Books about High impact from Amazon.com

Leslie R. Crutchfield (Washington, D.C.) is a managing director of Ashoka and research grantee of the Aspen Institute. Heather McLeod Grant (Palo Alto, CA) is a nonprofit consultant and advisor to Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship and the Stanford Center for Social Innovation. Crutchfield and Grant were co-founding editors of Who Cares, a national magazine reaching 50,000 readers in circulation between 1993-2000..
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If the interactions between job seekers and job interviewers can resemble a cat-and-mouse game, with each group trying to outwit and to stay one step ahead of the other, High-Impact Interview Questions serves as recruiters' foil to the books popular with candidates, such as How Would You Move Mt. Fuji? and Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions . It opens by describing three different kinds of questions which dominate most modern job interviews: conventional questions ("What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?"), situational questions ("How would you handle a crisis in which your boss asked you to do something that you considered unethical?"), and brainteaser questions ("Why are manhole covers round?"), and analyzes the shortcomings of each approach. These techniques for sorting good job candidates from bad are fundamentally flawed, according to Hoevemeyer, because they are far too predictable and artificial, and don't illuminate the qualities that actually make a difference to new employees' success.

Instead, Hoevemeyer advances a philosophy which she terms "Competency-Based Behavioral Interviewing" (CBBI). Her basic premise is that past performance is the best predictor of future performance, and that the more recent a particular behavior, the stronger of a predictor it will be. If you accept those assumptions, then much of what follows in the book's explanations of CBBI are highly logical.

The most valuable part of High-Impact Interview Questions is its extensive catalog of sample interview questions, grouped according to the underlying quality which they're meant to uncover. After introducing CBBI and showing how it ties specific and precise interview questions back to the functional competencies job seekers will need in a particular position, the book provides a very handy guide to sample questions which any interviewer can use. Interested in a candidate's decision-making ability? Try "Describe a time you had to make a quick decision with incomplete information?" How about attention to detail? For that, the book prescribes queries like, "Tell me about a time when you caught an error that others had missed."

Esoteric philosophical tome, this isn't. But for those job interviewers who believe in competency-based questions and want an efficient guide to learning about interviewees' true potential, this book is a worthwhile read. --Peter Han.
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* Field-proven exercises from the authors' worldwide experience * Easy-to-follow instructions for preparation, additional reading, and Q & A processes * Valuable essays on handling conflict situations * An Exercise Matrix to sort activities by type, length, and other parameters

It also includes a jam-packed Trainer's Toolbox containing more than sixty handouts, flipcharts, and overheads; workshop agendas; instructions for breakout sessions; and tons more. From the quick-fix solutions of the "My Workshop Starts in Five Minutes" section to fully developed sessions, this book will be every educator's best friend..
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This collection of field-tested tools, customizable questionnaires, and techniques for working with clients provides crucial problem-solving help in areas such as:
• Managing and leading change
• Organizational initiatives
• Assessing team and organizational functioning
• Improving relationships between departments and business units
• Creative problem-solving techniques

Mel Silberman, Ph.D., (Princeton, NJ) is a best-selling author and editor. A professor of adult and organization development at Temple University, he is the author of Active Training..
Price: $19.62 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A guide to creating copy that connects with customers­­and makes the sale

Advertising and promotion professionals have long known that, while bells and whistles may grab a customer's attention, words make the sale. Yet, nearly a decade into the Web revolution, E-commerce professionals are just now waking up to the fact that the usual high-tech, graphics-heavy approach to site design is bad for business.

Net Words explores the reasons why and makes a strong case for a revolutionary new approach to copywriting tailored to the unique demands of a powerful new medium. With the help of dozens of examples of successful and unsuccessful on-line writing, author Nick Usborne shows readers how to harness the power of the written word for the Web. Readers learn how to imbue a business with a distinctive on-line "voice" and use it to forge lasting bonds with customers, increase market share, and close sales.

the strength of Pilates, the flexibility of yoga, the muscle tone of strength training, and top-notch aerobic fitness—all through the revolutionary pleasure-based fitness program that gets you in shape from the inside out!

