I found the book to be interesting and challenging enough to order a copy for each member of my management team. My take on this book is that it provides a great deal of insight into managing the evolution process. As with most management texts, the most interesting and exciting parts of that insight show up in the latter third of the book. I suppose you could skip the first 175 pages and still get the flavor of what RHR and Best Buy did, but I encourage you to read it all. The last 100 pages will be your reward for getting through the first 175.

Things I noted in particular:

1) Early in the book, the authors set up the concept of the Head, Heart and Hands. The Head talks about getting the concept. The Heart talks about motivation, the desire to apply what was learned. The Hands is about putting the concepts into action and producing results.

2)There is a lot of discussion about the role of the Senior Managers in this process, I suggest you test yourself against the model that develops and see if you meet the authors' expectations.

3)If you don't read any other part of the book, I ask you to read pages 216 and study the table on page 234.

4) On page 216 you will see "When people set out to measure the effects of change on business results such as productivity, sales, profit, and employee turnover, they are measuring the outcomes of a process. Measuring results does not provide much information on how the change is proceeding or what issues might be impeding or furthering the change process." We all certainly focus on a couple of the measures cited - to what extent do we sacrifice the longer view in doing so?

The authors got me with the following: "Knowing the score at the end of a game gives you limited information about how the individuals played, where they need to improve, or what's getting in the way of their achieving a better score."

Sound familiar?

Three interesting observations...
1) I'm surprised Best Buy management would allow these details to become public
2) I liked the way the consultants admitted they learned something, too
3) There are many paragraphs where one could change the name of the company from "Best Buy" to your company's name, and the text would apply to YOU.

Therer are lots of books on transformational change out there. Few if any compare to Big Change at Best Buy for its candor, its practicality or its thoroughness. The authors take the reader on a no holds barred 5 year journey. The guts of the company are laid bare for better or for worse as senior executives share their struggles, their doubts, their hard won successes on the road to true breakthroughs in perfomance.

This is fundamentally a book about how to improve your financial results by changing your formulas for success. The authors prescribe a "head, heart and hands" change methodology which not only makes sense intuitively, but seems to work when applied with care by a team of consultants and insiders working closely side by side.

This is no oversimplified cookbook. The ins and outs of change are detailed in a very practical straightforward manner, leaving few stones unturned. Metaphors and analogies are used liberally to help readers get a 3D color picture and to enable them to generalize the issues faced at Best Buy to their own organizations.

Tips on how to fail at each stage of the process are very instructive in what not to do....as are the many colorful quotes from menmbers of the internal change implementation team.

This book feels real...lots of conflicts, values needing to be clarified, lessons learned about change. No sugar coating, but a happy ending nonetheless.

True change seems like it never comes without a struggle. Big Change at Best Buy chronicles both the struggles and the victories won, leaving little for the reader to imagine or reconstruct. It's all there, all the tools and the instructions for how to use 'em to fundamentally transform people, systems and culture for superior financial results.

Filled with wit and graceful observations. Terrific! Detailed account of what it was like to be a soldier in the Civil War by one who actually WAS a soldier in the Civil War. Reenactors, who are getting to be an overweight and lazy lot, should read this and make it their Bible.

I haven't read a book in a long time that I actually really enjoyed every chapter. Biling's doesn't confuse the reader with battlefield strategy or complicating the obvious. He doesn't reflect on battle scenarios with upmost detail after 20 years either. This is a great book for anyone looking to learn about daily soldier life. Bilings captures the daily grind and life of being a Federal soldier while offering humor and straight forward realities that get the mind ticking. The stories make truth stranger than fiction and is a welcomed charge of quick information. It is easy to suggest this book to younger readers as well as the information is clean,concise and well written. I would definately recommend this book for all as many ages can benefit from this educational and entertaining book of soldier life.

There are numerous histories of the Civil War and some have become classics. Most of these focus on battles and great heroes. Billings, however, a Civil War veteran, writes about the daily life of the average soldier. We learn about the soldier's motivation to fight, camp discipline, diet, housing, medical care, recreation and just about everything else that comprised the life of the Civil War era soldier. Billings' book is serious yet he manages to write in a lighthearted tone, replete with levity. This is a great book to round out a Civil War buff's study of the great conflict.

This is a excellent psychothriller. When Pete Cochran decides to move his family to the small mining town of Buckthorn,Oregon. Cochran will soon regret it. The town has been terrorized for almost two decades by a sadistic serial killer who has been targeting the young men in town.This novel has great plot twists,terror, and a truly chilling surprise ending.If you like psychological thrillers with some nasty twists, violent shocking conclusion you will enjoy this shocker.

