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Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life
by Barry OshryWhen breakdowns occur in organizational life, the tendency is to blame them on the personalities, motivations, and abilities of the individuals involved or on the specific characteristics of one’s organization. Barry Oshry demonstrates how everyday breakdowns stem from our failure to see how human systems shape our feelings about ourselves and our relationships with other individuals and groups. He shows how we can transform “system blindness” into system sight, enabling us to live and work together in productive partnership. Based on Oshry’s 30+ years of studying human interaction in social system life, Seeing Systems is profound in its implications while being easily accessible. In addition to illustrative cases and solid systems theory, the book is populated with pinballs; talking body parts; mysterious “swimmers”; amebocytes, slugs, and earthworms; dances of blind reflex; and tunnels of limited options. The result is a unique foundation for revolutionizing our understanding of system life. This new edition is revised throughout and features an extensive new section on having the wisdom and courage to face and work with the reality of uncertainty, a hopeful antidote to today’s righteous battles of certainty versus certainty. The new epilogue describes how Oshry is currently using theater, blogs, and podcasts to extend his multipronged revolution aimed at transforming system blindness into system sight.
Trusted Leader: 8 Pillars That Drive Results
by David HorsagerWithout trust, people and businesses fail. Trusted Leader provides a framework for building trust so that you and your organizations can perform at your best."A lack of trust is your biggest expense," says Wall Street Journal bestselling author David Horsager. Without trust, transactions cannot occur. Without trust, influence is destroyed. Without trust, leaders lose their people. Trust can be either your most vulnerable weakness or your greatest asset. Horsager introduces readers to his Eight Pillars of Trust through the journey of a senior leader who thought success was certain. Follow CEO Ethan Parker as he discovers the power of trust and how to apply it amid the complexities of leadership, change, and culture transformation. The Eight Pillars of Trust (Clarity, Compassion, Character, Competency, Commitment, Connection, Contribution, and Consistency) are based on Horsager's original research and extensive experience working with Fortune 500 companies and top government agencies around the globe. In addition to the business parable, this book is rich in practical advice for implementing each of the Eight Pillars. You will learn strategies to increase alignment, overcome attrition, and get absolutely clear on executing your top priorities. Horsager offers a road map for how to become the most trusted expert in your industry.
The 5 Disciplines of Inclusive Organizations: How Diverse and Equitable Enterprises Will Transform the World (The Five Inclusive Disciplines Series)
by Andrés T. Tapia Fayruz KirtzmanA comprehensive new model for creating inclusive organizations, illuminating the vital role that inclusion plays in developing solutions to the critical social, environmental, and leadership challenges we face. Most organizational DE&I efforts are focused on changing individual behaviors. But unless you change the organizational structures-the practices, processes, and systems that surround and support individual behaviors-your change efforts will not take root. Structural inclusion makes behavioral inclusion stick. Andrs Tapia and Fayruz Kirtzman have found that five disciplines encompass the structures, mindsets, behaviors, and accountabilities required for creating inclusive organizations that will have transformational impact not only on their culture and people but also on society and the planet:1: Manage the Risk: know how to deal with the legal, reputational, and cultural risks of either doing the wrong thing, or not doing the right thing.2: Explode the Awareness: make sure leaders and employees are deeply informed about, and publicly committed to, the value of DE&I.3: Maximize the Talent Systems: ensure that leaders and managers display inclusive behaviors when they manage and optimize talent.4: Master the Logistics: integrate DE&I into operations in ways that lead to improved efficiencies. 5: See the Marketplace: expand to new consumer market segments, enhance cross culturally competent customer service, and form effective partnerships with overlooked communities.The authors provide assessment tools and case studies of organizations that have implemented each discipline, highlighting what worked and what tripped them up. And they take a wider view, showing how inclusive organizations practicing the five disciplines can address what they call society's four vital tasks: diversify leadership, eradicate polarization, achieve justice, and save the planet. This is a complete guide to how to make your organization a systematic, process-oriented engineer of change for the full range of your stakeholders.
