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The Corporate Mystic

An entrepreneur whom I greatly admire gave me The Corporate Mystic, by Hendricks and Ludeman as a gift, on the condition that I read it. I am deeply suspicious of what I see as a genre of slightly perky, anecdote laden, rather thin books for business executives, but I kept my end of the bargain. I was pleasantly surprised by the book's focus on the practical power of integrity. It had one major flaw for me, in the form of an ironic integrity problem: The glaring disconnect between the admiration for the values of certain executives interviewed in the book and the deplorable acts of some of the companies led by those same executives. But the principles and practices explored in the book -- integrity, intuition, inspiration -- are powerful indeed and I highly recommend it. Posted: 9/18/03; 1:04:49 PM #

Strengthening Nonprofit Performance

The Amherst Wilder Foundation and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations have published Strengthening Nonprofit Performance: A Funder's Guide to Capacity Building. I'm not a funder, but the book seems well geared to the cultural and bureacratic sensitivities of foundations. From my own perspective as someone deeply concerned about infrastructure and capacity, I admire the way the book combines a respect for the fuzziness of the field, along with some excellent models and tools for imposing discipline on the program development and grantmaking process. Posted: 9/18/03; 1:04:37 PM #