Jeffery Harvey

I really enjoyed this text.

I read it for pleasure and yes, I realize it is a text book. Yes, it is one you might read for a college course.

But still...I really enjoyed this text.

Olshansky and Johnson write in an authentic way and they tell the story not as academics, but as parties to the process they were. I imagine a dinner where we talk about some of the biggest events we've experienced, and this is the story Olshansky and Johnson tell.

The authors do an excellent job of working through the preconceived notions an outsider has after only seeing the media coverage of Katrina. I had the benefit of knowing others who responded personally, and perhaps that helped my understanding of the subject matter. I don't think that is entirely the case, though. Olshansky and Johnson present what happened, but not in a “told you so” way. There is reflection, but not in a critical way. They celebrate the victories and they report on the defeats. I appreciated that tone.

The message that effective planning is both top-down and bottom-up is abundantly clear. I also was surprised at how the books recognized the contributions of the multiple simultaneous planning efforts. Where many would see these efforts as competitive, the language in the text points out the unique contributions of each along with the similarities. I engage communities in emergency preparedness planning through my work where we often compete with concurrent planning efforts. These efforts need not hinder our progress; rather, we should seek to compliment them to the overall benefit of the community for which the plans are being written. The lessons presented in this book will inform future consulting to my clients.

After reading the text, I am not left with only roses and candy. The lack of leadership in the immediate aftermath of the storm was frustrating. The overt political wrangling through the early attempts to coordinate a planning process for New Orleans bordered on embarrassing (my opinion, of course). I am convinced now, more than ever, that a concerted effort to share the leadership of an impending response and recovery is critical to the success of that response and recovery.

Clear as Mud: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans certainly exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend it.

The Single System attempts to distill what is certainly a complex process into a more manageable set of steps. I admire her for the effort. Many of these activities - citeable notes; reading an article clear through with minimal marking, then revisiting key passages; developing a writing routine - speak clearly to the process that researching and writing is. Others, like the steps from a one-page outline to a long outline, are logical, but not for everyone.

Key to Single's advice is the encouragement, at the first draft stage, to just write. Get the pencil (or keyboard) going and let it all out on the page. There will always be time for cleaning it up and it often proves easier to succinctly say what you mean when you have a sloppy, first-draft version from which to build.

Olson and Simerson's four types of strategic leadership - visionary, directive, incubating, and collaborative - are at once intuitive and reaching. These types of leadership relate to and are meant to describe the ways the individual leader thinks strategically.

Linking strategic THINKING with strategic LEADING was a smart way to proceed with this book. It gives the reader insight into a side of strategic leading not often presented. In fact, I have found many books that struggle to differentiate strategic leading from any other type of leading. Olson and Simerson's book excels in that area. I would have liked to have read about how the authors situate their types of strategic leadership within the contexts of other popular theories/styles of leadership (e.g., transformational, authentic, charismatic, LMX, etc.). I also would have appreciated a connection between strategic thinking, leading, and strategy formulation.

Overall, this was a beneficial read, particularly for students of leadership or those interested in better understanding the strategy process.

A tad prescriptive for my liking (generally), however, the material contained within could be a helpful resource to organizational leaders. Section 2 could serve as a checklist for those implementing new strategies, and for that reason, the book has value.

I read this book as a required element in a graduate-level syllabus fornancourse I taught. 3While of course textbook-ish in nature, this book was nonetheless easy to read and practical. Kudos to Spitzer for a realistic approach to performance measurement. The sections on quantitative measurement were thorough; those on qualitative measurement were less so. That was not surprising, and Spitzer's efforts to convince the reader to explore qualitative measurement were largely effective.

The author seemingly had an aversion to technological solutions, though I felt it was more toward the mindset that tech solves all rather than acts as a force multiplier. Some of my students disagreed with my assessment in this regard.

Like any book of this nature, it is helpful but not a solution in its own right.

I have taken a few days before writing a review for this text, and even now it will be brief. I am in the middle of the road on it. The content is solid, and the the text is a helpful and thoughtful treatise on being contextually sensitive when leading change efforts. I used the book in a course from a strategic leadership program. My students had missed feelings as well. Context is difficult to describe succinctly, and my students and I often felt the text could have been tightened up.

