Brown is a guy who can neither write well nor draw well, so to try disguise these rather obvious facts he uses the tried and true formula of inventing artificially outrageous or surreal situations, replacing shock value for adult themes or visual attractiveness. This book won't change your life or even entertain you. It exists so that funnybook fans can pretend to be interested in it and insult people who don't "understand" it, when there is nothing here to understand. Lovecraft or Dali Brown is not; just a pretender.

Chester Brown is an eclectic, yet diverse innovator. Upon first glance his drawings & artwork look crude & unfamilar, but upon further inspection one becomes engrossed in his unusual storytelling. His stories range from the bizarre and surreal as in his Yummy Fur stories, to the autobiographical, which deals with the growing pains of adolescence to even Biblical and historical, yet they take on a mixture of emotions from endearing, to humorous, to heartbreak and shocking. Chester is a true originator.

He never fails to confound, delight, shock, nauseate, charm and confound again with his way of somehow keeping one gnarled claw rooted in the sacred and the other hoof equally grounded in the scatological. Now if only he'd reprint ED THE HAPPY CLOWN, but with its complete final Yummy Fur disgressions into the inner workings of the First Family. Anyway, "The Little Man" is priceless.

This book has been most insightful. I find that it re-inforced some of the tools I have already put in place as well gave me many more ideas. Managing Staff does not have to be ridget and cold, including them in dession making does not make you weak but strengthens your own work ethics.
Managaing with Carrots teaces you that your Staff are functionable by their own talents, and how to reconize them as well as acknowledge what they are concretly, to them, your staff, the pillers of your company.
I would like to also add that this book was very readable and short enough to keep you reading, long enough to inform you throughly.

Anyone with any business sense knows that recognition is important. Company owners and human resource professionals know that an entire industry has been built around this technique. There is an abundant supply of consultants, authors, and professional speakers touting the value of recognition, as well as companies that design recognition programs and sell the products that are used in recognition.

This book is unabashedly written by two senior executives from O. C. Tanner Recognition Company. The copyright is held by the company, rather than the authors. I approached this book with the expectation that it was designed to be a thinly-disguised promotion of O. C. Tanner's products and services. I wasn't disappointed. This perspective is not a bad thing, and a lot of valuable information is conveyed in the 111 pages.

I was a bit overpowered by the theme of the book: Managing with Carrots. The illustration on the front cover is a carrot trophy. Every page number is accompanied by a carrot-in orange print. All the call-out boxes and chapter subheads are printed in orange. Even the flyleaf of the book is orange. I'd have to label this overwhelming use of carrot orange as overkill. Even the start-of-chapter quote from Bugs Bunny was a bit too cute.

Part One is a chapter entitled "Carrot Seeds." Part Two gives us Carrot Planting, Carrot Cultivation; Presenting Carrots, Symbolic Carrots, Communicating about Carrots, and Creating a Carrot Culture. Part Three is Carrot Harvest and Part Four is Starting Your Own Carrot Crop. The flow is to present the recognition concept, explain how to build a recognition program, then how to reap the benefits. A number of case studies sprinkled through the book provide an illustrative enhancement.

If you accept the infomercial nature of this book, you can gain some helpful guidance.

Though this book may at first seem narrowly tailored for the business management market, I found it helpful as a middle school teacher in generating new ideas on how to extend and develop my own student recognition program. Using frequent examples, sidebars and graphic information, Gostick and Elton help identify what so many employees and students are hungry for in today's sometimes anonymous society, appreciation for one's efforts. Recommended for leaders of any organization.

Chester Finn's new book is said to be the best book on charter schools yet written. And in many respects, it is. He and his two co-authors have packed in statistics and numbers, and they have reported interesting interviews and sidebars from persons who have started or implemented charter schools. They remain upbeat about the ultimate outcome of charter schools, and believe that by the year 2010 we will have witnessed a proliferation of school choice in America.