After promising his late wife's charge not to involve their two children with her pernicious family in Oregon, irrevocable events herd Peter Cochran and his family in New York right smack into the web of his in-law's aesthetically deceptive lair! One would yell, phone, or E-mail "DON'T GO!", but contemplating intervention only affirms Andrew Billings literary excellence!

Tainted Blood has all the elements of a first-rate thiller and then some. When Pete Cochran's wife dies, he and his two children move to Buckthorn, Oregon to live with his in-laws. Something his wife made him promise not to do. What Pete does not know is that for the past eighteen years, Buckthorn has been troubled by the brutal slaying of young men. With his over zealous in-laws, a nephew who is diagnosed as the "stuff made of monsters," and a lover that looks remarkably like his wife, Pete has to leave town before becoming the killer's next victim. Tainted Blood is one heart pounding, in-your-face of a thriller. Just when you think you've figured out what happens next, the unexpected happens.

The book Medical Billing Marketing Success: Finding Local Clients is an expertly written text by Merlin Coslick, the Executive Director of the Association- Electronical Medical Billing Network of America. This text has a wealth of useful ideas and practical techniques for targeting, and finding medical providers that can have positive and fruitful results. Read it, and we think you will find it to be helpful to your overall business venture.

I wish I had known about this book before I began my research for my medical billing business. It covers all the important issues about starting your business including specific marketing ideas, samples of letters and forms, and what to expect from medical providers. The book is written with a sense of humor so it is fun reading as well. The best thing about this book is that it gave me focus. There is an incredible amount of information about this business from a variety of sources and this book sorts it all out. I recommend it to anyone who is serious about getting into the medical billing business.

This book is great, it gives you initial interview forms, a contract sample, marketing letters, patient information forms, thank you letters, follow up letters, just about every form you could possible need to start your business.

It also has suggestions as to how to conduct your first interview and the answers to the most dreaded questions.

I think all of Merlin's books are the best way to get started in this business. I read them all and now have a successful business that is about 1 yr old.

As a college student thinking of majoring in history, Vietnam Follies was exciting and informative from start to finish.
While many historical autobiographies are difficult to read and hard to follow, Henry Billings throws the reader into the shoes of a young soldier trying to get through the war while dealing with various psychological and personal problems along the way.
My favorite part was when I was reading chapter 5 about Henry's final mission in training camp in which he had to play Escape and Evade. I found myself literally sweating throughout the chapter, wondering whether or not he would make it to safety, or be caught and tortured. I became so engaged that i continued reading past 1:00 on a school night until i reached the conclusion of the chapter. Only a handful of books I have ever read have gotten me this passionate about reading, which definitely says a lot about Henry Billing's writing style.

I would recommend this book to anyone.

Great reading, humorous and informative. Henry Billings gives us a picture of the Vietnam War from geopolitical and military
strategies to everyday life in the streets of Saigon sprinkled with MASH does Vietnam anecdotes of his own experiences. A great book for young people not wanting to wade through a tome on the subject yet leaving them with a good history lesson.

I have just finished reading "VIETNAM FOLLIES, a Memoir of an Intelligence Officer", by Henry Billings, published by 1st Books Library. For anyone who grew up in the 1960's in the shadow of the Vietnam War, with inner conflicts of conscience vs country, this book is well worth reading.
The young Henry Billings is caught between two forms of idealism; a sense of duty and obligation to his country, and a pacifist's aversion to the "us against them" mentality that soldiering requires. In his own words, he was "on the one hand a Boy Scout and on the other hand a bleeding-heart leftist". He ends up spending 1966 in Saigon as an intelligence officer.
His book goes into detail about some of his assignments. He discusses B-52 bombing, Cambodia (before, during, and after the U.S.-Vietnam War), and attempts to research enemy morale. He also tells of the rebuke he often received from his superiors when the information he gathered, and perceived to be true, did not fit with the propaganda "spin" they were looking for. As he closes his narrative, looking back, he seems to have more regrets for what he didn't do as a pacifist at home than for what he did do in the Army in Saigon.
I liked the way H. Billings relates his time in the Vietnam Era with a historical overview, but separates his own experiences and opinions. Places and names that blew by me when I was a "teeny-bopper" in the mid-1960's come to life again. The last time I heard some of those names was from Walter Cronkite.
When I see the word "Memoirs" in a book title, I worry that more than half of the sentences will start with "I" or end with "me"; not so with H. Billings' book. Chapter 8 on Cambodia impressed me the most.
I didn't go to Vietnam. I had a draft-lottery number of 259 in 1971. But those of us who watched from the sidelines were not untouched.
VIETNAM FOLLIES is worth reading, whether you were a pacifist who didn't go or a soldier who did.

E J Tretter

I ordered this book some time ago and find that it has been a continuous sourse of information. The details of individual microscopes are excellent and will inspire any collector or anyone interested in microscopy. My only true critisism (minor) is in the layout, the book is divided into sections due to the additions of different collections which upsets the cronological arrangement. Over all a magnificent work, I would be lost without it.

