Saturday, December 6, 2008

The Effective Executive in Action and Great Risk Shift

The Effective Executive in Action: A Journal for Getting the Right Things Done

Author: Peter F Drucker

The Effective Executive in Action is a journal based on Peter F. Drucker's classic and preeminent work on management and effectiveness -- The Effective Executive. Here Drucker and Maciariello provide executives, managers, and knowledge workers with a guide to effective action -- the central theme of Drucker's work. The authors take more than one hundred readings from Drucker's classic work, update them, and provide provocative questions to ponder and actions to take in order to improve your own work. Also included in this journal is a space for you to record your thoughts for later review and reflection. The Effective Executive in Action will teach you how to be a better leader and how to lead according to the five main pillars of Drucker's leadership philosophy.

Publishers Weekly

The Effective Executive (1966) forms one of the foundations of Drucker's reputation as a corporate leadership guru, and this workbook companion developed by Maciariello, a professor at Drucker's business management school, draws heavily upon the master source. The format extracts bullet points from the original text, along with supplementary material from other Drucker writings, then adds reinforcing questions and suggested action items. Additional space is provided to write down reflections and results. "Decision making is the specific activity of the executive," Drucker writes, but before you can learn how to make the right decisions, you need to manage your work time and concentrate your focus on the right tasks, then develop your strengths and the strengths of those around you. These precepts have become familiar mantras in the corporate environment, so little of the material should come as a surprise, making the exercises a ccessible and easy to perform. Key points are emphasized and re-emphasized, developed in broad themes then presented once more for individual review. If the text is repetitive, it can perhaps be forgiven by the authors' obvious desire to drill Drucker's recommended behavior into readers' heads so that it becomes consistent practice. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.



Interesting book: Managerial Economics and Fundamentals of Human Resource Management

Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care and Retirement and how You Can Fight Back

Author: Jacob S Hacker

America's leaders say the economy is strong and getting stronger. But the safety net that once protected us is fast unraveling. With retirement plans in growing jeopardy while health coverage erodes, more and more economic risk is shifting from government and business onto the fragile shoulders of the American family.
In The Great Risk Shift, Jacob S. Hacker lays bare this unsettling new economic climate, showing how it has come about, what it is doing to our families, and how we can fight back. Behind this shift, he contends, is the Personal Responsibility Crusade, eagerly embraced by corporate leaders and Republican politicians who speak of a nirvana of economic empowerment, an "ownership society" in which Americans are free to choose. But as Hacker reveals, the result has been quite different: a harsh new world of economic insecurity, in which far too many Americans are free to lose.
The book documents how two great pillars of economic security--the family and the workplace--guarantee far less financial stability than they once did. The final leg of economic support--the public and private benefits that workers and families get when economic disaster strikes--has dangerously eroded as political leaders and corporations increasingly cut back protections of our health care, our income security, and our retirement pensions.
Blending powerful human stories, big-picture analysis, and compelling ideas for reform, this remarkable volume will hit a nerve, serving as a rallying point in the vital struggle for economic security in an increasingly uncertain world.



Table of Contents:

Preface to the Revised and Expanded Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Introduction: On the Edge

1. The New Economic Insecurity

2. Risking it All

3. Risky Jobs

4. Risky Families

5. Risky Retirement

6. Risky Health Care

Conclusion: Securing the Future

Acknowledgements

Notes

Index

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