity, independent thinking, charity, work, business, patriotism, solitude, and civics.

While very heavily leavened with autobiographical reflections, this absolutely beautiful, moral, intelligent, well-written book is a gift to us all. For many of us it is too late–if I were starting over my kids would be banned from computers much of the time, and I would have refused the grandparents gifts of a personal TV to each child.

Bottom line: this is a keep-sake book with an enormous amount of common sense and tranditional values with none of the pontifical sanctimony usually found in such books. This is a first rate piece of work and reflection, ably presented in elegant language, and the absolutely perfect gift for all newlyweds you know. Buy ten copies. This kind of decency does not come available very often.

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2007/01/272015/01/05

Review: The Change Handbook–The Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Democracy, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Philosophy, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Utterly Phenomenal: *The* Book for Living Life to the Fullest,

January 27, 2007

Peggy Holman

EDIT of 9 Feb 09 to add links (capability not available at the time) and to commit to attending NEXUS II in Bowling Green, OH 30 Mar – 1 Apr 08.

I could spend the rest of my life trying to learn, use, and share each of the methods in this book, and never finish. When it was first published in 1999, it was before its time. Now, in 2006, this is a book made for our times, when Burning Man is now Green Man, Al Gore is a rock star, and even the greediest Wall Street CEO is starting to realize the party is over and we have to get real, real fast.

I have been an admirer of Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) and a champion of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), and have gradually learned about other “opens” that are coming to the fore: Open Spectrum, Open Access, Open Culture, Open Innovation, and of course George Soros' Open Society. From this book I now add Open Circle, to complement the Open Space concept I learned recently in Seattle's Town Hall while listening to Paul Hawken talk about the World Index for Social and Environmental Responsibility.

I have to confess that this book is over-whelming, and I can barely scratch the surface. This is more of a book where you should read one author, one segment, each night, and fall asleep thinking about how to implement that one small section, how to embrace someone else and engage them with that one method.

Having three teen-agers, all three of whom have completely rejected the prison/child care format and the rote learning objectives of the current school system (even as good as it is in Fairfax County) I will go so far as to say that this book, combined with serious games/games for change, is a complete one-to-one substitute for our current educational process.

Everything in here is what we *should* have learned in school, what we *should* be practicing in fulfilling our civic duty (what we *actually* do is described in “The Cheating Culture,” “Confessional of an Economic Hit-Man,” and “Rogue Nation”).

I am moving quickly and heavily into the intersection of Collective Intelligence (see my reviews of “The Tao of Democracy,” “Smart Mobs,” “Wisdom of the Crowds,” or my longer list; and Natural Capitalism with its “true cost” meme. See my reviews of Paul Hawken et al, “Ecology of Commerce” and “Natural Capitalism,” of the varied books by Herman Daly, and soon, my reviews of “The Great Turning,” the “Omnivore's Dilemma,” and others. For a broader sense of the possibilities, check out “Earth Intelligence Network” online.

I still have the 1970's operating manual for spaceship earth someplace in my lower library. This book is the manual for spaceship earth for our children and those of us recommiting ourselves to the joy of learning and changing in our later years. It's not over until *we* decide its over.

See these other books that have also inspired me and given me hope:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen
Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy

My lists are also a fast path to collections covering the ten threats, twelve policies, eight challengers, and various other aspects of saving humanity and the Earth from outselves.

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2007/01/272009/12/04

Review: Innovation Happens Elsewhere–Open Source as Business Strategy

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Information Technology, Strategy

Guide to the Value Created by Free/Open Source Software,

January 27, 2007

Ron Goldman

This is not the book I was expecting, but that's my fault. I was expecting something beyond “The Innovator's Dilemma” focused on management. What I ended up with was in fact much more useful, an elementary but essential and easy to read guide to Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS).

This book is a real gem, and for any manager thinking about how to explode out of their tired old proprietary software architecture, joins “Wikinomics” and “Infotopia” as essential reading.

This book is well-structured, comes with credible and extensive references and appendices, and also offers an online version for preview or later quick search at [ …w.]dreamsongs.com/IHE.

I'm still waiting for Sun and RedHat to create a skunkworks where we can quickly test-drive and adapt open source softwares addressing each of the 18 functionalities that the Central Intelligence Agency has known it needed since 1986 but still does not have precisely because the CIA is the anti-thesis of open source (see image I have added above).

Earth Intelligence Network is going to put CIA out of business–it will be based on open source software, and everyone will benefit. That is a good thing! The sub-title of this book is on target: it is a primer on open source as business strategy. To that I would add what I have recommended to the organizers of OSCON, that managers be very aware of the others opens: Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), Open Spectrum, Open Access, Open Culture, Open Innovation, Open Society, and Open Circle/Open Space. There are others emerging. Open is now a meme as well as a culture, and this book helps us to understand why that is and why that matters.

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