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Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
This analysis of what makes great companies great has been hailed everywhere as an instant classic and one of the best business titles since In Search of Excellence. The authors, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, spent six years in research, and they freely admit that their own preconceptions about business success were devastated by their actual findings--along with the preconceptions of virtually everyone else. Built to Last identifies 18 "visionary" companies and sets out to determine what's special about them. To get on the list, a company had to be world famous, have a stellar brand image, and be at least 50 years old. We're talking about companies that even a layperson knows to be, well, different: the Disneys, the Wal-Marts, the Mercks. Whatever the key to the success of these companies, the key to the success of this book is that the authors don't waste time comparing them to business failures. Instead, they use a control group of "successful-but-second-rank" companies to highlight what's special about their 18 "visionary" picks. Thus Disney is compared to Columbia Pictures, Ford to GM, Hewlett Packard to Texas Instruments, and so on. The core myth, according to the authors, is that visionary companies must start with a great product and be pushed into the future by charismatic leaders. There are examples of that pattern, they admit: Johnson & Johnson, for one. But there are also just too many counterexamples--in fact, the majority of the "visionary" companies, including giants like 3M, Sony, and TI, don't fit the model. They were characterized by total lack of an initial business plan or key idea and by remarkably self-effacing leaders. Collins and Porras are much more impressed with something else they shared: an almost cult-like devotion to a "core ideology" or identity, and active indoctrination of employees into "ideologically commitment" to the company. The comparison with the business "B"-team does tend to raise a significant methodological problem: which companies are to be counted as "visionary" in the first place? There's an air of circularity here, as if you achieve "visionary" status by ... achieving visionary status. So many roads lead to Rome that the book is less practical than it might appear. But that's exactly the point of an eloquent chapter on 3M. This wildly successful company had no master plan, little structure, and no prima donnas. Instead it had an atmosphere in which bright people were both keen to see the company succeed and unafraid to "try a lot of stuff and keep what works." --Richard Farr.
Price: $15.48
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The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It
The Hubble Space Telescope has produced the most stunning images of the cosmos humanity has ever seen. It has transformed our understanding of the universe around us, revealing new information about its age and evolution, the life cycle of stars, and the very existence of black holes, among other startling discoveries. The Universe in a Mirror tells the story of this telescope and the visionaries responsible for its extraordinary accomplishments. Robert Zimmerman takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most ambitious scientific instruments ever sent into space. After World War II, astronomer Lyman Spitzer and a handful of scientists waged a fifty-year struggle to build the first space telescope capable of seeing beyond Earth's atmospheric veil. Zimmerman shows how many of the telescope's advocates sacrificed careers and family to get it launched, and how others devoted their lives to Hubble only to have their hopes and reputations shattered when its mirror was found to be flawed. This is the story of an idea that would not die--and of the dauntless human spirit. Illustrated with striking color images, The Universe in a Mirror describes the heated battles between scientists and bureaucrats, the perseverance of astronauts to repair and maintain the telescope, and much more. Hubble, and the men and women behind it, opened a rare window onto the universe, dazzling humanity with sights never before seen. This book tells their remarkable story. .
Price: $18.76
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Trim Carpentry and Built-Ins (Build Like A Pro)
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Built to Change: How to Achieve Sustained Organizational Effectiveness
In this groundbreaking book, organizational effectiveness experts Edward Lawler and Christopher Worley show how organizations can be “built to change” so they can last and succeed in today’s global economy. Instead of striving to create a highly reliable Swiss watch that consistently produces the same behavior, they argue organizations need to be designed in ways that stimulate and facilitate change. Built to Change focuses on identifying practices and designs that organizations can adopt so that they are able to change. As Lawler and Worley point out, organizations that foster continuous change - Are closely connected to their environments
- Reward experimentation
- Learn about new practices and technologies
- Commit to continuously improving performance
- Seek temporary competitive advantages
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Price: $16.77
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If I Built a Car
“If i built a car, it’d be totally new! Here are a few of the things that i’d do. . . .” Jack has designed the ultimate fantasy car. inspired by zeppelins and trains, Cadillacs and old planes, with brilliant colors and lots of shiny chrome, this far-out vision is ready to cruise! there’s a fireplace, a pool, and even a snack bar! After a tour of the ritzy interior, robert the robot starts up the motor . . . and Jack and his dad set off on the wildest test drive ever!.
Price: $3.26
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The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker: Shop Drawings and Professional Methods for Designing and Constructing Every Kind of Kitchen and Built-In Cabinet
Demonstrating how woodworkers can approach the complex job of designing and making built-in cabinets for kitchens, family rooms, and home offices, this technical handbook provides meticulously detailed shop drawings, instructions, and hundreds of professional tips for saving time, materials, unnecessary aggravation, and money. Bob Lang covers building traditional face-frame cabinets as well as constructing contemporary frameless Euro-style cabinets. Woodworkers will learn how to measure rooms and design fitting cabinetry that considers both function and aesthetics, how to develop working shop drawings and cutting lists, and how to work with materials as varied as solid wood and plastic laminate. Technical instructions for cutting and joining the basic box, as well as for fitting it to drawer stacks, sinks, corners, appliances, and islands, are also included, as are detailed steps for sanding, finishing, and installing each piece. .
Price: $14.49
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Shop Drawings for Craftsman Interiors: Cabinets, Moldings & Built-Ins for Every Room in the Home (Shop Drawings series)
Featuring detailed working shop drawings, this book guides carpenters and woodworkers who wish to repair or replace original Craftsman or Craftsman-style designs in homes, cottages, or bungalows. Structural and interior details are tailored to modern standards, techniques, and materials. Explained are how the detailing was originally accomplished by Gustav Stickley early in the 20th century, as well as how woodworkers can fit contemporary hardware, sinks, and appliances into cabinetry featured in the book. Included are working shop drawings for kitchen and bathroom cabinets, closet and passage door details, crown moldings, chair railing, wall paneling and wainscoting, staircase designs, window seats, door trim, built-in dining nooks, and porches..
Price: $15.66
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Nothing Like It In the World : The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
Abraham Lincoln, who had worked as a riverboat pilot before turning to politics, knew a thing or two about the problems of transporting goods and people from place to place. He was also convinced that the United States would flourish only if its far-flung regions were linked, replacing sectional loyalties with an overarching sense of national destiny. Building a transcontinental railroad, writes the prolific historian Stephen Ambrose, was second only to the abolition of slavery on Lincoln's presidential agenda. Through an ambitious program of land grants and low-interest government loans, he encouraged entrepreneurs such as California's "Big Four"--Charles Crocker, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Leland Stanford--to take on the task of stringing steel rails from ocean to ocean. The real work of doing so, of course, was on the shoulders of immigrant men and women, mostly Chinese and Irish. These often-overlooked actors and what a contemporary called their "dreadful vitality" figure prominently in Ambrose's narrative, alongside the great financiers and surveyors who populate the standard textbooks. In the end, Ambrose writes, Lincoln's dream transformed the nation, marking "the first great triumph over time and space" and inaugurating what has come to be known as the American Century. David Haward Bain's Empire Express, which covers the same ground, is more substantial, but Ambrose provides an eminently readable study of a complex episode in American history. --Gregory McNamee.
Price: $6.99
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