About this product: Anyone who thinks the audiocassette adaptation of Stephen Covey's bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is a shortcut to reading the book has another thing coming. As a preview, the cassette is worth every one of its 90 minutes; as a substitute for the original, it will only leave you wishing for the rest. There's a reason 7 Habits has sold more than 5 million copies and been translated into 32 languages. Serious work has obviously gone into it, and serious change can likely come out of it--but only with constant discipline and steadfast commitment. As the densely packed tape makes immediately clear, this is no quick fix for what's ailing us in our personal and professional lives.
The tape opens to the silky-smooth, overtrained voice of the female narrator, who's responsible for tying together audio clips from actual Covey seminars. Leaving aside the occasional attempts at promoting Covey and his institute, her script does a first-rate job of making sense of Covey's own intense, analogy-rich style of explaining his habits. There's nothing simple about his approach to becoming an effective person. The first three habits alone--which have to do with personal responsibility, leadership, and self-management--could take years to master. Yet the last four are unattainable, the narrator insists, if you can't acquire the personal security--the "inner core," says Covey--that presumably comes from a mastery of the foundation.
Throughout our lessons, Covey's presence is both learned and thoroughly appealing. He drops references to the likes of Socrates, T.S. Eliot, and Robert Frost with the aplomb of an English professor. And his knack for mixing everyday stories with abstract concepts manages to clarify difficult issues while respecting our intelligence. You could argue that the cassette is nothing more than a clever marketing tool for selling another few million copies of the book. But, even at that, it's worth the investment in time and concentration: in the end, we're moved to learn more about integrating all seven habits in our struggle to become better and, yes, more effective people. (Running time: 1.5 hours, one cassette) --Ann Senechal
About this product: Based on his father's bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Sean Covey applies the same principles to teens, using a vivacious, entertaining style. To keep it fun, Covey writes, he "stuffed it full of cartoons, clever ideas, great quotes, and incredible stories about real teens from all over the world... along with a few other surprises." Did he ever! Flip open to any page and become instantly absorbed in real-life stories of teens who have overcome obstacles to succeed, and step-by-step guides to shifting paradigms, building equity in "relationship bank accounts," creating action plans, and much more.
As a self-acknowledged guinea pig for many of his dad's theories, Sean Covey is a living example of someone who has taken each of the seven habits to heart: be proactive; begin with the end in mind; put first things first; think win-win; seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergize; and sharpen the saw. He includes a comical section titled "The 7 Habits of Highly Defective Teens," which includes some, shall we say, counterproductive practices: put first things last; don't cooperate; seek first to talk, then pretend to listen; wear yourself out... Covey's humorous and up-front style is just light enough to be acceptable to wary teenagers, and down-and-dirty enough to really make a difference. (Ages 13 and older) --Emilie Coulter
The measure of the executive, Peter F. Drucker reminds us, is the ability to "get the right things done." This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that mold them into results.
Drucker identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness that can, and must, be learned:
Managing time
Choosing what to contribute to the organization
Knowing where and how to mobilize strength for best effect
Setting the right priorities
Knitting all of them together with effective decision-making
Ranging widely through the annals of business and government, Peter F. Drucker demonstrates the distinctive skill of the executive and offers fresh insights into old and seemingly obvious business situations.
“I sure wish I had this book ten years ago. Some might think that I don’t need any Java books, but I need this one.”
–James Gosling, fellow and vice president, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
“An excellent book, crammed with good advice on using the Java programming language and object-oriented programming in general.”
–Gilad Bracha, coauthor of The Java™ Language Specification, Third Edition
“10/10–anyone aspiring to write good Java code that others will appreciate reading and maintaining should be required to own a copy of this book. This is one of those rare books where the information won’t become obsolete with subsequent releases of the JDK library.” –Peter Tran, bartender, JavaRanch.com
“The best Java book yet written.... Really great; very readable and eminently useful. I can’t say enough good things about this book. At JavaOne 2001, James Gosling said, ‘Go buy this book!’ I’m glad I did, and I couldn’t agree more.” –Keith Edwards, senior member of research staff, Computer Science Lab at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and author of Core JINI (Prentice Hall, 2000)
“This is a truly excellent book done by the guy who designed several of the better recent Java platform APIs (including the Collections API).” –James Clark, technical lead of the XML Working Group during the creation of the XML 1.0 Recommendation, editor of the XPath and XSLT Recommendations
“Great content. Analogous to Scott Meyers’ classic Effective C++. If you know the basics of Java, this has to be your next book.” –Gary K. Evans, OO mentor and consultant, Evanetics, Inc
“Josh Bloch gives great insight into best practices that really can only be discovered after years of study and experience.” –Mark Mascolino, software engineer
“This is a superb book. It clearly covers many of the language/platform subtleties and trickery you need to learn to become a real Java master.” –Victor Wiewiorowski, vice president development and code quality manager, ValueCommerce Co., Tokyo, Japan
“I like books that under-promise in their titles and over-deliver in their contents. This book has 57 items of programming advice that are well chosen. Each item reveals a clear, deep grasp of the language. Each one illustrates in simple, practical terms the limits of programming on intuition alone, or taking the most direct path to a solution without fully understanding what the language offers.”