The hottest new trend in mind-body wellness, Nia—which stands for Neuromuscular Integrative Action—is the most advanced form of fusion fitness, blending martial arts, healing arts, dance, and spiritual self-healing to create a high-powered, synergistic workout that no isolated exercise technique can match. Created by fitness pioneers Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas, Nia presents an entirely new philosophy of exercise—one that will not only keep you in fantastic shape, but will also help you rediscover the joy of movement and being at home in your body.

The Nia Technique is the first and only book to share the workouts so popular at gyms and spas across the country, outlining the basic Nia moves—or katas—that can be performed easily at home and adapted to your own level of fitness. With moves drawn from nine fitness disciplines, including tae kwan do, tai chi, yoga, Feldenkrais™, jazz dance, and modern dance, Nia promotes strength and muscle definition without the use of weights, and its freeing, dance-like regimen provides a medium for self-healing. You’ll tighten, tone, lengthen, strengthen, and lose pounds and inches—and have fun doing it! You’ll learn to follow “the body’s way”—a breakthrough fitness concept that teaches you to move in the way that most benefits your individual body; and you’ll learn to use visualizations and vocalizations that enhance the benefits of each workout. The overall regimen is phenomenally effective because its holistic approach unites the body and the mind, and creates an exhilarating path that anyone can follow toward a healthy, fit physique, lasting weight loss, and an unlimited sense of your fitness potential.

With simple, step-by-step instructions, TheNia Technique also shares the inspiring stories of people whose lives have been transformed by the practice of Nia. With Nia, a new body is just the beginning—the ultimate goal is a new life!

"Grady’s book encourages principals who are perpetually pressed for time to get to correspondence that languishes at the bottom of their to-do lists. My own correspondence has doubled since getting my hands on this book!"
—Cathie West, Principal
Mountain Way Elementary School, Granite Falls, WA

"The letters cover a wide variety of topics and give administrators ideas on what kind of letters to write. After going through the letters, I realize that I need to send more letters of appreciation to parents and organizations."
—Gina Segobiano, Principal/Superintendent
Signal Hill School District 181, Belleville, IL

Build a culture of care with positive communication!

As the key communicators for schools, principals write a wide range of correspondence—from thank-you letters and congratulations to best wishes and other personal notes. Yet, this critical responsibility can easily fall victim to every administrator’s busy schedule. Marilyn Grady’s updated and expanded collection of letters is truly a time-saving starter kit, with user-friendly and easy-to-personalize templates to revitalize every busy administrator’s communications repertoire.

This practical resource provides jargon-free templates useful for:

• Improving communication with parents, teachers, and other school stakeholders
• Initiating a "letter-a-day" plan to improve school culture
• Advancing parent education, health and wellness, and safety initiatives, among others
• Reminding you to communicate with all stakeholders
• Evaluating your current written communication
• Identifying areas where you could communicate more

This targeted collection will add a new level of organization, efficiency, and effectiveness to your communication tasks. Unlock the secrets of effective communication and watch relationships on all levels flourish! Includes a PC- and Mac-compatible CD-ROM containing all letters for easy customization.

These are matters of common sense, applied to simple questions of cause and effect. But what happens, asks systems-behavior expert Charles Perrow, when common sense runs up against the complex systems, electrical and mechanical, with which we have surrounded ourselves? Plenty of mayhem can ensue, he replies. The Chernobyl nuclear accident, to name one recent disaster, was partially brought about by the failure of a safety system that was being brought on line, a failure that touched off an unforeseeable and irreversible chain of disruptions; the less severe but still frightening accident at Three Mile Island, similarly, came about as the result of small errors that, taken by themselves, were insignificant, but that snowballed to near-catastrophic result.

Only through such failures, Perrow suggests, can designers improve the safety of complex systems. But, he adds, those improvements may introduce new opportunities for disaster. Looking at an array of real and potential technological mishaps--including the Bhopal chemical-plant accident of 1984, the Challenger explosion of 1986, and the possible disruptions of Y2K and genetic engineering--Perrow concludes that as our technologies become more complex, the odds of tragic results increase. His treatise makes for sobering and provocative reading. --Gregory McNamee.
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