Book Description This is a short, concise, hands-on manual for managers at all levels - a handbook for a leader's first 90 days in office. This work contains lots of practical tools and questions for self-assessment. Written in a friendly and accessible tone, it offers a broad-gauged coverage of many aspects and kinds of transitions at all levels. It includes new topics such as working with new bosses, building teams, and aligning the strategy, structure, systems and skills of organizations. Written by noted leadership transition expert Michael Watkins, The First 90 Days outlines proven strategies that will dramatically shorten the time it takes to reach what Watkins calls the "breakeven point": the point at which your organization needs you as much as you need the job. Based on three years of research into leadership transitions at all levels and hands-on work designing transition programs for top companies. From Publishers Weekly This earnest guide to career transition periods-when a new job or promotion puts an employee in an unfamiliar role-asserts, reassuringly, that navigating the all-important first 90 days is a "teachable skill." Business professor Watkins, co-author of Right From the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role, lays out a "standard framework" for leadership transitions, based on "five fundamental propositions," "ten key challenges," and a four-fold typology of situations that new managers find themselves in. Fortunately, Watkins balances the theorizing with practical steps managers can take to get on top of things and initiate changes, including elaborate self-assessment checklists, planning exercises and meticulous guidelines on how to have conversations with underlings and bosses. His advice, if not very original, is sound. He warns managers not to assume that their existing skills will suffice for new roles, advises them to pursue small-scale "early wins" to boost credibility, and admonishes workplace Machiavellis to "avoid pressing for closure until you are confident the balance of forces acting on key people is tipping your way." Watkins's penchant for cut-and-dried schematizations sometimes goes overboard, especially in the book's plethora of elementary graphs, tables, diagrams and matrices (novice orators are informed that "classic values invoked to convince others to embrace potentially painful change are summarized in table 8-1," while the oceanic topic of "Intersecting Cultural Dimensions" gets boiled down to a three-ring Venn diagram). But if the content of Watkins's counsel is not always obviously helpful, his systematized approach to thinking will at least help panicky executives keep their wits about them. From Booklist In these days of the public's microscopic scrutiny of corporate C-level executives, it's a wonder anyone would aspire to the CEO position. Amazingly enough, many eager managers are still climbing--and Harvard Business School professor and author (Right from the Start [1999]) Watkins helps prepare them for career moves, accelerating their transitions. This is, essentially, practical advice about undertaking new opportunities and understanding new vulnerabilities, quickly and without much upheaval. Different steps--sometimes simultaneously, sometimes sequential-- define success in the first three months, from promoting yourself (i.e., taking charge fast) to keeping your balance. Anecdotes enliven the checklists and sample learning plans; in fact, one specific case--Douglas Ivester of Coca-Cola--underscores the absolute necessity to adapt and change rapidly in new positions. Much content is human resources related, based on self-discipline, team building, and the availability of trusted advice and counsel. Would that every newly elected president of the U.S. heeded this practice. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Barbara Jacobs Book Dimension: length: (cm)23.5 　　　 　　　　　　　 　 width:(cm)15.5

What’s a round-the-world honeymoon if you can’t buy the odd souvenir to ship back home? Like the twenty silk dressing gowns Becky found in Hong Kong…the hand-carved dining table (and ten chairs) from Sri Lanka…the, um, huge wooden giraffes from Malawi (that her husband Luke expressly forbade her to buy)… Only now Becky and Luke have returned home to London and Luke is furious. Two truckloads of those souvenirs have cluttered up their loft, and the bills for them are outrageous. Luke insists Becky go on a budget. And worse: her beloved best friend Suze has found a new best friend while Becky was away. Becky’s feeling rather blue—when her parents deliver some incredible news. She has a long-lost sister! Becky is thrilled! She’s convinced her sister will be a true soulmate. They’ll go shopping together, have manicures together.…Until she meets Jessica for the first time and gets the shock of her life. Surely Becky Bloomwood’s sister can’t…hate shopping? Sophie Kinsella is a former financial journalist and the author of the bestselling novels Confessions of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, Can You Keep a Secret?, and The Undomestic Goddess . She lives in England, where she is at work on her next book.