I love their optimism, and I wish I could be so optimistic, too. Finn and his colleagues believe the unions will eventually accommodate to the charter schools and quit trying to kill them with thousands of small cuts. They believe that charter schools, which exemplify American inventiveness and determination, will survive the non-existent capital funding, which prevents them from building and owning their own facilities. (You do not have to have a MBA to figure out that charter school rents are paid from lower teachers' salaries.) They even believe that charter schools will eventually force, by market competition, the public schools to change.

I cannot see exactly why the unions will quit their attacks, why public authorities will open the capital facilities question, or how charter schools will avoid massive re-regulation (as in special education or bilingual education).

For these reasons, then, I think Finn and his colleagues are persuasive idealists, but I am not persuaded. Even 3,000 charter schools across the country will not change the face of public education in America. Only when parents receive vouchers will there really be a free-market change. Charter schools are just the way-station. Not bad ones, but not the revolutionary change that Finn imagines.

The Charter School model is perilously close to the idea of both ad-hoc home schooling and the distasteful voucher system now championed by many powerful groups and individuals who also seem delighted by the Charter model. Both the Charter and voucher approaches operate in two problematic ways: 1) They help further underfund already strapped inner city and rural public schools and 2) They most often shortchange teachers in the process. A third, and even more frightening threat is that these schools will soon be subject to the same ideological restrictions as the public school system (with its cruel zero-tolerance policies for both mischievous juvenile behavior and free, unregulated inquiry).

In a democracy, one is already free to start one's own independent school. There are many routes to funding such schools without picking the pockets of the much larger public school system or coming under the aegis of public school boards and their often petty bureacratic control of ideological content and democratic free inquiry. A true alternative school must come up with truly democratic and alternative means of funding. Just as there "is no such thing as a free lunch," (or perhaps their days are numbered ) there is no easy road to creating democratic alternatives for young people, particularly those who are at risk in one way or another. It takes work, commitment, and also a fundamental respect for the students and teachers who actually make the school exist and work.

From what I have read (including some horror stories of schools simply shut down by those in real authority), I cannot believe the Charter model is the right way to go. If you wish to create an independent alternative, our democracy already gives one the right to do so. To raise money by raiding the pockets of public schoolchildren and teachers is simply untenable. In a real independent alternative school, there are often teachers who sometimes are willing to work for less (for a time), but they do so entirely by force of their own idealism. At the end of the day, everyone wishes and deserves to be accorded their fair share.

RM, Ph.D.

For the past 20 years, Chester Finn has been a behind the scenes and in some cases, in front of the crowd leader for most of the great education reforms that have occurred in the past 20 years. Having had the great fortune to be one of Finn's students at Vanderbilt many years ago, I have had a chance to read the plethora of great books and articles that Finn has published. This is another in that series. Don't just buy this book and The Educated Child (which apparently is a huge bestseller) go back and buy all his books. Finn is a great academic who is blessed with an ability to communicate to the common person.

Finn may talk about the education that children receive but he is the best educator a parent can ever find. We are expecting our first grandchild in a few weeks and I want my daughter to read every book that Professor Finn has written. It will ensure the success of my grandchild's future.

Don McNay...

It is great book when it comes to pushing the reader from a medium to a more advanced level. VBA is clerverly left aside, as it would be pointless explore it in a book intended to teach true worksheet skills. Still, missing topics like array formulas, together with more elaborate applications of Excel techiniques, would make this a 5-star book.

This book is so comprehensive. It`s structure is step by step with two colour pages. I chosed this book because I looked all Excel books on the shelf in a huge book store, this was the best one believe me. Buy this book. Highly recommended.

I've read the 2-book Microsoft "Step-by-Step" Excel set, the "Excel for Dummies" and the Active Education study guide. None of them come close to this text. I wish I would have started with this book...I wouldn't have needed to waste my money on the others. I highly recommend this resource.

I am working as a software contractor and I find myself negotiating a lot more than I used to -- rates, terms, types of work, etc... The results of these frequent negotiations affects my livlihood. So I bought this book to help.

