Take Back Your Time is the official handbook for TAKE BACK YOUR TIME DAY, a national event. Organizers have enlisted the support of colleges, universities, religious organizations, labor unions, businesses, activist groups, and non-profit organizations to create events that will take place across the country, calling attention to the ways overwork and lack of time affect us-at home, in our workplaces, and in our communities-and to inspire a movement to take back our time. In Take Back Your Time, well-known experts in the fields of health, family therapy and policy, community and civic involvement, the environment, and other fields examine the problems of overwork, over-scheduling, time pressure and stress and propose personal, corporate and legislative solutions. This book shows how wide-ranging the impacts of time famine in our society are, and what ordinary citizens can do to turn things around and win a more balanced life for themselves and their children.

• This is the official handbook of Take Back Your Time Day-a national event scheduled for October 24, 2003 and the 4th Friday in October in subsequent years. On this day, millions of people will join in hundreds of activities focusing on work/life balance and how we can reclaim it.
• A stellar list of contributors includes such well-known bestselling authors as Vicki Robin, Camilla Fox, Anna Lappe, David Korten, Cecile Andrews and many others.
• Examines all aspects of the time-famine issue-from overwork among adults to overscheduling of our children; from environmental consequences to the effects of our time deficit on our communities, our families, and even our pets; from the history of overwork to viable alternatives.

• Winner of the 2004 Publishers Marketing Association Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Business Book
• By the bestselling author of Managers As Mentors-over 100,000 copies sold
• Reveals the seven "magnetic service" secrets that work for cult-like brands such as Starbucks, Harley-Davidson, and Ritz-Carlton
• Provides tools, techniques, and tips for fostering customer devotion

Magnetic Service provides a provocative yet practical blueprint for going beyond mere customer loyalty to create and sustain customer devotion. Devoted customers not only forgive you when you err but actually help you correct what caused the mistake. They don't just recommend you; they assertively insist that their friends do business with you.

Authors Chip and Bilijack Bell made an intensive study of companies that inspire this kind of cult-like devotion-companies as diverse as Starbucks, Jack Daniels, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, GE, eBay, Chick-fil-A, Harley-Davidson, and many others. They found that these companies created customer experiences so captivating that they bound their customers to them-they provided "magnetic service." Chip and Bilijack identify the seven secrets of magnetic service, and use dozens of real-life examples to illustrate the secrets in action. And they show precisely what leaders can do to create a culture of magnetic service in any unit or organization.

• Winner of the 2004 Publishers Marketing Association Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Business Book
• By the bestselling author of Managers As Mentors-over 100,000 copies sold
• Reveals the seven "magnetic service" secrets that work for cult-like brands such as Starbucks, Harley-Davidson, and Ritz-Carlton
• Provides tools, techniques, and tips for fostering customer devotion

In all too many companies, once a business plan is created there is no systematic follow-up. The plan is filed and forgotten until it's time for the annual review-and the result is repeated failure to achieve goals and objectives. Seasoned organizational consultant Michele Bechtell draws on twenty years of experience to describe a straightforward, easy-to-implement, yet powerful set of business review techniques that will transform a traditional static paper plan into a reliable targeting process to produce quantum leaps in performance.

Bechtell shows how to:

• Identify the priority measures requiring continual review,
• Detect and respond to early warning signs,
• Accelerate the change process to drive current objectives,
• Link lessons from one cycle to the next for dramatic results, and much more.

Each chapter includes sample forms, tools, and graphics easily customized for your organization. If you are stretching toward a compelling vision, attempting to implement a strategy, or have tried and failed to achieve a desired goal or objective, this book is a must-read.

On Target shows that by making business review an ongoing process, rather than an isolated event, you can achieve dramatic results at any level of any organization.

• Offers detailed, practical advice on how to conduct an effective business review that will deliver dramatic results at any level of any organization
• By the author of the bestselling The Management Compass (87,000 copies sold)
• Shows how to achieve quantum leaps in performance by making business review an ongoing process, not an isolated event

A “back-to-basics” guide to government contract law
Finally! A plain-English presentation of the basic legal concepts of government contract law for professionals at any stage in their careers.
Until now, anyone in the procurement field has had to trudge through dense and complex texts written in hard-to-follow “legalese” in their quest to understand procurement law. With Understanding Government Contract Law, they finally have a source of clear and concise explanations of the legal principles involved in government contract law, written by an authority on the subject.
Part I of the book focuses on the unique problems facing each of the parties to a government contract – the contract officer and the contractor – and offers insight to the many roles played by the contract officer in the procurement process. Part II describes why and how the government contract is different from commercial contracts. Part III explores the ins and outs of a government contract lawsuit.
The author presents key legal principles of government contract law by:
• Stating a legal principle
• Specifying where in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) that principle is found
• Offering the rationale, context, and any public policy behind the principle
• Describing, with case law examples, situations where the government applied the law correctly and situations where the government came to that conclusion incorrectly

Stay interviews prevent exit interviews!

You can't afford to lose them. They're your stars and your solid citizens. You wonder if they're happy in your organization—and what might keep them there. To find out, you could:
A. Conduct a survey—then try to guess who said what.
B. Take note of their latest tattoos. Is your company logo among them?
C. Ask, “What will keep you here?”

The correct answer is C. It's the opening line of a great stay interview, and it could make the difference between keeping and losing your best people.

Worried that your talented people will want things you can't deliver, like more money or a big promotion? Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans have a simple four-step process for dealing with that. Not sure how to get started? They provide dozens of suggested questions and icebreakers. Think you don't have time? They offer all kinds of creative time-saving options for where, when, and how you can do stay interviews.

The video enhanced executive edition of How Performance Management is Killing Performance – and What to Do About It was created with the busy leader in mind. Offering targeted information and insight, and with over 26 minutes of videos and animations throughout, Rethinking Performance Management – A Leader’s Guide has been adapted from the original edition to focus on only the points that you, as a leader of an organization, need to know. This means it’s much shorter than the original with more of a focus on the big picture theory and less on the step-by-step.

Most people associate performance management with the annual review, which is universally dreaded by employees, management, and HR professionals alike. In this short guide, author Tamra Chandler lays out the key points of creating a performance management process that is not only tailored to your organization’s needs and goals, but that employees will actually embrace. Each of the six condensed chapters include short animations or video featuring Tamra herself to sum up the major takeaways for leaders.

For those of us who need to be on the cutting edge of this emerging subject, but don’t have as much time as we’d like, Rethinking Performance Management – A Leader’s Guide offers the perfect framework to provide insight to the benefits of evolving performance management systems, a process which must be led, championed by the leaders in the organization.