In today's increasingly globalized world, it is essential that people of diverse ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds learn to work together and communicate effectively. This book offers a breakthrough approach to recognizing that differences among people are resources for organizations to tap as they strive to anticipate change and adapt rapidly in an unpredictable world. "Catalytic Conversations" provides a conceptual framework for understanding how complex communication patterns of social networks influence, and are influenced by, organizational structures. It discusses how to enhance the quality and viability of groups and organizational life by paying attention to how people talk - and do not talk - to each other. The book distinguishes between conversations that support organizational enhancement and others that inhibit innovation, and explores the complexity of organizational communication in detail.

The science of catalytic reaction engineering studies the catalyst and the catalytic process in the laboratory in order to predict how they will perform in production-scale reactors. Surprises are to be avoided in the scaleup of industrial processes. The laboratory results must account for flow, heat and mass transfer influences on reaction rate to be useful for scaleup. Calculated performance based on these results must also be useful to maximization of profit and safety and minimization of pollution. To this end, information on products as well as byproducts and heat produced must be generated. If a sufficiently large database of knowledge is produced, optimization studies will be possible later if economic conditions change.The field of reaction engineering required new tools. For kinetic and catalyst testing, the most successful of these tools was the internal recycle reactor. Studies in recycle reactors can be made under well-defined conditions of flow and associated transfer processes, and close to commercial operation. The recycle reactor eliminates or minimizes the effect of transfer process, and allows the remaining ones to be known.Features of this book:• Provides insight into a field that is neither well understood nor properly appreciated.• Gives a deeper understanding of reaction engineering practice.• Helps avoid frustration and disappointment in industrial research. This book is short and clear enough to assist all members of the R&D and Engineering team, whether reaction engineers, or specialists in other fields. This is critical in this new age of computation and communication, when team members must each know at least something of their colleagues' fields. Additionally, many scientists in more exploratory or fundamental fields can use recycle reactors to study basic phenomena free of transfer interactions.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Christians details the processes through which LGBT Christians resolve the fraught tensions between their religious, sexual and gendered identities, and examines the associated changes to their religious practice in the pursuit of “authenticity.” The book moves between richly described first-person accounts and clear theoretical analysis, contextualising the disucssion within contemporary theories of religion and same-sex attraction. Through careful qualitative research with LGBT Christians in the Australian Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), and the Uniting Church, Bronwyn Fielder and Douglas Ezzy show that although painful self-questioning and struggle is experienced by some LGBT Christians, many people ultimately find a resolution and a sense of peace with their sexual identity as LGBT Christians. The pursuit of authenticity is shown to be driven by participants' essentialist understanding of sexuality and gender, and the centrality of religiosity to their sense of self. Offering insight into how participants transform their relationships, emotions, beliefs, and ritual practices in order to make this authentic life possible, this study is an important contribution to the field of religion and sexuality.

Most executives have a big, hairy, audacious goal. But they install layers of stultifying bureaucracy that prevent them from realizing it. In this article, Jim Collins introduces the catalytic mechanism, a simple yet powerful managerial tool that helps turn lofty aspirations into reality. The crucial link between objectives and results, this tool is a galvanizing, nonbureaucratic way to turn one into the other. But the same catalytic mechanism that works in one organization won’t necessarily work in another. So, to help readers get started, Collins offers some general principles that support the process of building one effectively. Since 1922, Harvard Business Review has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice. The Harvard Business Review Classics series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world.

Industrial Catalytic Processes for Fine and Specialty Chemicals provides a comprehensive methodology and state-of-the art toolbox for industrial catalysis. The book begins by introducing the reader to the interesting, challenging, and important field of catalysis and catalytic processes. The fundamentals of catalysis and catalytic processes are fully covered before delving into the important industrial applications of catalysis and catalytic processes, with an emphasis on green and sustainable technologies. Several case studies illustrate new and sustainable ways of designing catalysts and catalytic processes. The intended audience of the book includes researchers in academia and industry, as well as chemical engineers, process development chemists, and technologists working in chemical industries and industrial research laboratories. - Discusses the fundamentals of catalytic processes, catalyst preparation and characterization, and reaction engineering - Outlines the homogeneous catalytic processes as they apply to specialty chemicals - Introduces industrial catalysis and catalytic processes for fine chemicals - Includes a number of case studies to demonstrate the various processes and methods for designing green catalysts

Evaluation-based performance management systems are flawed, ineffective and inefficient. Markle shows why and describes in detail an exciting new system based on a coaching, not a coercing, paradigm. His "catalytic" approach integrates performance management into the entire people development process. Markle provides tools that can be used to quickly and easily measure the effectiveness and efficiency of any performance management system. With examples, forms, and hands on guidance, Markle's book is essential for HR professionals, business executives, and for organizational development specialists in corporations and academia.

In every person's life, there comes a moment in time when circumstances or events require decisions and responses that greatly determine the future. This book has no design to be another volume on leadership techniques. Rather, it is a candid exploration of those unexpected turns birthed out of the experience of being confronted with a reversal of circumstances in the life of an individual. Frankly, it is a study about the drama of life. The intention of the author is to give a sincere and straightforward examination of why turnabouts often get high-jacked and fail to live up to people's expectations. Even more, individuals will find a plea for courage and faith when things do not occur as they once envisioned they would. Consequently, it is a clarion call for courage to go further than some would desire, but also a caution to impatient leaders to be watchful of their own intentions to push a change further than would be wise. In the end, some leaders must be willing to consider a more contemplative life built on valuing people above their own ideological mindset. Dr. Wallace R. Pratt is an administrator, minister, teacher, and writer. He lives in Salem, Oregon and has been married thirty-eight years to his wonderful wife Judy. They are blessed with two daughters, two great son-in-laws and five grandchildren. Dr. Pratt serves as a regional supervisor in the Northwest for his church organization, while also serving as an adjunct professor for Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. His leadership experience has included thirty-three years of pastoral ministry and approximately eighteen years of teaching in sixteen nations. He has been serving on the Doctrine and Polity Committee of his church organization for fourteen years and presently holds the position of chairman for this international body.

A journey into holistic transformation that can impact every area of your life—social, emotional, financial, physical, and spiritual—allowing you to live more deliberately and joyfully Will I ever feel like "me" again? Am I on the right track? How will I reach my dreams and find happiness? Based on her comprehensive qualitative research, Suzy Ross identifies thirteen phases of personal transformation—processes thatform an upright figure 8—to guide you along your path toward wholeness. Readers will learn the map by entering into the stories of two ordinary individuals who face life-changing experiences that bring them into and through the depths of crisis to emerge transformed and whole. Equipped with The Map to Wholeness, we can understand the deeper purpose behind major life eventsand seemingly ordinary circumstances.