Five-year old Matilda longs for her parents to be good and loving and understanding, but they are none of these things. They are perfectly horrid to her. Matilda invents a game of punishing them each time they treat her badly and she soon discovers she has supernatural powers.

在线阅读本书 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the second and final novel by Anne Bront?, is concerned with the story of a woman who leaves her abusive, dissolute husband, and who must then support herself and her young son. Originally published in June of 1848, it challenged the prevailing morals of the time; a critic went so far as to pronounce it "utterly unfit to be put into the hands of girls". It is considered to be one of the first feminist novels. This work is a sometimes violent and brutal tale of love and betrayal, separation and reconciliation, set in the familiar Bronte landscape of bleak houses in moorland settings. This new edition is taken from the 1848 second edition of the text, with corrections made to that text. From AudioFile Helen Graham has taken up residence in the bleak Wildfell Hall with her young son to escape her alcoholic and philandering husband. The story is narrated both by Helen and the man who falls in love with her. Frederick Davidson and Nadia May take the roles of the storytellers, and they do an excellent job of portraying both the male and female voices. May reads Helen's diary and correspondence. May's voice is young, fresh and naive, well-suited to Helen as a young woman; the voices of the men are excellent as well. Her laughter sounds genuine, and her portrayal of drunken men is perfect. She moves the narrative along crisply, with just the right touch of drama. Davidson's voicing is also excellent, but he tends to overdramatize at times, and his tempo is just a shade too fast. The choice to use both male and female narrators was a good one, enlivening the story and underlining the differences between the sexes in Victorian England. S.S.R. From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister Of the three Bronte sisters, Emily and Charlotte are better known, yet it is Anne's work which carries some of the strongest feminist themes. In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a devout young woman named Helen falls in love with a man who is handsome, but whose values are questionable; willing to believe she can alter his character, she marries him. Her marriage becomes a misery she has no power to change until she devises a bold plan to take control. Her story comes through two voices - her own and that of Gilbert Markham, a man who falls in love with Helen later in her life - and is told through journals and letters written over a period of time. Because of the privacy and immediacy of these narratives, the reader sees personal changes and attitudes Helen and Gilbert are often unaware of at the time: we witness Helen's first naive protestations of passion for her husband and follow her through her eventual disillusionment; we recognize Gilbert's early, unconscious egotism. While the plot continues and mysteries are unraveled, what Helen and Gilbert say - as well as what they don't say - provides another story to follow, which reinforces Anne Bronte's indictment of the sexual double standards of nineteenth-century Britain. Book Dimension Height (mm) 198 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Width (mm) 126

An intimate look at one of the most creative artists at work today. When it comes to making music, Björk needs no introduction. She has always been at the vanguard, exploding convention and leading her listeners down the uncharted paths of a haunting and harmonic trip through sound. Last year, she starred in Lars von Trier's acclaimed Dancer in the Dark, and took home the coveted Best Actress award at Cannes. A true artist whose work has consistently transcended creative and geographic borders, Björk turns every medium she touches to gold. Her next project is a gorgeously produced, stunningly beautiful collection of photographs and text that is being published simultaneously around the world. Designed by Björk and m/m, the celebrated Paris design firm that has already collaborated Balenciaga, Visionaire, and Yohji Yamamoto, the book boasts contributions from the world's top photographers, fashion designers and video makers as well as original writing and artwork by Björk herself. A breathtaking photographic odyssey through Björk's career, a stunning visual and literary companion to one of the most original performers of our time, Björk promises to be like no book you've ever seen. Coinciding with the release of her new album, Vespertine, and the supporting tour, this book is a must-have for Björk's admirers as well as anyone craving a touch of beauty for their bookshelf.