I am glad I read this book. It has the feel of one of those texts to which I'll frequently turn. I hope I'm right.

Though the book is a textbook, it is accessible if not sometimes overly simplistic. The authors do an admirable job of making the case for crisis management as a matter of strategic importance. I also appreciated their typology.

The chapter cases and follow up discussion questions were interesting and effective in introducing various topics associated with crisis management. I feel strongly that the sample crisis plan in the appendix is overly simplistic for an organization of any size, though I applaud its intent.

While the crisis is a matter of strategic importance, the obvious next question is, “How do leaders operating in an active crisis utilize strategic thinking?

I read Parts I and III of this text for a Leadership in Context course. Gardner's notion that leaders remember they are dealing with the eight-year-old mind is spot-on. Gardner has a tendency to drill the point home throughout the text, but that should not take away from the poignancy of the initial idea.

The chapters on Ghandi and Monet were interesting overviews of the men as leaders. In my case, having known nothing of Monet and shamefully little on Ghandi, these chapters were enriching reads.

This book isn't for everyone, but I enjoyed it. Pragmatic and functional in nature, it is full of common sense advice. My primary kudos to the author is an exhortation to avoid conflict. In my own consulting work, hero syndrome is rampant, and one has a tough time convincing others they're perfectly “tough” enough if they walk away.

This text was not at all what I expected. I thought it would be a more objective analysis of the politics surrounding the Hurricane Katrina incident and other disasters (much like Olshansky & Johnson's Clear as Mud). Instead, the author wore his biases on his sleeve. I also try to remember when this book published. Corruption and ineptitude in Katrina are old news in 2019. Perhaps it was shocking enough in 2006 to warrant the author's tone. In fairness, Olasky did not portend to write a scholarly piece; that was an expectation I placed on the book.

That said, rarely do I find books from which I don't learn something. I appreciated Olasky's take on the paperocracy. I have dealt with that issue alongside many clients. I understand the need to balance due diligence with quick action, and I was glad to see the author highlighted the issue. Most salient of the points in this text was the notion that we don't often know where to look for recovery assistance, and assistance often comes from unexpected sources. Finally, Olasky addressed the nuance of planning for flexibility at the same time one strives for specificity.

I appreciate the author's fondness of faith-based responders and feel we should find more ways to integrate them (i.e., responders from all faiths) into our efforts. Unfortunately, however, this point was emphasized to almost comical levels.

I caution those that wish to read this book. It is interesting, but it is loaded.

I read “The Rhetoric” because it features in a course on the art and science of leadership that I teach. Previously, I read the assigned portions, but felt it time to put the whole work on the completed list.

I agree with many reviews that identify it as influential, but not one of Aristotle's most fluid creditings. The lengthy consideration of ethos, pathos, and lagos means more to me as I have aged and found myself in leadership positions. Many will find The Rhetoric a form of manipulation, especially when we consider teaching aspiring leaders the skill. Yet, it runs deeper than that. As a leadership scholar, I look for ways to influence followers, and The Rhetoric drips with advice on that topic. Further, when you read of Aristotle educating his students on the importance of understanding one's audience all that time ago, it makes you wonder at just what point we forgot that simple advice.

Though the aspiring leader, politician, speaker, etc. must remember to inject a heavy dose of modern context I to these pages, The Rhetoric remains a classic for good reason.

When a book has a near-perfect blend of theory and practice, you know you're onto something. McKinney has the street cred to take authoritatively about emergency management, but I appreciated the curiosity implied by the narrative. There is a desire to want to know, and the writing invites the reader into a conversation with the author.

For my part of that conversation, I will say that I began using the idea of “get big enough, fast enough” as soon as read it. I find that simple phrase re-frames the preparedness planning process for groups that might be struggling with an emergency support function (ESF) approach. If it's not productive to think of the resources we have organized by function, shift to cataloging scenarios that could impact your organization or community. Then, start asking what does BIG look like for this scenario followed by, “How quickly could we get everything we need to handle this?”