Emotional Value: Creating Strong Bonds with Your Customers
by Janelle Barlow Dianna MaulToday's consumers demand not only services and products that are of the highest quality, but also positive, memorable experiences. This essential guide shows how organizations can leapfrog their competitors by learning how to add emotional value -the economic value of customers' feelings when they positively experience products and services -to their customers' experiences. Janelle Barlow and Dianna Maul, with more than forty years combined experience in the service industry, detail five practices for adding emotional value to customer and staff experiences.
Managing Projects for Value
by John C. Goodpasture PMPWith a clear focus on how business objectives determine project value, this book explains how to use an "investment-based" perspective to integrate finance, risk management and strategic planning. You'll develop workflows that overcome constraints of time, cost and scheduling as you benefit from new tools that relate processes directly to business goals: the project balance sheet and the time-centric earned value system. In addition, a new goal decomposition methodology gives you the best chance of getting projects started - and getting them accomplished successfully.
Essentials for Government Contract Negotiators
by Legette McIntyreLearn to negotiate by applying business-savvy negotiation strategies and tactics, anticipating and countering the other side's strategies and tactics, and concluding and documenting the negotiation successfully. Essentials for Government Contract Negotiators focuses on the distinctive aspects of government negotiations, helping you hold your own in an actual, sit-down negotiation session with a skilled counterpart. With this book you will learn to:• Select and apply negotiation skills in a government-unique environment to achieve a true-best value result• Develop a negotiation plan, including your BATNA• Recognize less-than-ethical tactics and be prepared to counter them• Properly conclude and document the negotiation• Use acquisition histories to gather appropriate data• Manage challengesFacilitate better negotiation outcomes
What We Learned in the Rainforest: Business Lessons from Nature
by Tachi Kiuchi Bill ShiremanWhat We Learned in the Rainforest presents a surprising new business principle: by applying strategies and practices gleaned from nature-by emulating what it once sought to conquer-business can adapt rapidly to changing market conditions and attain greater and more sustainable profits. With clear, direct language and dozens of real-world examples, Kiuchi and Shireman show how a company can become a complex living system that doesn't merely balance competing interests but truly integrates them. Examples from leading companies include: How Coca-Cola CEO Doug Daft uses diversity to drive sales How Intel founder Gordon Moore creates profit by design How Bill Coors builds businesses on the theory that "all waste is lost profit" How Shell profits as an industrial ecosystem What Weyerhaeuser and activists learned from each other How Dow earns 300% returns, and Dupont builds market share with eco-effectiveness, and more This book shows that the old model of business-the machine model that pitted business against nature-is growing obsolete. In the emerging economy, businesses excel when they emulate what they once sought to conquer. They maximize performance as they become like nature, like a complex living system. By moving beyond the industrial machine model, and applying the dynamic principles of the rainforest instead, business can learn how to create more profit than ever, and to do so more sustainably. Written by two would-be "arch enemies"-a hard-nosed CEO of a major corporation and a dedicated environmentalist-this book doesn't just balance competing interests, it integrates them into a truly revolutionary new paradigm. Kiuchi and Shireman present numerous real-world examples from leading companies-business strategies and management practices that maximize business performance by all measures: economic, social, and environmental. They illustrate the powerful business model provided by nature for driving innovation, increasing profit, spurring growth, and ensuring sustainability.
World Class Diversity Management: A Strategic Approach
by R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr.Globalization is transforming the very nature of our business relationships, decision-making processes, and interactions, making world-class diversity management more needed than ever before. But until now, the field of diversity had no established standard for evaluating best practices, or even agreement on fundamental philosophies, principles, and concepts. In this pioneering book, the world's leading diversity authority proposes a framework that will facilitate the development of a truly world-class standard for diversity management.R. Roosevelt Thomas begins by laying out his Four Quadrant model, which encompasses all core diversity strategies: managing workforce demographic representation, managing demographic relationships, managing diverse talent, and managing all strategic diversity mixtures. He analyzes the goals, motives, approaches, accomplishments, and challenges associated with each quadrant, as well as the paradigm or mindset that lies behind each quadrant's express purpose. Having laid out this broad range of strategies, Thomas shows how to realize them through the Strategic Diversity Management Process™, by far the most effective method for implementation. A detailed case study of CEO Jeff Kilt—a fictional composite of the many executives Thomas has worked with—effectively illustrates the complexities encountered when working with each of the Four Quadrant strategies in the real world. This book offers a comprehensive blueprint that will enable leaders to address any diversity issue (not just race or gender) in any setting, anywhere in the world. Most important, it proves that a world-class standard of diversity management is indeed a possible and achievable goal.