–Michael Ernest, Inkling Research, Inc.
“I don’t find many programming books that make me want to read every page–this is one of them.” –Matt Tucker, chief technical officer, Jive Software
“Great how-to resource for the experienced developer.” –John Zukowski, author of numerous Java technology books
“I picked this book up two weeks ago and can safely say I learned more about the Java language in three days of reading than I did in three months of study! An excellent book and a welcome addition to my Java library.” –Jane Griscti, I/T advisory specialist
Are you looking for a deeper understanding of the Java™ programming language so that you can write code that is clearer, more correct, more robust, and more reusable? Look no further! Effective Java™, Second Edition, brings together seventy-eight indispensable programmer’s rules of thumb: working, best-practice solutions for the programming challenges you encounter every day.
This highly anticipated new edition of the classic, Jolt Award-winning work has been thoroughly updated to cover Java SE 5 and Java SE 6 features introduced since the first edition. Bloch explores new design patterns and language idioms, showing you how to make the most of features ranging from generics to enums, annotations to autoboxing.
Each chapter in the book consists of several “items” presented in the form of a short, standalone essay that provides specific advice, insight into Java platform subtleties, and outstanding code examples. The comprehensive descriptions and explanations for each item illuminate what to do, what not to do, and why.
Highlights include:
New coverage of generics, enums, annotations, autoboxing, the for-each loop, varargs, concurrency utilities, and much more
Updated techniques and best practices on classic topics, including objects, classes, libraries, methods, and serialization
How to avoid the traps and pitfalls of commonly misunderstood subtleties of the language
Focus on the language and its most fundamental libraries: java.lang, java.util, and, to a lesser extent, java.util.concurrent and java.io
Simply put, Effective Java™, Second Edition, presents the most practical, authoritative guidelines available for writing efficient, well-designed programs.
About this product: Completely updated in a new edition,Effective Leadership and Management in Nursing provides students with the necessary skills to make sound management decisions in a dynamic health care environment. Used worldwide, this award-winning book is now offered in a revised seventh edition to reflect the many changes in health care and nursing. Targeted to both practicing nurses and those in management, this book provides the tools for using the skills presented in each chapter, case studies with a managers checklist, critical thinking questions, key terms, an easy-to-read format, and a link to online instruction. In the ever-changing health care environment, nurses have never needed this information more.
About this product: Now in its ninth edition, the guide has been continuously revised to meet changing employment conditions. This widely acclaimed handbook is a practical and valuable aid to making the completion of performance appraisals fast, easy and accurate. Combed bound.
About this product: "What is 'effectiveness' in a family?" asks author Steven R. Covey. He promptly answers with four words: "a beautiful family culture." Building this culture is the primary theme of Covey's parenting guide, a manual based on concepts introduced in his blockbuster, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey, a New-Age business guru and leadership authority, has consulted with the world's top corporate and political leaders, but closer to home he is the father of nine children. Here, Covey reinterprets each of his now famous "habits" (Habit 1: Be Proactive, Habit 4: Think Win-Win, Habit 6: Synergize) to apply to parenting and family-life issues. Covey suggests writing a family mission statement, implementing special family times and "one-on-ones," holding regular family meetings, and making the commitment to move from "me" to "we" as techniques to improve family effectiveness. Covey is a brilliant storyteller. By weaving the voices and anecdotes of his wife and children with his own inspirational and informative stories, exercises, and parables, he has created a book with something for all parents interested in enhancing the strength and beauty of their own families. --Ericka Lutz
Internationally renowned leadership authority and bestselling author Stephen R. Covey presents a personal hands-on companion to the landmark The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has become a touchstone for individuals, families, and businesses around the world. The overwhelming success of Stephen R. Covey's principle-centered philosophy is a testament to the millions who have benefited from his lessons, and now, with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook, they can further explore and understand this tried-and-true approach. With the same clarity and assurance Covey's fans have come to appreciate, this individualized workbook teaches readers to fully internalize the 7 Habits through private and thought-provoking exercises, whether they are already familiar with the principles or not. This reference offers solutions to both personal and professional problems by promoting and teaching fairness, integrity, honesty, and dignity. An engaging new companion to a bestselling classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook will help readers set goals, improve relationships, and create a path to life effectiveness.
About this product: This valuable resource provides instructional designers with the guidance they need to meet the challenge of creating effective and efficient instruction. Maintaining a careful balance between theory and application, the Fourth Edition presents a practical, easy-to-follow approach to instructional design that can be applied to K-12 classrooms, higher education, distance education, and business programs. The authors incorporate behavioral and cognitive approaches into their model, so that readers can reap the benefits of both.
About this product: Go beyond the ordinary, with Bruce Jansson's groundbreaking look at the ins-and-outs of conducting policy-practice. BECOMING AN EFFECTIVE POLICY ADVOCATE gives you hands-on experience building the skills that will empower you to implement policy reform as an effective social work practitioner Jansson includes case studies and examples that illustrate how and why policy is important as well as a toolbox of strategies to help you implement policy reform over the course of your own career. And to enhance your course experience, this text features access to CengageNOW, an integrated online suite of services and resources that will help you save time, focus your study, and get the grade you want!