McKinney didn't say it exactly like this, but I see myself letting planning groups talk-out their thoughts on the most likely scenarios they'll face. Once they coalesce around a few ideas, asking them to “add 20%” to the impacts across all spectra can push them beyond complacency, to get into that head space that can foster innovation, without blowing past the realm of the plausible.

This book is a good read that is simultaneously conceptual and practical, with enough big ideas to get the wheels turning in your mind and enough brass tacks advice to improve your emergency management program almost immediately.

Johnson's text is a suitable introduction to a variety of normative ethical perspectives. As a student with only a working (i.e., non-taught) knowledge of ethics, it was a helpful book. Johnson's use of case studies and movie examples are helpful for contextualizing ethical challenges and make the book feel fresh and appropriate in today's world. The central metaphor - casting light or shadow - is over-used by the end of book, but effective at demonstrating the author's proposition.

It took three and a half years to read this book, but that really has nothing to do with the book. Throw the pandemic into the mix, as well as my time as the Director of Safety and Emergency Preparedness for a public school district, and it was a while before I could pick something up that discussed (in large part) school system preparedness and response.

I appreciated the authors' efforts to not compile a simplified, cookie-cutter how-to list. There are several cited resources (some of which I had read) that added a collaborative spirit and credibility to the narrative. Further, I appreciated the focus on situational awareness and personal accountability. As a planner, I was pleased to see acknowledgement of how active true planning can be, with a need to customize a set of guidelines for place, context, personnel, etc. Planning is hard, and it's unfortunate that so many relegate it to an often templated, regulatory exercise.

In summary, the content won't be for everyone, but this text offers balanced, thoughtful ways to respond to crises.

Just finished this book for the second time...my did I get much more out of it this time than when I was 17 years old!

Still continually amazed at the level to which Faulkner can immerse himself into a literary character. I made the comment in a book club that his treatment of Benjy, Quentin (son), and Jason was like an actor preparing for a movie role. There was very little, if any, stylistic carry-over from one section to the next, which made the reader feel like he/she was in the head of the individual narrating that particular section.

This time, I picked up more on the racial themes as well as the struggles states like Mississippi had in the generation following the Civil War. I especially liked how the part of the Compson family that tended to side with Jason (father) - i.e. Quentin (son), Caddy, and Quentin (C's daughter) - were ultimately set free from the deteriorating family through death or relocation. Jason (son) and Caroline (i.e. the Bascomb side) were left to continue deteriorating into obscurity. Benjy was simply caught in the middle with no choice but to watch it happen.

Again, great book. I would not change the five-star rating. My only qualm with it was the jarring transition to third person narration in the Dilsey section. I wish it would have stayed in first person...I just grew too attached to the first person upon this reading. Still, though, an excellent read and re-read.

On Writing resided on our shelf for some time before I had the chance to read it. Peg Boyle-Single cited it in her guidance for writing doctoral dissertations, which was the kick-in-the-pants I needed to pick it up.

I'm glad I did.

For one, this book reminded me how much I like King's writing. His prose is easy to read, conversational almost, but not in the ways we typically mean. “Conversational” is code for “not well done” or “amateurish,” which does not apply to King. His writing communicates in a way a friend would, supporting comprehension when necessary and encouraging progress.

I appreciate King's writing advice. He celebrates the basic rules of grammar and reminds us that brevity can be beautiful. Most applicable to my own writing were his notes on adverbs and revision. I have applied those in much of what I have written since finishing the book. In a world that seems to be removing the need to learn and internalize grammar (reference text and Twitter speak), King does not apologize when he says that our writing is judged and, by extension, we are critiqued by those judgments of our writing.

I enjoyed the opening passages, all of which are autobiographical. I will admit to not knowing much about Stephen King the man. There are, of course, numerous websites with all the facts you would ever want to know. Few, though, dig into why and how he became a writer. Interesting stuff, to say the least.

I recommend this book, but I will not go so far as to say it will substantially change one's writing. As King says, several times, this is not a textbook. To me, its intent is not how-to; rather, it prompts reflection. It encourages the writer to undertake the hard work of improving his/her own writing.

