Rating: 
Summary: Farson's Essay
Review: A 130 page rant on why conservatives will never completely rule the world. Read if you have ever wanted your employees to take more chances or your employers to let you. Albeit the essay is a bit subjective...more of a pep talk.
Rating:
Summary: not a mistake
Review: a refreshing, amusing look at the scientific method of life.Gives new clues into the process of innovation and methodology.
Rating: 
Summary: A useful guide for practicing and aspiring managers
Review: As a professor of management I have searched for many years to find a book, that would be useful to my students and seminar participants, on how to innovate and be creative in organizations. Farson and Keyes have written a "handbook" on organizational innovation that instructs us not be afraid to take risks in our corporate lives and encourages us to do so to achieve effective outcomes. The book is not only written for practicing managers. It is a welcome classroom supplement for professors of management, entreprenuership, and research and development who want to provide their students with real-world examples about risk-taking and innovation in organizations.
Rating:
Summary: Life-altering for some, absurd for others
Review: I had mixed feelings about this book as I read it. On the one hand, its message that failure is not an endgame is sorely needed in our current business climate. The mentality over the past few years of winning at any cost has led us to the corporate debacles involving Enron, WorldCom, etc. We also have a generation of young people who are experiencing a business downturn for the first time, and need all the help they can get in dealing with lost jobs, failed business ventures and other consequences. The book's message is simple and direct: failure is not only an option, it is a part of life. It's how we learn, a tool for making ourselves better at what we do. The book itself spares us the typical executive what-made-me-a-success chest thumping and exhortations to "think outside the box" (which is rarely outside the box anyhow). Instead, it sticks to common sense, and is brief enough to be read in one or two sittings. But as I read this book, I wondered how relevant it really is to many people out there. Are failures and mistakes all *that* tolerated? In businesses that are looking for excuses to fire people, mistakes are seen not as learning experience but as opportunities to reduce payroll. In that sense, placing the message of this book into the reality of today's workplace can be quite difficult. Learning that Thomas Edison failed more than he succeeded is interesting, but cold comfort to someone struggling to pay the mortgage. For managers who aren't afraid to act on its message, this book can be an excellent morale-builder for staff. But for risk-adverse organizations, it might seem hypocritical to the point of absurdity. It may also wake the reader up to his or her position in life... either confirming that they're on the right track or promoting a life-altering change.
Rating:
Summary: Definately Worth Reading
Review: I was first drawn to this book when I was writing a college research paper on the topic of "Success". This book is extremely intersting in that it documents exellent, real-world examples of how failure leads to success (as well as the paradox, how too much success can/will lead to failure).
I found this book to be a quick and easy read that caused me to question our societal norms and values in the subjects of success and failure.
On another note, I think that this book can be particularly useful to people who are perfectionists or who are stressed out about their need to succeed in whatever they are doing. This book helps to demonstrate that succeeding in everything is not always the route to being "successful" in the long run, and that playing it safe can end up costing you later on.
Thus, if you have any interest in the subjects of success/failure, economics, business, psycology or really any other topic...I would recommend this book. Definately glad I read it. Helped me to "succeed" in my paper about success.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: Success and failure are two sides of the same coin. That for me sums up the essence of this book. Failing is succeeding and suceeding leads to failure. Farson articulates the essential paradox of success and its elusive quality explaining why it so often escapes us when we grab for it. Farson also provides an excellent treatment of risk and fear which go hand and with success and failure. In short, he makes the case for being fully engaged in the moment with less attachment to outcome. No formulas or how-to lists here; it's a philisophical treatise and one of the most stimulating and best written business books I have read in a long time.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but I couldn't get it going on this book
Review: The authors have several interesting ideas, but most of the book were semi-interesting, but fairly well-known stories. I didn't reach any level of enlightenment after reading this book, on the other hand I didn't think it was a big bomb. Some readers may find this book interesting. It just didn't fit my bill. John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: This is a great book and a quick read. Be ready to do some deep thinking though. This book will make you consider the metal modals that you use to measure success and failure. In the light of the dot com meltdown this book seems very timely. Companies with no operating history or sustainable operating model were called success and become the companies to emulate. Most of the dot coms are gone now and WorldCom and Enron are known to be what they are it seems very timely to look at success and failure. Reading this book also makes you look at your life in a different way when reviewing past events. As you review your personal history you may find that what you thought to be a big failure was in fact the thing that led to recent success. One of the key take a ways of this book for me was that was those I consider successful often view not trying as the opposite of success rather then failure. For these folks the failures are the mile markers on the way to success. This is a great book because it makes you look hard at success and failure and consider what they mean in you life. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss This One!
Review: This merry and practical book is written for anyone trying to manage a company, a career, a family or a life. It would be a mistake not to buy it. The authors show a rare ability to inspire, advise and teach while addressing their readers as adults who can make their own evaluations and draw their own conclusions. People are encouraged to looks at their own life stories to decide whether their apparent failures didn't bring unexpected blessings and whether their apparent successes were all they were made up to be. The book is lively with stories of people like the Wright brothers, Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill, Charles Kettering and Harry Truman, who were, at least for a while, doing the wrong thing in the wrong place before their best contributions. Of course, it also describes the times in which IBM, Xerox, Railway Express and some Olympic athletes were behaving perfectly under perfect conditions and missed out on the real possibilities of their positions. Of course one is in good hands reading a book by Richard Farson, author of Management of the Absurd and Ralph Keyes, author of Is There Life After High School? and Chancing It. Both have an eye for the really interesting story such as Bill Russell so caught up in playing basketball well with others playing at their highest level that he stops caring, for a time, about who wins or loses. They also have the ability to find images such as Samurai warrior and his complete absorption in the moment at hand which can add a touch of magic to the everyday predicaments in which the reader lives and works. The mistakes honored in this book are not those of carelessness, laziness and inattention. On the contrary, it is people who care, who put in work independent of prospect of reward, and who pay such attention to what they are doing that they ignore their immediate benefit who are the heroes of this book. One puts down this book as a person more willing to go towards the important things of life than to live with the fantasy that we can live well without moving out of our area of comfort.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss This One!
Review: This merry and practical book is written for anyone trying to manage a company, a career, a family or a life. It would be a mistake not to buy it. The authors show a rare ability to inspire, advise and teach while addressing their readers as adults who can make their own evaluations and draw their own conclusions. People are encouraged to looks at their own life stories to decide whether their apparent failures didn't bring unexpected blessings and whether their apparent successes were all they were made up to be. The book is lively with stories of people like the Wright brothers, Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill, Charles Kettering and Harry Truman, who were, at least for a while, doing the wrong thing in the wrong place before their best contributions. Of course, it also describes the times in which IBM, Xerox, Railway Express and some Olympic athletes were behaving perfectly under perfect conditions and missed out on the real possibilities of their positions. Of course one is in good hands reading a book by Richard Farson, author of Management of the Absurd and Ralph Keyes, author of Is There Life After High School? and Chancing It. Both have an eye for the really interesting story such as Bill Russell so caught up in playing basketball well with others playing at their highest level that he stops caring, for a time, about who wins or loses. They also have the ability to find images such as Samurai warrior and his complete absorption in the moment at hand which can add a touch of magic to the everyday predicaments in which the reader lives and works. The mistakes honored in this book are not those of carelessness, laziness and inattention. On the contrary, it is people who care, who put in work independent of prospect of reward, and who pay such attention to what they are doing that they ignore their immediate benefit who are the heroes of this book. One puts down this book as a person more willing to go towards the important things of life than to live with the fantasy that we can live well without moving out of our area of comfort.
| 
