Jossey-Bass

Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success

gita — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Judith Williams, Deborah M. Kolb, Carol Frohlinger

Her Place at the Table, as its subtitle suggests, offers women a guide to leadership success in the modern work environment. Each of the “five key challenges” forms a chapter. The first challenge is drilling deep, gathering the information needed when deciding whether to take on a new job or project, or when negotiating the circumstances under which you take on a new job or project. The second challenge is mobilizing backers, building a support network and setting the rules of engagement that every good leader needs. The third challenge is garnering resources to ensure you have the tools you need every step of the way. The fourth challenge is bringing people on board and overcoming the inevitable resistance to change. The fifth and final challenge is making a difference, which may mean actually changing things, or giving yourself credit and taking credit for what you’ve accomplished.

Although designed a bit like a self-help book or how-to manual, Her Place at the Table avoids many of the normal pitfalls associated with these genres. Most self-help books and how-to manuals present a world that’s just a bit too rosy. Everything’s easy. You’re perfect and wonderful. The world is your oyster. All you have to do to succeed is ask the universe to give your perfectly wonderful self what you desperately want and truly deserve. All stuff, fluff and nonsense. Her Place at the Table, on the other hand, engages with the world as it is and deals honestly with the internal and external obstacles that women face in the workplace. From the introduction through all five chapters, the authors detail the myths and misconceptions that hamper women’s progress in our careers and give detailed strategies on how these challenges can be overcome, including specific examples from real women who have overcome these challenges to succeed in their own careers.

Some of the strategies detailed in the book may be out of reach for women just starting their careers, or may not work for every individual situation. However, the advice is generally realistic and practical. I found myself wishing I’d read the book long ago, perhaps before encountering some of the traps the authors tackle. Now that I have read it, I intend to revisit it often and to recommend it to as many women as possible, starting with you. Go. Read.

Written by: Melinda Barton, January 9th 2011

The American Way to Change: How National Service and Volunteers Are Transforming America

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:00:00 +0000

By Shirley Sagawa

Jossey-Bass

Mom. Apple pie. Service. In The American Way to Change, Shirley Sagawa convincingly argues that volunteering is both deeply rooted in American history, as well as a creative solution to modern societal challenges. Sagawa argues that service can be used to impact many entrenched social ills, including an ineffective public education system, an aging population with fewer family support systems, environmental degradation, and poverty. Service—whether through a national program like AmeriCorps or through individuals working at volunteer-run organizations like Citizen Schools—is a critical component to a functioning civil society, according to Sagawa, and fill gaps between programs offered by the government, businesses, and nonprofits.

Over nine concise chapters, Sagawa outlines American volunteer service and its impact on the people serving, the communities being served, and the nation at large. This impact is not just due to the net social good that's being enacted through these programs, but also through the innovations that result from passionate people dealing with real challenges with limited resources. She also describes the people who serve, who are mostly people in transition: college graduates, retirees, and the recently jobless, among others.

Sagawa, who has been called "the mother of the modern service movement," is a very credible author, and The American Way to Change isn't pure conjecture about the impact volunteers and service organizations could have on the big issues facing America. She describes, at length, the impact of the volunteer-based programs that are presently working in prose both matter-of-fact and moving. For instance, one successful venture is the Prisoner Entrepreneurship Program, which combats recidivism through teaching basic business skills to the incarcerated. Founded by a former Wall Street investor, the program has a return-to-prison rate of less than ten percent, and an employment rate of eighty percent within thirty days of release. This is one of literally dozens of programs that Sagawa profiles that are both very successful and have concrete results that help solve some of America's biggest challenges.

In this fast-moving book, Sagawa makes a strong case for service no longer being considered something "nice" done to pad a resume or pass an afternoon, but an absolutely necessity in changing the United States for the better. Buy it if you're passionate about service, looking for organizations to volunteer with that are making a substantial difference, or simply in need of inspiration about the power of human potential.

Written by: Catherine Nicotera, August 16th 2010

Twisted Triangle: A Famous Crime Writer, a Lesbian Love Affair, and the FBI Husband’s Violent Revenge

admin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:29:00 +0000

By Caitlin Rother, John Hess

Jossey-Bass

“Stranger than fiction” is the most accurate way to describe the premise for this book about married FBI agents. The wife has a lesbian affair with a crime novel author, and the husband kidnaps and later tries to kill his wife. And yet, it’s a true story! Having never heard of this case before, I could not put the book down and found myself eager to get to the end to see how it all turned out.