Now, get to work.

It's difficult for me to write a review of this book.

First, the author's style was direct, and he exercised an intense focus on the practitioner implementing a strategic planning process. For that, I was appreciative. This book appeared on the syllabus of a graduate course I was assigned to teach. My students appreciated the how-to nature of the writing. Yet, in the Kindle version at least, there were numerous typos, and the formulaic presentation of each chapter was like reading 360 pages of nothing but iambic pentameter.

Second, I've used information from this book in my consulting planning pursuits. Wilkinson's recognition of infinite verbs to start goals was excellent and useful, as was the related note of using quantifiable verbs for objectives. Still, despite the author emphasizing the simplicity of the Driver's Model, it's a system that leans toward needing a professionally-trained facilitator. Once deconstructed, the model is relatable, but on its surface, it's anything but.

In summary, it's not a book that leaves me with a sense of pleasure or accomplishment upon completion, but it's a book I find myself regularly referencing - a three-star, useful read.

I did a second read through Irwin's Extraordinary Influence as per class preparations for the Summer 2023 term. It was as accessible as I remembered. Irwin does a good job of breaking down a topic full or potential rabbit holes in a way that provides a suitable understanding yet motivates further consideration (on one's own). I admired that in the writing.

I can remember thinking that the book is a touch soft, and while the re-read did not dispel that notion, it refined it. Yes, Irwin chooses to see the bright side, but he acknowledges (frequently, to be honest) that the connections he espouses won't always be made. That's helpful. Despite its uplifting tone and optimistic outlook, this book does not absolve the manager from the hard decisions that accompany the role.

This title was incredible difficult for me to rate, so I copped out and rated it down the middle.

Beerel is obviously well-versed in leadership studies, and she condenses extensive literature on all of the covered approaches and related topics into manageable and accessible chunks. Her writing is scholarly without being stuck on itself. I appreciated that she wrote energetically about topics like mindfulness, and I was pleased to see a diligent exploration of neuroscience within leadership studies, spiritual leadership, and transpersonal leadership. I learned numerous factoids and found myself digging further into the literature on several topics because of this text. These are all good things.

But it’s not all good things. The tone of the writing veers into the snarky far too much for my taste. There is a way to suggest a more critical view of certain approaches (like transformational or authentic leadership) without being flippant or near-insulting. I am not against scholars citing their own work in subsequent writings, but Beerel’s prior texts were foundational sources for much of the discussion. I understand she wrote the book during the coronavirus pandemic, but in my opinion, she overused the pandemic as a case too often. It would be an effective highlight here and there, but otherwise, she may have wanted to consider a “leadership in the time of COVID-19” book. Finally, the chapter on crisis leadership was limited and devoid of the depth that it has received in scholarly literature. These were the negatives that made the book tough for me to finish.

I would recommend this title for leadership students, but unless the students were graduate or doctoral with some prior background in leadership studies, I would hesitate to make it a text for a course.

I came to read Bascomb's Sabotage: Mission to Destroy Hitler's Atomic Bomb as a gift from my five-year-old daughter. She and my wife were at the local library book sale, and she picked it up “for daddy.” How, then, was I not to read it?

I was intrigued after reading the jacket cover, and I'll admit to being very surprised by the text itself. I rolled through this book in less than a week (which was a busy work week at that, with a lot of travel). Bascomb's prose was engaging, and it kept the pace of the book intact, even when the Operation Grouse members were simply waiting through the Vidda winters.

For context, I knew nothing of this operation, nor more than a passing notion that if the U.S. and its allies were pursuing atomic weaponry, so too must have been their enemies. The book balances enough detail in the process of producing heavy water and how that related to the Nazi's efforts to build a uranium reactor and, consequently, an atomic bomb to aid in my understanding of why the Vemork plant was so important with the need to tell a story. Sabotage is, after all, a human story.

