Silver Fox Advisors - Case Studies

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Books by Silver Fox Advisors

Books by Silver Fox Advisors provides insight and objectivity in solving daily business problems. Advisors may also mentor clients in the development of forward-looking strategic planning, plan execution, and policy/procedure documentation. The professional services offered can result in improved management skills that impact the bottom line. This page highlights some of our solutions.

business tree

The Business Tree™

Planting and Nurturing Growth Strategies for Your Company.

Big Picture View of Business, Strategic Planning, Change and Growth.

By Hank Moore

This book focuses on The Business Tree™, an original business model and a fresh look at change and growth, utilizing full-scope planning as a means of navigating through uncertain waters toward richer success. It is based upon the author’s trademarked approach to growing and strengthening businesses, tested by his actual work in guiding corporations over three decades. The author shows how to master change and ready companies to face the future.

20^th Century visionary Peter Drucker has called The Business Tree “the most original business model of the past 40 years. It is the full panorama of business, where other books only look at the pieces of the puzzle where they are selling consulting services.”

This original business concept, its author and his hundreds of case studies (all supervised by him) promise a Big Picture look at business. It is illustrated with case studies from the author’s own files, clients whom he advised and guided towards new strategies and successful goals.

The Business Tree™ is the only book that encompasses a full-scope business perspective, whereas the other books are micro-niche focused. This book contains original case studies in which the author was directly involved, not a rehash of others that have appeared elsewhere. This is the only book to offer an original business model, one that has been utilized in the author’s track record of success over the last 20 years. These qualities make it invaluable for the corporate and small business markets.

Links to order online:

http://www.amazon.com

http://www.borders.com

http://search.barnesandnoble.com

http://www.infibeam.com

http://www.acmamall.com

http://www.indiebound.org

http://www.stylefeeder.com

The Leadership Mastery Map

Your Path to Becoming an Exceptional Leader

By Bruce M. Anderson and Judith M. O'Connor

The Leadership Mastery Map is a powerful tool for exploration. Whether you are a newly appointed leader, a small business owner, or a senior executive in a large corporation, you can use this book to uncover hundreds of practical ideas and “thought provokers” about leadership. This book will remind you of all the things a leader must do to provide exceptional leadership.

Use this book as:

* A powerful thought provoker about leadership.

* A resources for training yourself and others.

* A self assessment tool.

* A tool for coaching other leaders.

* A topic source for staff meeting.

Review: "I have found this book particularly helpful, not only for myself, but also in working with my staff. The chapters are short and to the point. It is an easy read and can be referred to over and over again. Each member of the leadership team selects a topic to discuss at our weekly staff meetings. It has enable us to have meaningful and productive discussions on topics that are important and not usually discussed." --Rob Ferguson, CEO, Wurzburg Inc.

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com

The High Cost of Doing Nothing

How to avoid troubles and assure success.

Painting the Big Picture of Business Knowledge.

By Hank Moore

Why do good companies go bad? Why do they start with so much energy and promise but end up mired in bureaucracy and plodding toward mediocrity and failure? Answers to those questions can be found in The High Cost of Doing Nothing by Hank Moore.

The book examines business dynamics from a "big picture" perspective, analyzes why companies fail to live up to their potential, and guides business leaders in how to surmount the obstacles to success.

The book examines the top 100 mistakes that companies make and the 100 biggest excuses they use to rationalize and cover up company problems. It demonstrates how companies over-represent themselves and their products to make sales, then get caught up in their own word games. It also explores why companies fail at customer service.

The High Cost of Doing Nothing also offers positive guidance toward corporate success. It describes how to make collaboration, partnering, and joint venturing work effectively, how to implement successful training, and how to choose the right consultants. It also offers step-by-step guidance to creative problem solving and corporate planning approaches.

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com

conversation

Conversation, Language, And Possibilities:

A Postmodern Approach To Therapy

By Harlene Anderson

How can a therapist create the kind of relationship and conversation with a client that allows both to access their creativity and develop possibilities where none seemed to exist before? To answer this important question, Harlene Anderson invites us on a challenging, inspiring journey with an illuminating blend of postmodern theory and clinical narratives.

We first meet a Swedish mother, whose experiences in therapy are wrought with frustration. The rest of the book is an answer to this mother’s appeal, showing how therapists and clients can become conversational partners in a powerful process of transformation and change.