And help it has. The book contains tips, tactics, and strategies for negotiating. And importantly for me, it contains tips for countering tactics used by others. I've recognized a large number of these tactics in my own life in just the past few months.

To be critical, the book does have some issues. Most of the examples are in a salesperson-buyer context. Sof if you are not a salesperson or buyer in the strict sense you'll find yourself transposing the examples to something more relevant to you.

Also, the book is organized in an odd manner -- alphabetical order. While useful for an index and looking up information, it would seem that there would be a better organization for the material. For example, what if you were reading a book about American History and it was organizaed not in chronological order, but in alphabetical order. Odd, but not a huge problem.

This is a good book that has valuable information for many different people. Recommended.

This is a very good book - it is in bite size sections that you can read, even one a day, to learn some techniques to get a YES from people who have the option to say NO to you.

Many of the MNCs use this book for their senior managers to learn new skills - so it works.

At twice the price, this book is definitely worth buying.

I collect books on negotiation and used to teach it at college level in connection with real estate classes. Give and Take is the best book I know of on negotiating tactics as opposed to theory. It is an alphabetically arranged list of dozens of strategies and ploys used by real negotiators. It is similar in this regard to Gavin Kennedy's excellent Pocket Negotiator (Economist) and David Churchman's Negotiation Tactics. Give and Take is most suitable for those involved in business and sales negotiations. I own several copies and carry one around with me in my car. Unless you're in an academic setting or a professional negotiator, this book is the one to buy. It has made me a lot of money.

I did not like this book. The characters were undeveloped, and the ending was abrupt. Although there was much variety in the types of characters presented, the overall plot was sorely lacking.

Accolades to Brenda DoHarris for this excellent account of Guyanese memories and traditions. A must read for all Guyanese, and parties who are interested in different cultures, and their customs.
Being a fellow Guyanese, this book brought back many fond memories. It also recaptured forgotten experiences, that might otherwise, have been left to fade to obscurity in the recesses of my mind.
Hopefully, we see more works from this author sometime soon.

I loved the book. It brought back so many memories of Guyana-the way it used to be. Doharris' writing style is wonderfully descriptive and the plot was very interesting (I read the book in 2 days) although I wished the ending was a little more cheery.

It is highly commendable that Chester tries to cover as much ground as possible.

Unfortunately, therein lies the flaw with this book. Trying to define everything in the universe regarding the roles, purpose, fundamentals, morality, psychology, etc. of the individual, the organisation, and the executive in 296 pages of content is not only adventurous but naive. As a result the content does not have much of a sense of purpose, with no real goal achieved at the end of it. The scattergun approach used in this book makes it a tiresome and belaboring read.

The title of the book is totally misleading. I suggest a new apt (boring) title for this book : "Philosophies of Organisation and Executives' Roles in Them".

For MUCH more RELEVANT reading, I suggest the likes of Drucker and Schein for their often excellent content.

I am impressed by Barnard's work. He has magnificently put on paper, issues that are taught in any business school today, as if they had always been natural. But it is obvious that the process to deduct from simpler to complex his theory demanded hard work and a life experience. What strikes me most is the immensity of his work, which embodies all the managerial aspects, challenge that would be unthinkable today. But I must say, if only he had done it simpler. Anyhow, it is amazing how often one finds issues such as the recognition of informal organizations, his conception of authority, his conception of efficiency and effectiveness and many others in nowadays oral business tradition. Also, his approach to the organization conceptually and as a system of cooperation formed by individuals, seem strongly logical today, moreover when he considers the relevance of the recognition of informal organizations within the formal ones. This means that the result of his work is not only updated but also in use.

I can see how his predecessors as Taylor, Mayo and Fayol influenced him, and I can understand them and value their work much better now. This relation is evident to me, when I remember having criticized Fayol for his "should be" executive. However; I can see clearly now, through Barnard's description of the decision process as a moral activity more than intellectual which helps me perceive Fayol's meaning. This is obvious if one considers the executive process as a balance, more than a technique, seen by its outputs. On the other hand, Barnard's concept of efficiency, considering the distribution of a surplus, whether economic or not, is somehow similar to Mayo's search in his book. The quest for reasons to describe the industrial process is Mayo's passion, which I can clearly identify now with Barnard's efficiency. The same search would apply to Taylor's, though with a different approach.