I enjoyed the maps (to visualize the setting) as well as the photographs (to connect me to the central characters). I also appreciated the brief introduction to Norwegian pronunciations at the start of the text. As such, I found myself trying to pronounce the terms correctly, and that helped me to remember person and place names, which enabled a recall of those people and places while reading along. Otherwise, I would have glossed over those names and been somewhat lost as to how they all connected as the story developed.

Though I enjoy history, I find that I engage with it better via television than through the written word. Sabotage is a notable exception to my rule and well worth the read.

Put simply, I enjoyed this read immensely.

I say that in full-on disaster-nerd mode. A testimonial on the cover notes a strength of the book as Punke's situating the North Butte Mining Disaster into the context of its day. I agree; that effort was skillful, and it helped me to feel both the human and temporal sides of the disaster. Punke also noted that he intentionally did not included direct quotes in the book unless they originated in a media piece or other document from the era. That was another strength of the writing. It's a non-fiction title that reads like a fictional narrative; it's that accessible.

As a scholar of crisis management and emergency management, I've often told students and clients alike that disasters are unequivocally tied to the context in which they occur. Prevailing thoughts, politics, competing events...all of these things influence how we view the event and the damage it causes. In the case of the North Butte disaster, it's easy for us to criticize the safety measures that were in-place, and it's easy for us to marvel at the level to which a company could take advantage of its personnel. But we're not in 1917. We're not pre-labor regulation (largely). We're not living during a world war (yet), nor are we on the cusp of a recession or depression (hopefully).

Punke's narrative also makes me think of the leaders who were thrust into this crisis. At what threshold does culpability start or end? How much credit do we (i.e., observers from afar) give for effort? Some of my favorite authors on crisis management and crisis leadership talk about managing accountability as one of a small set of key tasks for crisis managers/leaders. This story makes me think about how these characters handled that accountability. On one hand, it's obvious who was at fault, and it's also obvious that they were active in the response and its aftermath. But was that enough? Can a crisis be so big that the appropriate corporate response is to shut down? We all know that it's nearly impossible to put a price on a human life, but when a company does and provides a death benefit to a family, are we right to criticize said company for what it determines, regardless of the number?

I imagine all of you reading this will have varying answers. I'm pretty sure that the way I answer those questions will be different when I return to this review.

So it is with disasters. The interconnections of our complex world make disasters almost inevitable, and each new fact we learn about them changes our perception of the response. Even for those that occurred more than 100 years ago.

Read this book and soak it in. Think about its stories and what they mean. Put yourself in the shoes of various characters. And marvel at the resilience we humans are capable of demonstrating.

As is becoming a late-2024/early-2025 theme for me, this book was a tough one to rate. Its title specifically references the nonprofit sector, yet there is very little in the text that is specific to nonprofits (beyond vague references to the importance of nonprofit work). I understand the authors have extensive nonprofit experience, and in that sense, I appreciate that they did not overreach.

In full disclosure, I used this book as one of several resources for a course I taught on nonprofit management. I meant it as the accessible resource, the one that students could keep at arms reach and open for direct, succinct, X-Y-Z advice. In that sense, this book functions wonderfully.

There is nothing in this book that is not covered ad nauseam in other management texts, and I would not even say there is anything here presented in a total unique way. I feel bad saying it, but there is nothing memorable about the book. It is a strange fit for Jossey-Bass. Their texts, in my experience, have been "practically theoretical," and by that, I mean that they have been theory heavy but have attempted to give readers ideas on how to implement said theory. This text, though, feels more like a split between practice and self-help. Green and Hauser disclose some theoretical underpinnings, but I found there to be minimal discussion of why these topics were of importance to the nonprofit (or any) manager.

I recognize that I have been hard on this book. When I used it in the aforementioned class, my students indicated overall satisfaction with it. They found it accessible and helpful to their development. That placement suggests to me a contextual consideration for selecting this title - it is a solid text for the aspiring, inexperienced manager (nonprofit or otherwise).

This title had been on my shelf for quite some time. A few years ago, while studying for my doctoral degree, a group of students to which I belong read An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization by Kegan and Lahey. I enjoyed that book, and the authors made a passing reference to this one. Finally, nearly seven years after purchasing it, I got the chance to pick it up.