Drawing on her experiences as a practitioner and teacher and on her clients’ experiences of therapy, Harlene Anderson joins social thinkers who challenge the familiar culture of psychotherapy, including the foundations on which its theory, practice, research, and therapist education have been based. Anderson directly challenges the expert/non-expert dichotomy and hierarchical structures that flow from it. She asserts that conventional premises and practices have lost their relevance in a world of rapid social transformation, and calls instead for a philosophy of therapy and a way of being in client relationships that invite collaboration.

Conversation, Language, and Possibilities forges surprising links between postmodern theory and collaborative clinical practice. In this framework, human systems are viewed as systems of language and communication. Clients’ voices are privileged. And language is generative in shaping—and reshaping—human life and relationships, creating potentials for positive change as infinite in variety and expression as the individuals who realize them.

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com

Energy

Energy Choices: A Guide to Facts and Perspectives

Authors include Silver Fox Advisors Keith Thayer and Phil Grossweiler

Energy Choices is intended to give the reader some information to better understand the complexities of the energy world and its ongoing evolution. It provides a context for our total energy future as we know it today.

Energy Choices: A Guide to Facts and Perspectives is the result of the efforts of numerous members and associates of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, who have unique professional and technical backgrounds that are directly relevant to this undertaking. Their inputs are intended to provide an overview of energy issues at a relatively non-technical level.

It is directed at the general public and other stakeholders who want more knowledge of energy sources, energy conversion, and energy end use and their challenges and limitations. While we hope this book serves as an information tool that should be utilized for educational purposes, it is also the sincere hope of the contributors to this document that it will be used to create informed opinions and perspectives on energy choices.

Link to order online:

http://catalog.asme.org

Terra Incognita: A Navigation Aid for Energy Leaders

By Lane Sloan and Christopher E.H. Ross

Terra Incognita addresses the forthcoming transition in energy supplies and shift from conventional oil as the strategic energy source. It identifies the leadership challenges ahead and summarizes the lessons learned from interviews with more than 20 energy company CEOs and senior leaders.

The structure of the book follows the planning cycle of strategic assessment (Chapters 1-4), strategy development (Chapters 5-7), and strategy implementation (Chapters 8-10) through a leadership perspective focused directly on the energy industry.

This is the first book ever written specifically for current and future leaders in the energy industry that presents in one volume:

* The understanding that recent trends are not sustainable, and that enduring energy companies will have to change to respond to new technological and social demands and opportunities

* Insights from recent corporate success stories that have demonstrated sustainable and profitable growth since 2001

* Interviews with CEOs of large energy companies on setting direction, executing strategies and leading their enterprises

* A profile of the energy leader of the future

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com

Collaborative Therapy: Relationships

And Conversations That Make a Difference

Edited by Harlene Anderson and Diane Gehart

Provides in-depth accounts of the everyday practice of postmodern collaborative therapy, vibrantly illustrating how dialogic conversation can transform lives, relationships, and entire communities.

Pioneers and leading professionals from diverse disciplines, contexts, and cultures describe in detail what they do in their therapy and training practices, including their work with psychosis, incarceration, aging, domestic violence, eating disorders, education, and groups.

In addition to the therapeutic applications, the book demonstrates the usefulness of a postmodern collaborative approach to the domains of education, research, and organizations.

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com

Guts and Borrowed Money: Straight Talk for Starting

and Growing Your Small Business

By Tom Gillis

This indispensable guide gives busy, small entrepreneurs the edge they need.

Includes an information-packed, Trouble-Shooting Guide covering 265 critical topics. If you're thinking about starting a business, or an overworked entrepreneur wondering why your business isn't making faster progress, this is a great reference.

To start a business takes guts and money; to keep it going and growing takes other talents and resources. This book tells what you need to know to start your business, ensure its survival, and grow until you have around 200 employees. It's straight talk, advice and successful strategies of an unrepentant entrepreneur who can save companies the time, trouble, and money.

Part One gives basic information about the stages your company will go through as it starts and grows. Part Two discusses 265 specific problems or situations common to nearly every small business.

Look through the table of contents or index to find subjects of importance to you. You're holding valuable advice to help improve the quality of the business game you want to play as well as your final score.

