The Assault on American Excellence


Book Description

“I want to call it a cry of the heart, but it’s more like a cry of the brain, a calm and erudite one.” —Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal The former dean of Yale Law School argues that the feverish egalitarianism gripping college campuses today is a threat to our democracy. College education is under attack from all sides these days. Most of the handwringing—over free speech, safe zones, trigger warnings, and the babying of students—has focused on the excesses of political correctness. That may be true, but as Anthony Kronman shows, it’s not the real problem. “Necessary, humane, and brave” (Bret Stephens, The New York Times), The Assault on American Excellence makes the case that the boundless impulse for democratic equality gripping college campuses today is a threat to institutions whose job is to prepare citizens to live in a vibrant democracy. Three centuries ago, the founders of our nation saw that for this country to have a robust government, it must have citizens trained to have tough skins, to make up their own minds, and to win arguments not on the basis of emotion but because their side is closer to the truth. Without that, Americans would risk electing demagogues. Kronman is the first to tie today’s campus clashes to the history of American values, drawing on luminaries like Alexis de Tocqueville and John Adams to argue that our modern controversies threaten the best of our intellectual traditions. His tone is warm and wise, that of an educator who has devoted his life to helping students be capable of living up to the demands of a free society—and to do so, they must first be tested in a system that isn’t focused on sympathy at the expense of rigor and that values excellence above all.




Excellence in University Leadership and Management Case HIstories


Book Description

This book provides 16 case histories from universities which have been successful in facing up to the challenges of the 21st Century. The initiatives described here vary enormously as do the institutions and countries from where they come, and this gives the reader an idea of the wide range of issues which require addressing. The book has contributions from Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.




Cases on Quality Initiatives for Organizational Longevity


Book Description

Over the past decade, increasing competition has created immense opportunities for businesses globally. As such, it important to research new methods and systems for creating optimal business cultures. Cases on Quality Initiatives for Organizational Longevity is a scholarly publication that examines cases on practices in organizations and how they have facilitated transformation over the years. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as customer loyalty, benchmarking, and employee training, this book is geared toward business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, professionals, researchers, and students seeking current and relevant research on contemporary cases in the field of business quality management.




A Case for Irony


Book Description

In 2001, Vanity Fair declared that the Age of Irony was over. Joan Didion has lamented that the United States in the era of Barack Obama has become an "irony-free zone." Jonathan Lear in his 2006 book Radical Hope looked into AmericaÕs heart to ask how might we dispose ourselves if we came to feel our way of life was coming to an end. Here, he mobilizes a squad of philosophers and a psychoanalyst to once again forge a radical way forward, by arguing that no genuinely human life is possible without irony. Becoming human should not be taken for granted, Lear writes. It is something we accomplish, something we get the hang of, and like Kierkegaard and Plato, Lear claims that irony is one of the essential tools we use to do this. For Lear and the participants in his Socratic dialogue, irony is not about being cool and detached like a player in a Woody Allen film. That, as Johannes Climacus, one of KierkegaardÕs pseudonymous authors, puts it, Òis something only assistant professors assume.Ó Instead, it is a renewed commitment to living seriously, to experiencing every disruption that shakes us out of our habitual ways of tuning out of life, with all its vicissitudes. While many over the centuries have argued differently, Lear claims that our feelings and desires tend toward order, a structure that irony shakes us into seeing. LearÕs exchanges with his interlocutors strengthen his claims, while his experiences as a practicing psychoanalyst bring an emotionally gripping dimension to what is at stakeÑthe psychic costs and benefits of living with irony.




Prescription for Excellence: Leadership Lessons for Creating a World Class Customer Experience from UCLA Health System