As far as methodology is concerned, although I enjoyed reading his book, his model is by no means simply stated. Maybe because he wanted to prove his academic virtues he explained his theory as complicated as he could. Keeping academic rigor, it could have been presented more concisely. Particularly, when the lasts chapters, being the core of his theory, are presented after extensive analysis and descriptions of variables. Besides, he has to summarize his ideas at the end of the main chapters; it must have been because he had at least a reasonable doubt of the reader's comprehension. On the other hand his endless classifications of the different categories turns to be confusing and misleading. Nevertheless: he describes from a scientific point of view the organization, concept that had been neglected before, and does it from a practitioner's point of view. By doing this he makes a big contribution to management, not only defining business organization but also from a broader scope.
I was very impressed by his description of the executive in the cooperative process, whose main function towards it, is the maintenance of communication, being the correct persons in the correct position. When describing his function Barnard also states the formulation of purpose as well as the securing the essential services for individuals. By holding at the same time technical abilities as well as general abilities, having to be the latter higher as higher the position is. The executive functions also include the ability to foresee the probable changes in the environment, restating the porpouse, guiding its flow trough the organization.

It is also fascinating how one can link the nature of executive's responsibility, which is moral, based on codes that each human being has. With the source of authority which is not based on coercion but on acceptance of the purpouses and hence the obedience. Authority positions will not last if they are not based in the character of communication by virtue of which contributors accept it. In the same way the non-existence of codes will result in denial of authority in the organization. Moreover, he says the creative aspect of the executive function is the highest exemplification of responsibility. The identification of moral codes and the organization code in the view of the leader carries conviction to the personnel, trough the formal as well as the informal organizations. This is a key issue for a leader to articulate a system of cooperation trough his functions.

Outside the Barnard Society and a few scattered industrial-psychology departments, this book is, unfortunately, no longer taken very seriously. It is used mostly as a historical piece, "see how management theory used to be," or as a foil for the arguments of competing theories.

Barnard's perspective is that of human cooperation, management by consensus, and voluntary effort. Employees who are treated well will work well; managers should gain respect through kindness; any workplace conflict signals a failure of the management; and so on and so on. He was either an idealist (as some claim) or a cunning, cynically manipulative defender of capitalist organization during an economic downturn (as others claim). He was either a genius (as some claim) or a businessman with little formal education and professorial prtentions (as others claim).

Historically speaking, Barnard's book represents a focus on the human side of employee management, and away from the Frederick Taylor -esque treatment of all employees as production machines. This "softness" of his has made him unpopular today -- just as his failure to acknowledge any "class conflict" made him unpopular in the 60s and 70s.

But Barnard is an original, not someone to be pigeonholed into a category, and the ultimate test of a book like this is not authorial intent, but what it does for your mind, and what it does for you as a manager. For me, on both counts, it has been tremendously useful. Reading Barnard gave me powerful intellectual insights -- something I wouldn't even hope to get in today's "management books" -- and has informed the way I think about and deal with coworkers and subordinates on a daily basis. A very valuable read; perhaps one of the first three books I would give an up and coming manager or entrepreneur.

The reader from Las Vegas is right - this book can only be read today as a piece of historical humor. It was written during the Cold War by an extremely conservative republican who thought that Robert MacNamera & JFK were sending the good ol' U.S. of A. to hell in a handbasket by reducing our nuclear tonage as a show of good-will to the Soviets. The U.S. was able to reduce tonage because they formed new nuclear weapons that weighed much less, but the author keeps insisting that losing the "tonage battle" was going to "dig our graves" and by now we should be a Soviet colony. Well, things happened exactly the opposite of what the author claimed they would, so she ends up looking like a paranoid right-wing nut case. The cold war is over - America won. The author was wrong. The only reason this book is still available is a sign of just how big a wig-case the author was - she included something in her will that would make this book continue to be available long after she was dead. If you can't sleep one night & need a good laugh, pick this puppy up!

