This collection of eleven essays originally appeared in France thirty years ago and created a literary whirlwind on the Left Bank. Cioran writes incisively about Western civilizations, the writer, the novel, mystics, apostles, and philosophers. The Temptation to Exist first introduced this brilliant European thinker twenty years ago to American readers, in a superb translation by Richard Howard. This literary mystique around Cioran continues to grow, and The Temptation to Exist has become an underground classic. In this work Cioran writes about Western civilizations, the writer, the novel, about mystics, apostles, philosophers. For those to whom the very word philosophy brings visions of arduous reading, be assured: Cioran is crystal-clear, his style quotable and aphoristic."A sort of final philosopher of the Western world. His statements have the compression of poetry and the audacity of cosmic clowning"--The Washington Post
"A love of Cioran creates an urge to press his writing into someone's hand, and is followed by an equal urge to pull it away as poison."--The New Yorker In this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth and death, suggesting that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident." In the lucid, aphoristic style that characterizes his work, Cioran writes of time and death, God and religion, suicide and suffering, and the temptation to silence. Through sharp observation and patient contemplation, Cioran cuts to the heart of the human experience. "In the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."--Publishers Weekly "No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity. . . . His writing . . . is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."--Boston Phoenix
The data-driven, global business environment requires increasingly sophisticated decision support, analytics and business intelligence. Also, changing technologies including mobile devices and cloud computing have created new opportunities for computerized decision support and an increasing need for technology support of business decision making. Contemporary managers must know much more about information technology solutions and especially computerized decision support, data science and analytics. This book is targeted to busy managers and MBA students who want to grasp the basics of computerized decision support. Some of the topics covered include: What is a decision support system? What is “big data” and how is it useful? What is business intelligence? How can predictive analytics support decision making? What is the impact of decision support on decision making? And how can managers identify opportunities for innovative analytics and decision support? Overall the book addresses 70 major questions relevant to decision support.
Digital disruption is accelerating. Implementing a successful digital transformation strategy requires that senior managers make trade-off decisions to reinvent a business. Equally important all decision makers must learn to ask the right questions, use data and computer support in decision making, and increase their knowledge and skills. Creating a data-centric culture and rewarding data-based decision making leads to successful digital transformation. Join the digital journey.This book is targeted at managers, especially middle-level managers who are trying to come to grips with using data-based decision making in a transforming organization. The authors explore a number of broad questions including: How can managers become data-based decision makers? How can digital transformation become part of an organizational strategy? What new skills do managers need to implement digital transformation? How will we know an organization has been successfully transformed?
Digital disruption and transformation of industries and organizations has created a need for more agile attitudes, behaviors, and culture. Becoming more agile is important for individuals, teams, and organizations for three major reasons: 1) the requirements for faster, more responsive execution requires a reduction in bureaucratic processes, 2) changing technology environments reward more customer-focused processes, and 3) rapid internal collaboration and communication that is coordinated using technology is both possible and a requirement.One way to explain Agile is with a ""dance"" metaphor. Traditional processes are often a slow bureaucratic dance, like a classic waltz. Slow dancing is an important skill to know, but most of us would not want to do that dance all of the time. Today individuals, teams and organizations should perform and practice a wide variety of dances in appropriate contexts to be successful. Agile processes have various rhythms, rituals, and styles. We all need to learn new dances and we need to dance faster much of the time. Also, we need to be able to change dances in an elegant and seamless way. Despite the heightened interest, many people misunderstand or fail to understand becoming agile and applying agile methods and principles. For what types of projects should we use an Agile process? When is a structured development life cycle approach more appropriate? Some agile project approaches are appropriate for many types of projects and a mix of agile approaches coupled with some traditional approaches can make organizations more agile. Some managers and organizations strive for a contingent or a hybrid approach - a mix of agile and more traditional processes. This book is aimed at students, IT practitioners, and managers who seek answers to these questions and want to better understand agile.
Rapid technology change is impacting organizations large and small. Mobile and Cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and "Big Data" are driving forces in organizational digital transformation. Decision support and analytics are available to many people in a business or organization. Business professionals need to learn about and understand computerized decision support for organizations to succeed. This text is targeted to busy managers and students who need to grasp the basics of computerized decision support, including: What is analytics? What is a decision support system? What is "Big Data"? What are "Big Data" business use cases? Overall, it addresses 61 fundamental questions. In a short period of time, readers can "get up to speed" on decision support, analytics, and business intelligence. The book then provides a quick reference to important recurring questions.