The Billings Microscope Collection is a very straight-forward reference book with hundreds of photographs of antique and vintage microscopes. The Billings Collection catalogs the fascinating history of the light microscope and the many innovations and improvements given to this most important optical device. I can't imagine that this fantastic reference book will stay out of print forever considering america's now insatiable appetite for all things old. However, and thankfully the catalog is only an historical reference and not a price guide. If you never met a microscope you didn't love, then this is the book for you.

The authors really knows their glass, and especially glass rose bowls. The material is presented in a clear, well documented manner and the pictures are just wonderful to look at. I highly recommend this book to glass lovers and glass collectors.

Collectible Glass Rose Bowls is an excellent history of the glassmaking artistry of rose bowls. The book starts with a detailed explanation of rose bowls and then studies examples created in the different eras leading up today. Johanna also gives great details on the method of manufacture of the rose bowls that are pictured and a bit of history on the companies that produced each item. She explains and defines many glass terms that are useful in the study of other glass forms.

The photography is terrific. The fine workmanship in the rose bowls nearly jumps off the page. If you think rose bowls are simple and boring, you will change your mind in very short order.

Collectible Glass Rose Bowls is an excellent tutorial on the hobby of glass collecting. Even if you don't collect rose bowls, you will learn much from reading this very enjoyable book. This book is highly recommended for all glass collectors.

Great review, thorough with a CD that has study, exam, and quiz selections. Buy it at the beginning of the year and use it throughout, it will help with nursing concepts and practice, as well as prepare you for the NCLEX-RN.

This book has a massive collection of questions covering a broad range of topics needed to answer the cgfns exam.
The CD which is part of this book has a nice program which has a random question generator from the various topics. Extremely helpful to evaluate your performance on the test.
If you can consistently get over 80% on these practice tests, you've cleared your cgfns test.
Note: In addition to this book you need to have supplemental study material too. The more the material the better your preparation for this exam.

I purchased this book along with a few others however, this one stood out. The disk that came along with it was the best! It allowed you to practice questions using the study guide or the exam mode. Nevertheless, regardless of what mode you chose to study with, the cd gave you rationales to all questions. It also had a drop down caculator and diagrams that you would see on the Nclex. Use this to prepare for the boards and you'll pass, at least I did.

Each chapter begins with a question: "What is diversity in the workplace?", "How do I begin to improve my understanding of people different from me?", "In today's environment of political correctness, it's too difficult to know what to do. Isn't it easier just to treat everybody the same?" After every heartened answer, she ends the chapter with practical tips.

I recommend this to everyone migrating or moving into North America.

This is the best book available on making diversity work!
Dr. Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"

This book represents a conversational approach to sharing critical information. Common sense steps to digging into our head regarding the value of tolerance and inclusiveness. I had the feeling of "being there" in a true teaching session. The analogy of The Wizard of OZ was delightful. The exercises are thought out and well organized. Thank you for providing steps on "how to make a difference"!

Everyone NEEDS to read this book! Thought provoking and life changing. This should be the gift book everyone GIVES to loved ones, friends, family, colleagues, and just about anyone and everyone! What a different world we would live in if everyone would take this simple message to heart and live each and every day according to this very simple, clear message regarding the gift of living and how we relate to others in our life. It simply is what fulfillment on this earth is all about...plain and simple! Read it and find out how to start each day with your own "Golden List"...promise...life changing!

In clear simple language the storyteller leads the reader through a process of discovery in a quest for life's great gifts. This book is heart stuff and head food; it beseeches the reader to read it fully and then again "as needed", which will probably be often.

"The Ultimate Gift" is designed for the motivated and unmotivated, for the believer and non-believer, for the cynic and the optimist, for the lost and for the found, for those who "don't need this kind of thing" and for those who know they do. The people who don't need this will love reading it and tout its benefits and those who do need it will benefit from it whether they read it or not.

We all know people who have more than they deserve because everything was given to them, depriving them of the value of appreciating, the strength from adversity, the empathy from wisdom and the love from unselfishness. "The Ultimate Gift" offers a plan for them and for all of us to affirm or find the insights that come with efforts to improve. You will think of ways you can apply it to those who need its lessons. You will give it away to those you know so they may revel in its rush of revelation, savor its simple solutions and offer its gifts to others too. Give several away!

A quick read, The Ultimate Gift will inspire anyone who wants to enjoy a great story about attitude, helping others, determination, and dreaming. It reminded me of books by Jim Paluch (5 Important Things, and Leaving A Legacy) in the way that you learned heartwarming lessons through a story having a powerful message of triumph. You will want to share this book with friends and family!