The Antideficiency Act Answer Book
by William G. Arnold CCFM-A, CCAAvoid Violations of the Antideficiency Act!Antideficiency Act (ADA) violations within both the financial and audit communities are now at an all-time high. Violations often result from a lack of knowledge about what is and what is not permissible under the law. The Antideficiency Act Answer Book is an easy-to-understand question-and-answer tool that guides you through all the rules associated with the Antideficiency Act and helps you detect and report violations in a timely manner.• Covers all aspects of the Antideficiency Act, from its history to common violations, penalties for violation, and reporting requirements• Includes the tools you need to help avoid Antideficiency Act violations• Plus! Includes an analysis of all the ADA reports collected by the Government Accountability Office, summarized by agency, appropriation, amount, and type of violation.
The Government Manager's Guide to Plain Language
by Judith G. Myers PhDThe ability to write well correlates highly with the ability to think well—to analyze information, weigh alternatives, and make decisions. Government managers must make instructions and policies clear to employees, give effective presentations, and communicate effectively with the public. In addition, government managers must model clear, effective writing for their staffs. A comprehensive chapter on using social media effectively and appropriately is included.
Source Selection Step by Step: A Working Guide for Every Member of the Acquisition Team
by Charles D. Solloway Jr.The path to successful source selection begins with Source Selection Step by Step: A Working Guide for Every Member of the Acquisition Team. Whether you are new to the acquisition team or an experienced practitioner looking to sharpen your skills, this comprehensive, highly readable handbook will guide you through the entire acquisition process, from designing an effective source selection plan, to preparing the solicitation, evaluating proposals, establishing a competitive range, and documenting the source selection decision. With clarity and frankness, Charles Solloway presents government source selection in a step-by-step guide that offers readers quick access to needed information. In addition to guidance about the process, the book includes: • Techniques to streamline the process and reduce time and expense• Ways to avoid common pitfalls• Alternatives to common procedures that yield better results• Methods to involve contractors more effectively• Definitions of the key terms associated with government source selection. Make this book your first stop for quick and easy guidance on all aspects of government source selection.
Make Their Day!: Employee Recognition That Works: Proven Ways to Boost Morale, Productivity, and Profits
by Cindy VentriceIn this thoroughly updated and expanded edition of the bestselling guide (over 20,000 of the 1st edition sold) to employee recognition, author Cindy Ventrice explores how managers need to adapt their recognition strategies to deal with global, virtual, and generational realities. Additions include chapters on workplace culture, fairness, and remote communication.
The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective Folly
by Alan Briskin Sheryl EricksonAn inspired and practical approach to developing the innate power of groups to make wise, compassionate, and creative decisions • Based on nine years of research involving scores of participants • Includes real-life examples and specific practices to help readers understand and cultivate collective wisdom and avoid collective folly If we are to disentangle the extraordinary challenges that we face today in organizations, communities, and nations we must transcend our divisions and develop solutions together. But what enables us to collectively make wise choices and sound judgments instead of splintering apart? When human beings gather together, a depth of awareness and insight, a transcendent knowing, becomes available. Based on nine years of research The Power of Collective Wisdom shows how we can tap into the extraordinary cocreative potential that exists in every group. Collective wisdom is elusive and unpredictable – it can’t be willed into being, but the authors describe six commitments people can adopt that will increase the likelihood of its appearing. Stories and historical examples throughout serve to illuminate and illustrate how collective wisdom has emerged in a range of settings and through the lives and traditions of varied cultures. Equally important, the authors describe how to recognize the pitfalls of polarization or false agreement, either of which can lead to collective folly – a phenomenon with which recent history has made us all too familiar. And they offer a set of practices to help readers maintain the key lessons of the book. The Power of Collective Wisdom is a foundational book for an emerging field of study and practice relevant to everyone seeking more effective and satisfying ways of working with others.