Generally, it did not disappoint. Given its publication in 2001, it was somewhat interesting to consider the frame through which digital connections were noted in this book. I wonder how the ways we connect now, 22 years later, would influence the writing. Fortunately, I believe the seven languages translate to today's environment.

I appreciated the interactive nature of the writing. Yes, I actually sketched out the “assignments” in my journal, using an experience at my consulting firm to explore my internal commitments and big assumptions. Doing so was a great way to engage with the material.

The first four (internal) languages came off the page sufficiently in the first part of the book, so much so that I didn't pick up a lot of extra insight from the subsequent chapter about bringing the internal languages to life. Conversely, though I felt the description of the social languages to be sufficient, the chapter about bringing them to life was particularly strong. It tied the entire book together for me, and caused my to close the back cover with a sense of satisfaction.

It's important that we take developmental books like with a grain of salt. That said, I anticipate coming back to this one. There were times reading the penultimate chapter about brining the social languages to life that I thought of my roles as a professor and a consultant, and ideas abounded about enhancing the connections I make with my students and clients. I'm excited to try those things out. All-in-all, this was a solid title, easy to read, with actionable advice that has stood up to at least the past 20 years. A good read!

I really hesitate to do much of a review on this one, mainly because I read it so quickly that I feel like I've missed something major. I can say that I really enjoyed the interplay between the narrative itself and the photographs. Fitting a photograph in sometimes felt forced, but overall the effort was effective and successful. For some of the fantasy characters, it was very helpful to have images of them - with monsters, peculiars, etc., it would have been too easy to create wildly fantastic images of these kids. The images kept them grounded as real people.

The story was well told and, for the most part, well written. I wouldn't say that this one is up for any type of award (from purely a “writing” standpoint), but it was more than adequate. The narrative itself was strangely addictive. I could tell that this one walked the line between adult and young adult fiction. The story was accessible for a younger crowd, while some of the themes - impacts of war, love crossing generations, etc. - were obviously aimed at older readers.

One of the elements in which I felt Riggs was most successful was keeping the fantasy part of the story alive without making it overly cheesy. Throughout the entire narrative, it felt as though all of the monsters and all of the peculiars abilities could really have been caused/manifested by PTSD from WWII and “passed” down through generations. At some points, the book felt like a play on the American Dream, which I really enjoyed.

I hope to be able to digest this one a bit more and post a much better review later. Time is always the issue, but to not really let this one sink in would be unfair to Riggs and the overall story.

Had to go with three stars on this one. At times, I really enjoyed it. At other times, I felt like it rambled on.

Okay, so on with the review. The novel tells the story of a magical competition between two young illusionists. The competition, though, isn't what it seems as the opponents actually fight the “battle” of two much older combatants. Their venue is a magical, world-traveling circus that is only open from dusk to dawn. The game not only dictates the lives of the young competitors, but evolves in such a way that the playing field and, indeed, the players become harder and harder to define.

In short, The Night Circus is a well-told fantasy story. The seasoned reader will be able to easily tell that it is Morgenstern's debut novel. The author, however, seemingly suffered from an inability to decide which story to tell. Did she want to go with the love story? The circus itself? Or purely the magic? I have no opinion as to which it should have been, but the narrative needed something to be selected. I labored through the middle hundred pages or so because of the endless addition of new illusions, or “tents”. If the story would have been the magic, so be it, but at that point, the narrative felt like a love story; hence, the magic became something that felt like a writing exercise to me.

Morgenstern flirted with the theme of “love as magic”, but it is too simplistic to say that that was “the theme”. There were many variations on love, with Marco and Celia as examples, but also between Ethan and the Burgess twins, Frederick and Celia, as well as the paternal-child relationships of Celia-Hector and Marco-Alexander. These were well-crafted from a back-story perspective and I would have enjoyed a little more depth with them.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read - felt very much like the film The Prestige . It was a book that I read as part of a book club in which I participate, and I can honestly say that I would NOT otherwise have picked it up. But...that is the reason for being in the book club! Ultimately, I'm glad I gave The Night Circus a go.