The book tells the complex story of an abusive relationship between Gene and Margo Bennett, as well as their personal, professional, and legal troubles. Evidence of Gene’s emotional abuse towards his wife is presented early in the book, and starts to draw the outline of the picture that’s yet to come. He carries out a scam to get money from the F.B.I., and is prosecuted when Margo decides to divorce him and reports the incident. A power struggle starts as he seeks revenge for her betrayal and her affair with Patricia Cornwell, a famous author. He kidnaps her to make her lie in court and clear his name, but is still convicted. When he gets out of jail, he carries out an elaborate and bizarre plan to frame her for murder and attempts to kill her. Ultimately, Gene is found guilty on several charges, including attempted murder, and sentenced to twenty-three years and ten years of probation. The book wraps up by describing the aftermath of the trial and its effect on Margo and her two daughters.

One of the problems with the book is that it’s told primarily through the perspective of Margo, but this is because the author attempted to contact Gene, but he did not agree to participate. The writing itself is awkward at times, which doesn’t help the fact that the story unfolds itself is hard to keep up with. There are so many names and places to keep track of, yet they are sometimes mentioned without a reminder about how we should know who or what the author is referring to.

These problems, however, are minor when compared to the important themes raised in the book. Because Margo was raised to be ashamed of homosexuality and bisexuality, she viewed her relationships with women as innocent experimentation. She even viewed her affair with Patricia Cornwell as separate from any pattern that would make her label herself as a lesbian. The homophobia and bias against homosexuality in the Virginia justice system is also mentioned several times throughout the book.

Gene’s abuse towards Margo, along with her ignorance about what was happening in her marriage, is the perfect example of how abuse works. It seems that no matter how severe the abuse and torment, the blame still falls on the victim. In fact, this situation shows that the more severe the abuse, the more blame a victim might receive. Why didn’t she know better? She was an FBI agent after all... How could she not see the signs in her own relationship? Why did she let it go that far? All of these are questions echoed throughout the book by her peers, and all demonstrate why these stories need to be told. It should go without saying that there is great motivation to disconnect one’s own relationship from the scenarios and “what ifs” that a person hears about, and yet these questions often come up.

At its core, this book is about abuse and sexual repression—two themes that could certainly use more attention and discussion, especially when they reflect a true story and not a work of fiction.

Written by: frau sally benz, July 26th 2009

Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives

admin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:27:00 +0000

By Marilee Strong

Jossey-Bass

When a crime is committed, the public wants to know why. In Erased, journalist Marilee Strong answers that question for a specific set of criminals she calls “eraser killers.” She outlines an in-depth profile of these killers hoping that the more the public knows about them, the more they will be caught and justice will be brought to their victims.

Strong started the journey to Erased while reporting on the disappearance of a pregnant woman in California named Laci Peterson. She covered Laci’s story through her disappearance to the conviction of her husband, Scott, for her murder and the murder of their unborn child. While researching other murders for the Peterson case, Strong noticed a psychological pattern between Scott and another killer who committed a strikingly similar crime more than fifty years earlier. This book is the result of the next five years of Strong’s research.

Erased covers more than fifty murders throughout the past century that fit the pattern of eraser killings, a form of intimate partner homicide that is committed almost exclusively by men, done in a carefully planned manner, which is often through bloodless means, in order to leave behind as little evidence as possible. The killers frame the murder to make it look like something happened that had nothing to do with them, and often try to make the body physically disappear as well. Eraser killers eliminate women, and sometimes children, in their lives simply because they no longer serve any purpose to them. The killers have no emotional attachment to their victims, considering them nothing more than a commodity. Most disturbingly, these men are often described as loving husbands right up until they day they kill. The women in their lives have no idea they are in danger until it is too late.

Strong credits the “unique psychology of men” with these murders and, in particular, a set of dangerous traits that psychologists have named the “Dark Triad” of personality: psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. These traits lead eraser killers to believe they can literally get away with murder without anyone ever knowing. Ironically, it is also these traits that lead many to their downfall. Eraser killers can be so over confident that they make mistakes and overlook important details.

While it is interesting to know just where some of these killers went wrong, Strong occasionally takes those details too far. Her recounting of Laci Peterson’s murder becomes eerie when Strong describes exactly what Scott might have done to get away with it. Surprisingly, she goes into these specifics after telling the reader that many of these killers learn from each other as models, noting what worked for other killers and what pitfalls to avoid. With this in mind, many of the details Strong uses in Erased become uncomfortable to read. It makes one wonder how helpful the book is in bringing victims justice, and how helpful it could potentially be to a future eraser killer.

While Erased is disturbing on many levels, it is also thought provoking. For the majority of the book, Strong’s heart seems to be in the right place. In the conclusion, she offers recommendations on what the criminal justice system can do to better catch eraser killers. She focuses on closing loopholes that make eraser killers think they can get away with murder and that allow some of them to do just that. At the very least, Erased is a wake-up call that there is another, more disturbing, side to domestic homicide that deserves serious attention. Strong makes a very clear case that her profile and recommendations are worth considering.

Written by: Jill Hindenach, July 25th 2009