The Joy of Not Working or Topgrading

The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed and Overworked

Author: Ernie J Zelinski

This inspirational guide is about all those really important life lessons that virtually all of us have already learned - but for some mysterious reason - keep forgetting.
Adopting even one of these sometimes basic - sometimes profound - 101 concepts of living will help you experience a more meaningful, more relaxed lifestyle filled with happiness and fulfillment.

What You Will Discover - or Rediscover - by Reading This Book
Too much safety is dangerous for your well-being.
Predict your failures and you will become a highly successful prophet.
Don't buy expensive socks if you can never find them.
Nice people are often not good people and good people are often not nice people.
It's always easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble.
Being right at all costs is like being a dead hero - there is no payoff!
Good deeds are seldom remembered; bad deeds are seldom forgotten.
To double your success rate, just double your failure rate.
Ten million dollars cannot buy what great friendship can.
If the grass on the other side of the fence is greener, try watering your side.

Above all, 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting presents commonsense advice to help you live a happier, healthier, and wealthier life!

Interesting textbook: Food in History or The Cooks Encyclopaedia

Topgrading (Revised PHP Edition): How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People

Author: Bradford D Smart

Great companies don't just depend on strategies—they depend on people. The more greatpeople on your team, the more successful your organization will be. But that's easier said than done. Statistically, half of all employment decisions result in a mishire: The wrong person winds up in the wrong job. But companies that have followed Bradford Smart's advice in Topgrading have boosted their successful hiring rate to 90 percent or better, giving them an unbeatable competitive advantage.

Now Smart has fully revised his 1999 management classic to reintroduce the topgrading concept, which works for companies large and small in any industry. The author spells out his practical approach to finding and managing A-level talent—as well as coaching B players to turn them into A players. He provides intriguing case studies drawn from more than four thousand in-depth interviews.

As Smart writes in his introduction, "All organizations, all businesses live or die mostly on their talent, and any manager who fails to topgrade is nuts, or a C player. . . . Those who, way deep down, would sooner see an organization die than nudge an incompetent person out of a job should not read this book... Topgrading is for A players and all those aspiring to be A players."

Author Biography: Bradford D. Smart, Ph.D., is the president of Smart & Associates, Inc., based in the Chicago area. A well-known industrial psychologist and consultant with nearly thirty-five years in practice, he has worked with dozens of major companies, including General Electric, Bank of America, and John Deere.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

"Topgrading" is defined as achieving teams of almost all A players: those in the top 10 percent of talent available for the pay. In 1999, Brad Smart published the first edition of Topgrading to offer organizations the best techniques for hiring 90 percent A players, promoting 90 percent A players and having 90 percent A players in management. Now, Smart has updated his original book to include more success stories of companies that have been able to produce talented teams using his topgrading techniques. In this new edition of Topgrading, Smart explains how every organization can benefit. Copyright © 2005 Soundview Executive Book Summaries