Endorsement: "A must-read for any entrepreneur. This practical guidebook provides the nuts and bolts of starting, operating and growing your business." Nancy Upton, Ph.D., director, Baugh Center for Entrepreneurship, Baylor University

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com



The Appreciative Organization

By Harlene Anderson, David Cooperrider and Kenneth Gergen

The Appreciative Organization is based on the authors' diverse experiences in organizational life and they are unanimous in their view that the appreciative construction of meaning is essential to the efficacy of an organization and the fulfillment of its participants. In clear and direct language, the volume treats the challenges of decision-making, leadership, group functioning, personnel evaluation, and the relationship of the organization to its context.

Bold ideas are developed, examples described, and multiple suggestions developed for creating the appreciative organization. You will want to add this new "gem" to your personal library. This volume will be of special significance to consultants and organizational members who wish to see the key elements of appreciative inquiry realized in the everyday working of the organization. For more information visit the Taos Institute website: www.taosinstitute.net

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com



The Classic Television Reference

Compendium of Stories Behind Those Exciting Shows.

From Nostalgia to Business Applicability.

By Hank Moore

This is a delightful stroll down Memory Lane and a behind-the-scenes look at Classic TV shows, stars and the business behind them. The genesis of this book started with interviews that Hank Moore conducted with television stars while he was in graduate school. He interviewed TV stars, producers, directors and studio executives about the medium's long-term contributions and influences upon society.

In his 40+ years of advising senior management of organizations, Hank Moore found that executives are more products of pop culture than formal business training. He found that presenting organizational strategies as an extension of previously-held values garners more support. Moore sat in countless strategy meetings where leaders cannot articulate business philosophies, but could recite lyrics from song hits or entertainment industry trivia.

Being one of the rare senior business advisors who is equally versed in pop culture, he found that bridging known avenues with current realities resulted in fully articulated corporate visions being designed and successfully implemented. Many a Strategic Plan was written by piecing together song fragments, nostalgic remembrances and movie scenarios...then were aptly converted into contemporary corporate nomenclature.

Moore developed this trademarked concept, applying it to many of his 5,000 clients (from small businesses to Fortune 500 corporations to the public sector to non-profit organizations). All agreed that no road map was initially laid out for them, aside from the teachings of pop culture media. By reconnecting with pop culture, they we have a better chance to interpret known lessons toward modern business theories. TV plots and slogans are imbedded in our psyches, reflecting all aspects of our lives, including business.

The Classic TV Reference is a compendium that provides a focused context for avid classic TV collectors, pop culture scholars, fans and nostalgia buffs. It gives insights into corporate structures, creative programming output and social phenomena that punctuate our earliest memories of those golden shows. It is analytical and nostalgia-inspiring, while including:

* Analysis of productions, content and style of each studio and independent producer.

* Values and teachings contained in the shows.

* Overall themes and social significance of selected shows.

* Applicability of classic shows and their teachings to modern life.

* Strategies and case studies behind the programs and studios' body of work.

* Media trends that created specific genres.

* Annotated index of memorable quotes and not-so-memorable dialog.

The book carried endorsements from classic TV icons such as Lucille Ball, Sonny Bono, Dick Clark, Jack Lord, Ed McMahon, Ed Sullivan and Lawrence Welk.

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com



Innovations in the Reflecting Process

By Harlene Anderson and Per Jensen

This book celebrates the life and work of Tom Andersen, who developed and promoted worldwide the reflecting conversation process, now referred to as dialogical or conversational practice, and which is transforming the practice of family therapy. The volume illustrates Andersen's passion for inspiring and supporting local efforts to transform mental health services throughout the world.

Some chapters describe projects in their local communities, in places as diverse as Africa, South America, and Central Europe, in which they have creatively applied some of Andersen's ideas to change the way services are delivered and the way patients are understood and addressed. Others show how Anderson’s ideas can act as a springboard for other major contributors to the family therapy field to develop and refine their own theoretical positions.

The book is well framed by the two editors, who have known and worked with Andersen for many years, yet they have avoided any urge to deify him. Instead they give a clear-eyed description of his place in the field and the relevance of his ideas for systemic therapists and consultants. Central to this volume are Andersen’s notion of respect, resourcefulness of clients, collaborative relationships, dialogue, and, of course, the well-known reflecting process—notions arising from Andersen’s work and evolution as a therapist, but also shown in the context of actual practice so they can bring fresh ideas for contemporary therapists.

Link to order online:

http://www.amazon.com