Book Description

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER! “Like any business, a hospital must be true to its core values in order to succeed. ‘Trickle-down values’ start at the top with the best leadership, so that all the stakeholders understand and carry out the institution’s mission. That is the gift that David F einberg has brought to U CLA. I am in awe of his management skills.” —Lynda Resnick, owner of Pom Wonderful, Fiji Water, Teleflora, and Wonderful Pistachios “With clear purpose, unwavering principles, and steadfast leadership, the people at UCLA have established a new bar, a compelling promise, for what healthcare can and should be.” —David M. Lawrence, M.D., former CEO, Kaiser Permanente “An absorbing and educational account of a large institution’s astonishing transformation. The strong, courageous, and focused leadership of David Feinberg and his outstanding team is evident on every page. A tremendous lesson for all large enterprises.” —William E. Simon, Jr., cochairman, William E. Simon & Sons “Most leadership authors describe how to apply common-sense principles. Michelli is a notable exception. He artfully describes the compelling, uncommon leadership practices that transformed UCLA Health System. The resulting lessons are plentiful and powerful for today’s business leader.” —Lee J. Colan, Ph.D., author of Sticking to It: The Art of Adherence About the Book: Joseph Michelli, author of The Starbucks Experience and The New Gold Standard, is among the world’s top authorities on the principles of creating an organizational culture dedicated to service excellence. In these bestselling books, he examines how leading service companies dominate their respective industries with innovative customerexperience strategies. Now, Michelli turns his attention to one of the most complex, controversial, and critical industries—healthcare. In Prescription for Excellence, Michelli provides an inside look at an organization that has become the envy of its industry—and explains how you can dominate your own industry by using the same approach. UCLA Health System is revered worldwide for its top-tier patient/customer care. Great physicians, nurses, researchers, and staff are only part of the equation; UCLA’s overall success is a result of organization-wide collaboration that is driven by leaders with a shared vision of unyielding excellence. Michelli breaks down UCLA’s approach into five simple principles: Commit to Care Leave No Room for Error Make the Best Better Create the Future Service Serves Us From administrative offices to operating rooms to research centers, continued adherence to these five principles has guided UCLA to financial strength, social significance, and sustainability. The best part is that these principles translate to any industry, so you, too, can achieve similar goals. Michelli gives you the tools to adapt UCLA’s ideas, systems, and leadership principles into your own best practices. Whether it is a healthcare organization, a financial institution, or a neighborhood hair salon, good business begins and ends with customer connection. When all workers in an organization focus on providing quality care for those they serve, success inevitably follows. Business is always personal; UCLA’s leadership ensures that this simple truth drives every UCLA employee, every day. Apply the lessons Michelli spells out in Prescription for Excellence to create a system that ensures that your people take business personally, day in and day out.




Turnaround Excellence


Book Description

In this unique book, Pradip Khandwalla studies 120 recent examples of turnarounds and analyzes how each was achieved.




The enterprise


Book Description




Minding God’s Business


Book Description

Pastors, leaders of Christian organizations, and lay persons will find an invaluable guide and spiritual wisdom in this book. Focusing primarily on the what rather than the how of managing Christian organizations, Ray Anderson clearly presents a biblical and theological basis for understanding the unique characteristics of Christian organizations and what it means to manage such organizations in a Christian way. Anderson emphasizes the role of leadership for pastors and those who manage Christian organizations, providing helpful teaching on issues such as strategic planning, the development of mission statements as a definition of the organization's goals, and what it means to use biblical principles, prayer, and dependence on the Holy Spirit in carrying out the organization's goals.




Isocrates and Civic Education


Book Description

Civic virtue and the type of education that produces publicly minded citizens became a topic of debate in American political discourse of the 1980s, as it once was among the intelligentsia of Classical Athens. Conservatives such as former National Endowment for the Humanities chairman William Bennett and his successor Lynn Cheney held up the Greek philosopher Aristotle as the model of a public-spirited, virtue-centered civic educator. But according to the contributors in this volume, a truer model, both in his own time and for ours, is Isocrates, one of the preeminent intellectual figures in Greece during the fourth century B.C. In this volume, ten leading scholars of Classics, rhetoric, and philosophy offer a pathfinding interdisciplinary study of Isocrates as a civic educator. Their essays are grouped into sections that investigate Isocrates' program in civic education in general (J. Ober, T. Poulakos) and in comparison to the Sophists (J. Poulakos, E. Haskins), Plato (D. Konstan, K. Morgan), Aristotle (D. Depew, E. Garver), and contemporary views about civic education (R. Hariman, M. Leff). The contributors show that Isocrates' rhetorical innovations carved out a deliberative process that attached moral choices to political questions and addressed ethical concerns as they could be realized concretely. His notions of civic education thus created perspectives that, unlike the elitism of Aristotle, could be used to strengthen democracy.




Excellence in Cross-examination


Book Description