Jim Maynor, President and CEO, The Money Store
"Terms of Engagement provides a roadmap for creating meaningful, repeatable and sustainable change. After reading Terms of Engagement and having participated in the conference model, I am convinced that real engagement is the key to unleashing the most powerful resource we have, our fellow employees."

From Publishers Weekly
While business "scoring" systems have been in use for the past 20 years, the methods for measuring an organization's performance have changed. Most current measures, for example, rely on indices other than just customer satisfaction. In this solid, if dry and technical, book, Brown suggests new ways business managers can use scoring systems to help them achieve long-term goals. Observing that many companies still spend time constructing elaborate scoring systems that are not used for making changes in the company's operations, he argues that a better approach would be for companies to measure what matters, rather than collecting data that offers no insight into the company's long term strategy. To use scoring models effectively, he emphasizes, companies first need to have specific corporate goals. Although Brown provides checklists, interview questions and other useful tools, including several case studies, to help managers articulate these goals, this material may be intimidating for managers who aren't versed in business scoring. However, those already using these systems will appreciate Brown's sound advice. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
 

From Publishers Weekly
There's a missionary zeal to this book for corporate managers: it wants to convert companies the world over to the streamlined production process pioneered by Toyota after WWII. Womack and Jones chronicled Toyota's concept of lean production in The Machine That Changed the World, and embarked in 1990 on a tour of North America, Europe and Japan to persuade organizations, managers, employers and investors that mass production was out of date and should be chucked for something better. They formed a network of companies and individuals dedicated to lean production. Network members, whose stories form the basis of the book, gather annually to update procedures and refine theory. Showa Manufacturing, a Japanese maker of radiators and boilers, for instance, pulled itself out of an earnings slump by changing from mass-producing batches of standardized equipment to producing customized small lots. Heavily laden with details, this is for specialists who want to streamline. It makes few references to the larger, global economy. Author tour.

From Book News, Inc.
Studying health care organizations as complex systems, this book identifies practices impeding quality medical care and recommends principles and systems approaches for implementing change. The book calls on policy makers, health care leaders, clinicians, and regulators to radically change the American health care system so as to reduce the occurrences of medical errors. Guidelines for patient- clinician relationships, performance expectations, organization frameworks emphasizing accountability, and steps to promoting evidence-based practice are all included. Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR
 

From Book News, Inc.
Offers strategies for planning and conducting meetings, focusing on what sets a "good" meeting apart from a "bad" one. Presents seven principles and 14 commandments for managing meetings, and details techniques for creating agendas, managing public meetings, dealing with conflicts and emotional issues, and assigning roles. Discusses implementing TQM meetings, and looks at the negative culture of meetings and how to change it. Includes a sample agenda, minutes, and report, and a sample evaluation form.
 

Amazon.com
In the 1980s and again in the '90s, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner published The Leadership Challenge to address issues they uncovered in research on ordinary people achieving "individual leadership standards of excellence." The keys they identified--model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, encourage the heart--have now been reexamined in the context of the post-millennium world and updated in a third edition. "What we have discovered, and rediscovered, is that leadership is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women," write Kouzes, chairman emeritus of the Tom Peters Company, and Posner, dean of the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. "People make extraordinary things happen by liberating the leader within everyone." After explaining their concept and methodology, the authors detail the five essentials noted above in a pair of chapters apiece that bring clarity to their theories with case studies and recommended actions. The specificity of each (motivating through "the meaningfulness of the challenge, not the material rewards of success," for example, and being able to "accept the mistakes that result from experimentation") is enhanced by advice on sustaining the commitment and making leadership skills accessible to all. The results remain as relevant as when they were first published.