Invest in your most valuable resource: your people.Top talent is hard to come by. And seeing your stars walk out the door is painful—and expensive. You need to take steps to ensure that you attract, develop, and retain your best people.If you read nothing else on managing talent in your organization, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you boost the engagement, skills, and commitment of your highest performers.This book will inspire you to:Build a winning talent strategyRecruit and hire the best candidatesIdentify and develop high-potential employeesFoster a just and inclusive workplaceOvercome the challenges of hybrid workPrepare your workforce for the futureThis collection of articles includes "Building a Game-Changing Talent Strategy," by Douglas A. Ready, Linda A. Hill, and Robert J. Thomas; "Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong," by Peter Cappelli; "'A Players’ or 'A Positions'?: The Strategic Logic of Workforce Management,” by Mark A. Huselid, Richard W. Beatty, and Brian E. Becker; "Turning Potential into Success: The Missing Link in Leadership Development," by Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, Andrew Roscoe, and Kentaro Aramaki; "Making Business Personal," by Robert Kegan, Lisa Lahey, Andy Fleming, and Matthew Miller; "The Power of Hidden Teams," by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall; "The Performance Management Revolution," by Peter Cappelli and Anna Tavis; "People Before Strategy: A New Role for the CHRO," by Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey; "Toward a Racially Just Workplace," by Lauren Morgan Roberts and Anthony J. Mayo; "How to Do Hybrid Right," by Lynda Gratton; and "Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think," by Joseph Fuller, Judith K. Wallenstein, Manjari Raman, and Alice de Chalendar.HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever-changing business environment.
Shows you how to link together people, strategy and operations - the three core elements of various organisation - and create a business based on dialogue, intellectual honesty and realism.
This well-designed publication features new photographs by London-based artist Bettina von Zwehl (b.1971 in Munich). Following her graduation from the Royal College of Art in 1999, von Zwehl has completed high-profile residencies and had solo exhibitions at museums around the world, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Freud Museum, Holburne Museum, and the New York Historical Society Museum. During a residency in Oxford, von Zwehl researched the Ashmolean’s founding collections and the many narratives embedded within the historical objects. This served as inspiration for a unique Wunderkammer book and exhibition that seamlessly transition between still-life, portraiture, monumental and miniature elements, as well as non-art objects and specimens from natural history collections. The artist's aim is to rekindle wonder and curiosity as critical tools for exploring new ideas and unique practices, expanding the boundaries of the photographic medium.
Toxicology begins from basic research investigations on the mechanism of action of toxins through the development and interpretation of standard tests characterizing the toxic properties of agents. Toxicology provides important tools for both medicine and epidemiology in understanding aetiology and in providing information as to the plausibility of observed associations between exposures, including occupations, and disease. Toxicology can be divided into various disciplines, such as clinical, forensic, investigative and regulatory toxicology; toxicology can be considered by target organ system or process, such as immunotoxicology or genetic toxicology; toxicology can be presented in functional terms, such as research, testing and risk assessment. Today, toxicology has become an important element in environmental and occupational health. As part of prevention strategies, toxicology is invaluable, since it is the source of information on potential hazards in the absence of widespread human exposures. Toxicological screening are also widely used by industry, academic in product development, to provide information useful in the design of specific molecules or product formulations.
"An antidote to a world gone mad for bedside affirmation"--Washington Post. E. M. Cioran has been called the last worthy disciple of Nietzsche and "a sort of final philosopher of the Western world" who "combines the compassion of poetry and the audacity of cosmic clowning" (Washington Post). All Gall Is Divided is the second book Cioran published in French after moving from his native Romania and establishing himself in Paris. It revealed him as an aphorist in a long tradition descending from the ancient Greeks through La Rochefoucault but with a gift for lacerating, subversively off-kilter insights, a twentieth-century nose for the absurdities of the human condition, and what Baudelaire called "spleen." The aphorisms collected here address themes from the atrophy of utterance and the condition of the West to the abyss, solitude, time, religion, music, the vitality of love, history, and the void. The award-winning poet and translator Richard Howard has characterized them as "manic humor, howls of pain, and a vestige of tears," but, as he notes too, in these expressions of the philosopher's existential estrangement, there glows "a certain sweetness for all of what Cioran calls 'amertume.'"