Booked to Die: A Cliff Janeway Novel (The\cliff Janeway Ser. #1)
by John DunningBooked to Die, the first book in John Dunning&’s bestselling, award-winning Cliff Janeway series, is &“a joy to read for its wealth of inside knowledge about the antiquarian book business and its eccentric traders&” (The New York Times Book Review).Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he&’s an avid collector of rare and first editions. Bobby Westfall is a local bookscout, a gentle and quiet man who has sold enough valuable books to keep himself and his cats fed and housed. When Bobby is murdered, Janeway would like nothing better than to rearrange the suspect&’s spine. But the suspect, local lowlife Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding the law, and Janeway&’s wrathful brand of off-duty justice costs him his badge. Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop—all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. When prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now Janeway&’s life is about to change in profound and shocking ways as he attempts to find out who&’s dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains. &“One of the most enjoyable books I&’ve read&” (The Denver Post), Booked to Die is the first in the Cliff Janeway series. It is &“a standout piece of crime fiction…Compelling page-turning stuff&” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
How You Learn Is How You Live: Using Nine Ways of Learning to Transform Your Life
by David A. Kolb Kay PetersonWhat's Your Learning Style?Being a lifelong learner is one of the secrets to happiness, success, and personal fulfillment. But what's the best way to become one? Kay Peterson and David Kolb have the answer. They offer deep, research-based insights into the ideal process of learning and guide you in identifying your dominant style. You'll discover how knowing your learning style can help you with all kinds of everyday challenges, from remembering someone's name to adding a crucial professional skill to your repertoire. This book is a guide to awakening the power of learning that lies within each of us.
Work Breakdown Structures for Projects, Programs, and Enterprises
by Gregory T. Haugan PhD, PMPBecome an Expert on the Work Breakdown Structure!The basic concept and use of the work breakdown structure (WBS) are fundamental in project management. In Work Breakdown Structures for Projects, Programs, and Enterprises, author Gregory T. Haugan, originator of the widely accepted 100 percent rule, offers an expanded understanding of the WBS concept, illustrating its principles and applications for planning programs as well as its use as an organizing framework at the enterprise level. Through specific examples, this book will help you understand how the WBS aids in the planning and management of all functional areas of project management.With this valuable resource you will be able to:• Tailor WBSs to your organization's unique requirements using provided checklists and principles• Develop and use several types of WBS• Use WBS software to gain a competitive edge• Apply the 100 percent rule when developing a WBS for a project or program• Establish a WBS for a major construction project using included templates• Understand portfolio management and establish an enterprise-standard WBS
Lead Without Blame: Building Resilient Learning Teams
by Diana Larsen Tricia BroderickA detailed framework for leaders to move past outdated workplace blame and shame strategies to cultivate resilient teams capable of facing adversity and setbacks confidently.Workplace finger-pointing stifles creativity, reduces productivity, and limits psychological safety. Although no one sets out to be judgmental, learning new habits is hard. Two experienced leadership and agilists coaches share a road-tested leadership model that continuously embraces humility and failure as part of the growth process to deliver results.By facilitating blame-free retrospective meetings, leaders chart a productive path forward. They amplify three essential motivators of purpose, autonomy, and co-intelligence within their team. Layered on with four resilience factors: inclusive collaboration, transparent power dynamics, collaborative learning, and embracing conflict. After applying these strategies, learning leaders will help their teams and themselves become more resilient and better equipped to handle any unexpected and challenging tasks that comes their way.
The Inside Guide to the Federal IT Market
by David Perera Steve CharlesUnlock the Door to the Federal IT MarketplaceHere's your key to selling IT goods and services to the government. David Perera and Steve Charles present the ins and outs of successfully competing for—and winning—a share of the tens of billions of dollars the federal government spends each year on IT. Getting a piece of that business is not easy—it takes accurate knowledge of systems and procedures, as well as sharp insight into the structure and details of government procurement.The Inside Guide to the Federal IT Market penetrates the haze of jargon and apparent complexity to reveal the inner workings of the IT contracting process. Whether you're just setting out or seek a bigger share, this comprehensive book provides valuable information you can put to immediate use. The Inside Guide to the Federal IT Market covers:• Technology standards• Basic contracting concepts• Advanced contracting concepts, such as getting on and staying on the GSA schedules• The effect of the federal budget process on the sales cycle• What you need to know about ethics to earn business fairly, without avoidable delays and hassleThis book's focus on the IT market makes it a unique reference on federal procurement for private companies. Government procurement personnel will also find the depth and breadth of coverage useful in reviewing and evaluating IT offerings.