This book is a very funny display of republican ignorance and stupidity. It's a "Red Scare" work, blabbering on about, how by now, the United States should either be enslaved by Russia or completely destroyed. The idiots writing the book are dead wrong about virtually everything they say. In fact, the exact opposite of virtually every prediction has come true! Read this book to see how stupid republicans really are and how their wild, half-baked thought process is an absolute joke. This is an excellent work of humor.

...your life depended on our ability to stop one intercontinental ballistic missile launched at us, or on our competitors keeping their word as set down in arms control treaties. This, in a nutshell, is the thesis of this book. Don't let the 1964 publication date fool you; the examples and data may be old, but the argument is as compelling and relevant today as when it was written. That argument is: our security must be grounded in our own ability to defend ourselves, not in treaties with nations whose precieved national interest may be at variance with the scraps of paper that they signed. This should be a no-brainer, but today's heated debate over missile defense shows that it is not so. The author lays out the case for our being in danger, and her perscription for meeting that danger, in prose direct as it is vigorous. A very useful promer on strategic issues for readers in an age when people are often deluded into believing that we are at the 'end of history.' -Lloyd A. Conway

Brown is a guy who can neither write well nor draw well, so to try disguise these rather obvious facts he uses the tried and true formula of inventing artificially outrageous or surreal situations, replacing shock value for adult themes or visual attractiveness. This book won't change your life or even entertain you. It exists so that funnybook fans can pretend to be interested in it and insult people who don't "understand" it, when there is nothing here to understand. Lovecraft or Dali Brown is not; just a pretender. It only gets two stars because at least it's a little closer to being real than his crimes against literature Yummy Fur and Underwater.

For the man who complained of Chester's work being nothing more than a tool for the elite to further distance themselves, I tell him not to base his reaction to this fine work on the snide remarks of a few poseurs. If you were to tell me you did not understand Chester Brown's work, I would have tried to explain it to you because it is something that more people should experience and enjoy. Though he is fine at it, I don't think Chester Brown likes being poor. If more people began appreciating his work, I doubt he would try to make himself less accessible. As for claiming this to be better than his excellent comics, the Playboy was first serialized in Yummy Fur. I suggest you finish reading the entire thing before making such harsh and unfounded claims.

Chester Brown - one of the truly brilliant cartoonists in the world - has given us here a touching autobiographical confession of his addiction to pornography. Even if you have never had the exact same experience yourself, you will find yourself able to relate to this book in a very personal way. Brown captures the perpetual guilt and loneliness of adolescence perfectly. What makes the book especially interesting is the method Chester employs in juxtaposing his adult life with his teenage years - his adult "self" time-travels back to his pubescent life and not only narrates the story, but actually becomes a visible little "fairy"-type of creature and interacts with the story in a comforting comic voice. This book is as honest as you can possibly get and will be enjoyed by anyone who loves the nostalgia and sadness of coming-of-age stories. Chester Brown's comic books are a splendid change from the pointlessness of most superhero stories or the shallow shock value of most "underground" comics. His comic books are more like pieces of music - carrying the reader's emotions into places of heartbreak and beauty.

The first book is better than this one. It was a good read but I was hoping for more after the first. The characters in the story are flimsy, not reallife and the plot is predictable. If you liked the first book then I recommend that you buy the second in order to see what is going to happen. However I would not recommend that you buy the third book. I do not have the third and I do not expect to buy it in the future either.

It was not as good as the first one... but a great book just the same. I love fantasies and this was surely one. The characters are enough to fall in love with and the story... although somewhat predictable... was thrilling and creative. Excellant.

I love this trilogy. Deborah Chester makes you feel all the feelings the characters in the book feel. Deborah Chester has yet to disappoint me.