Put Your Money Where Your Life Is: How to Invest Locally Using Self-Directed IRAs and Solo 401(k)s
by Michael H. Shuman"As so many Americans feel powerless to confront a financial system designed to serve the few, Shuman offers us real choices: tools that align our lives with our values. That's power. I love this highly readable, timely, surprising book." —Frances Moore Lappé, author of Daring Democracy and Diet for a Small Planet Americans agree on very little these days, but red state conservatives and blue state progressives can agree on one critical point: Wall Street can no longer be trusted. Yet most of us continue to invest our money in the stocks and bonds of Fortune 500 companies, transferring our capital far from where we live and work. Local investing expert Michael Shuman offers another alternative. He shows how we can use two well-established—but rarely used—investment tools to keep our money close and get a return as good as or better than what we'd get investing in distant, indifferent corporations. Shuman explains the nuts and bolts of self-directed IRAs and solo 401(k)s and how they can be combined with other recently legalized local investing tools. He details how to set these accounts up, identify and evaluate a whole range of local investment opportunities, and make sure account holders stay on the right side of the law. While the book is written for people without a lot of investment experience—Shuman explains concepts like "liquidity" and "diversification" in simple terms—even if you're as experienced as Warren Buffett, this book will make you rethink everything you know about investing. With Shuman's expert advice, you can strengthen your investment portfolio and your community, neighborhoods, and schools at the same time!
Bringing Your Soul to Work: An Everyday Practice
by Cheryl Peppers Alan BriskinEMPLOYEES TODAY are actively searching for more meaning in the workplace, for work that resonates with their being. How does one dare yearn for something more, when so many workplaces seem aligned solely with financial survival and profit making? How do we get work done amidst the demands and tugs on our soul? Bringing Your Soul to Work addresses these troubling questions in a way that provides a pathway for readers who want to bridge the gap between their spiritual and work lives. It honors readers' unique experiences and challenges them to think differently, aligning their actions with their hearts. Engaging, inspiring, and poetic, yet grounded in real life, this book is written by consultants who see the contradictions of the workplace firsthand. Using case examples, personal stories, inspirational quotes, visual images, reflective questions, and specific applications, it shows readers how to use their own experience to grapple with the gritty realities of the workplace. Throughout the book, readers are invited to consider the book's concepts in relation to their own unique situations and, in the case of the applications, to record their responses in writing. They then learn to construct meaning from their own experience, drawing on imagination and practice, as well as the specific circumstances of their work lives. Addressing what many feel but cannot say out loud, Bringing Your Soul to Work links ideas about soul to the realities of work in a unique way. For all those looking to increase their effectiveness at work and bring more feeling, imagination, and heart into their efforts with others, it will serve as a guide for creating something new and lasting.
Performance Consulting: A Strategic Process to Improve, Measure, and Sustain Organizational Results
by Dana Gaines Robinson James C. Robinson Jack J. Phillips Patricia Pulliam Phillips Dick HandshawNEW EDITION, REVISED AND UPDATEDIn America, organizations spend $175 billion in training initiatives and more than $500 billion in human resource solutions every year yet often have little to show for it. One reason is that people "jump to solutions" before they identify the causes of the problem. Performance consultants are effective because they partner with clients to clarify business goals and determine root causes for gaps between desired and current results. Only then are specific solutions agreed upon and implemented. This third edition of the classic book that introduced performance consulting adds a wealth of new material. There are new case examples throughout and four new chapters providing detailed steps for measuring results from performance consulting initiatives on five different levels, including ROI. The book includes a never-before-published Alignment and Measurement Model, allowing you to connect organizational needs and performance consulting initiatives designed to address those needs with the appropriate level of measurement. This remains a profoundly practical book, featuring tools, models, and checklists. It will enable you to make a difference in your organization that is valued, measurable, and sustainable.
Stakeholder Theory and Organizational Ethics
by Robert PhillipsBusiness ethics is a staple in the news today. One of the most difficult ethical questions facing managers is, To whom are they responsible? Organizations can affect and are affected by many different constituencies-these groups are often called stakeholders. But who are these stakeholders? What sort of managerial attention should they receive? Is there a legal duty to attend to stakeholders or is such a duty legally prohibited due to the shareholder wealth maximization imperative? In short, for whose benefit ought a firm be managed? Despite the ever growing importance of these questions, there is no comprehensive, theoretical treatment of the stakeholder framework currently in print. In Stakeholder Theory and Organizational Ethics, Robert Phillips provides an extended defense of stakeholder theory as the preeminent theory of organizational ethics today. Addressing the difficult question of what the moral underpinning of stakeholder theory should be, Phillips elaborates a "principle of stakeholder fairness" based on the ideas of the late John Rawls-the most prominent moral and political philosopher of the twentieth century. Phillips shows how this principle clarifies several long-standing questions in stakeholder theory, including: Who are an organization's legitimate stakeholders? What is the basis for this legitimacy? What, if any, are the limits of stakeholder theory? What is the relationship between stakeholder theory and other moral, political, and business ethical theories? Applying research from many related disciplines, Stakeholder Theory and Organizational Ethics is an overdue response to several long-standing and fundamental points of contention within business ethics and management theory.
Permission to Speak Freely: How the Best Leaders Cultivate a Culture of Candor
by Doug Crandall Matt KincaidLead So Your People Speak FreelyCandid communication enhances innovation, ownership, engagement, and performance. The benefits of hearing questions and uncertainties, good and bad ideas, and honest feedback are game-changing. Yet research shows that most of the time, people never share their true thoughts with each other—and especially not with their leaders. But what if they did? What if everyone could confidently communicate without fearing a negative response? In Permission to Speak Freely, highly acclaimed leader developers Doug Crandall and Matt Kincaid illustrate the benefits of candor, explain the inhibitors that cause it to feel unsafe, and provide tools for leaders to encourage their people and embed trust and openness into the foundation of their organizational culture.
Mobilized: An Insider’s Guide to the Business and Future of Connected Technology
by SC MoattiMobile has now become such an integral part of how we live that, for many people, losing a cell phone is like losing a limb. Everybody knows mobile is the future, and every business wants in, but what are the elements of mobile success? SC Moatti, a Silicon Valley veteran who was an executive with Facebook, Trulia, and Nokia, gives businesses and professionals simple ways to thrive in this modern day "gold rush." More than a book on technology, this is a book about human nature and what matters most to us. Moatti shows that because mobile products have become extensions of ourselves, we expect from them what we wish for ourselves: an attractive body, a meaningful life, and a growing repertoire of skills. She has created an all-encompassing formula that makes it easy for any business to develop a strategy for creating winning mobile products.Her Body Rule dictates that mobile products must appeal to our sense of beauty—but beauty in a mobile world is both similar to and different from what it means offline. The Spirit Rule says mobile products must help us address our deepest personal needs. And the Mind Rule explains that businesses that want to succeed in mobile need to continually analyze the user experience so they can improve every iteration of their products. Moatti includes case studies from mobile pioneers such as Facebook, Uber, Tinder, WhatsApp, and more. The market is full of how-to books for programming apps, but no works examine what is required for success in the mobile era. Until now.
Philadelphia Fire: A Novel (Canons Ser. #82)
by John Edgar WidemanOne of John Wideman&’s most ambitious and celebrated works, the lyrical masterpiece and PEN/Faulkner winner inspired by the 1985 police bombing of the West Philadelphia row house owned by black liberation group Move.In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult known as Move, killing eleven people and starting a fire that destroyed sixty other houses. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past, and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event: a young boy seen running from the flames. Award-winning author John Edgar Wideman brings these events and their repercussions to shocking life in this seminal novel. &“Reminiscent of Ralph Ellison&’s Invisible Man&” (Time) and Norman Mailer&’s The Executioner&’s Song, Philadelphia Fire is a masterful, culturally significant work that takes on a major historical event and takes us on a brutally honest journey through the despair and horror of life in urban America.