Customer Reviews

Emotionally Charged Learning: Secrets to Competitive Advantages for the Second Half of the Knowledge/Entertainment-Based Economy

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Reader-friendly EMOTIONALLY CHARGED LEARNING is one of those rare books that presents important research findings, and then explains in a clear, concise and compelling manner how to take that learning and directly apply it to effect an impacting transformation in any company.
Schiffer's findings may shake up current perceptions of what it takes to make a company successful. (The most crucial factor is ensuring that you are training people right and engendering them with the right continuous knowledge; people won't learn best in todays society without the right introduction of emotions....) The results from his studies over the market for years speak for themselves eloquently.
If you are serious about changing the course of your company and you only have time to read one book this year, EMOTIONALLY CHARGED LEARNING should be the one. Hats off to Eric Schiffer, who tackled a book that should make a great impact on the future of businesses, large and small.
Favorite quote (Chapter 1): "We can no more afford to invest in training that is not RETAINED and UTILIZED to its maximum, than we can afford to continue to pour billions of dollars into technology that is obsolete next month. And that is just what is happening. The ugly truth.....most training doesn't work!" This one's a keeper.

I find it hard to believe all the glowing reviews of this book and can only assume these reviews are written by friends of the author. I needed a good reference for this topic and followed the recommendations and I was extremely disappointed. This is a shallow book that does nothing for the true student of this topic. I believe that the author wants to become a celebrity more than help ordinary people he professes to help. I also wondered if this book is self-published and now can't help but wonder if the author could get a business publisher interested in this work. Does anyone out there know anything about Literary Press? I feel cheated and angry and will be sending the book back.

I love that this book was a book of facts, research, and real data. It is not a book of "management theory", "growth strategies" and the like - it's research that works. Until the final chapter (when Eric Schiffer tried to tie this into his consulting work), I felt the content was 99% bias free.
Knowledgeable people, the right emotionally charged techniques and wonderful results follow.

These are not novelties, if you were to read Goleman or several other authors you could extrapolate some principles but for some reason this book was the bat that drove me home! It will not only change the way I work, but it will change the way I live. Truly. This book has given me the tools to build a context in which to make consistently smart leadership and learning organization based decisions. Thanks to Eric his research team.

P.S. I would have loved to have heard more about the use of "memes" for learning purposes. I know there may be a solid reason for giving other items more exposure, but after reading a recent Schiffer article, my curiosity is peaked.

REVIEW: How do you gain the greatest level of competitive advantage today? Well, you determine what the best do and look at the factors also influencing the demographics of today' s workforce. Then you both emulate and react to the demographic. That's the point of "Emotionally Charged Learning ".

This book reveals the answer to the question, "How does an OK company become an excellent company?" Schiffer's researched and clearly collected, filtered and studied tons of data on what the excellent companies are doing and determined the crucial learning patterns and demographic driven needs of todays workforce to leverage effective knowledge capital growth which explains how one's company can become an excellent company. This was then distilled in a unique and revolutionary, yet fairly simple, easy to understand learning mode with various components.

I repeatedly am disillusioned with models used in business books (comment: this is not just a business book) but the models used here seemed natural and didn't come off as forced or cute. While the book is based on very in-depth research, it does not read like a research report. The author has done an excellent job at bridging the gap between first rate research and a mass market audience. Many best sellers are "fad" books - this one is not. Highly recommended for those interested in organizational excellence.

PROS: Schiffer's writing is very interesting and easy to read with lots of real world examples and anecdotes. The book is a quick read and many readers will finish it within a few days. While based on lots of research, the book does not read like a boring textbook. The author's conclusions are delivered simply and concisely and chapters are summed up in key points.

CONS: Minor but: Too much focus on the science of Emotionally Charged Learning. Found the use of CAPS annoying at times..

WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK: All managers, executives, and leaders of any type of organization as well as learning professional and those others interested in organizational excellence.

ALSO CONSIDER: Built to Last by J Collins, Goleman, Peter Drucker and Senge's work.

As someone who has been involved in the e-learning/training industry for over ten years I cannot believe that I even persisted in reading this junk. It appears that the author is far more interested in creating celebrity for himself than he is in writing a credible and informative book.

I would definitely pass on this garbage since there are better books from real experts, not those masquerading as such.

For some background, I have been a senior executive and manager for 7years of a mid level service organization headquartered in Atlanta Georgia. On Tuesday night during the first week of August, I saw a National television show that featured the bestseller EMOTIONALLY CHARGED LEARNING by Eric Schiffer. Schiffer has apparently become internationally famous as a bestselling business author. I have always been skeptical at first of popular business books such as Good to Great and Emotional Intelligence and usually don't jump on the train until much later after the book has run the test of time. I eventually came around to appreciate both Emotional Intelligence and Good to Great. Three weeks ago I played golf near Augusta with a friend of mine whom I have great respect. He runs a technology firm and also sits on the board of several well know non profit organizations. He continued to rave about EMOTIONALLY CHARGED LEARNING and detailed how he applied it in both of his domains. He sent me a copy of it and it sat for a week. Over the weekend I read it and let me say this about the book. It is very strong. It is fabulous for veteran and newbie managers because it demonstrates how to best build your people with what they require. I have 31 top business books in my library and this one is number 31. I am confident you will find this book of very strong value because it just makes sense.

Schiffer, finds unique properties in the tools necessary for the management of a number of both small organizations and Fortune 500 companies to be successful. From a unique set of criteria he pursues, with no preconceived notions, what it takes to sustain knowledge capital based leadership in both large and small corporations which had previously been only mediocre. His findings and concepts are clear, well thought out and often surprising.

In the realm of business books, this one is especially refreshing for a number of reasons. This is a hardheaded skeptics book. What makes it so special is that it does not assign magic to individuals nor to himself as a writer. Schiffer exposes his own uniquely crafted learning process and allows the reader to understand the nuance in the emphasis of each of his concepts. Schiffer doesnt come off as a guru who has created some magic that only he and a handful of CEOs can see so much as a disciplined and curious leader struggling with difficult questions and providing an extremely unique and realistic set of practical concepts and answers. So not only do you understand what he means as he moves from the concept that most training doesnt work, you also see arguments behind why that is the case. And since he is dedicated only those conclusions supported by facts, we see exactly what he sees and why. There is none of breathless exuberance that characterizes so much of business writing.

What is most refreshing and reassuring about this book's research is that it puts us back in a sensible framework for understanding long term leadership and learning organization success without making a fetish of leadership or innovation or excellence. This is the kind of book that demonstrates the sort of objectivity possible in business. It doesnt obfuscate or take the position that there is something mysterious that can not be learned by us. Rather he makes the complex comprehensible and when the answers are simple, they are presented simply. He constantly checks and compares the different leadership driven learning initiatives that works and emotion driven learning organizations concepts that fails.

All of Schiffers concepts lend themselves to the sorts of metrics upon which rugged methodologies can be built. This is more than a book of management theory; it is a learning tool, which explains itself. I cannot remember the last book where the research was as interesting (and sometimes more interesting) than the main text.

It might be corny to say so, but I think his findings are self-rewarding. Working from the premises put forth, it makes sense for smaller companies and organizations some of which might not even be businesses at all. Emotionally Charged Learning offers solid lessons among which are that it doesnt take more energy to use the right tools to drive a great company, but it does take guts. Schiffer dared to work smartly and has created a great book.

Mr. Schiffer's account of learning in the "entertainment-based" economy is an insult to the intelligence of the reader. His "research" has clearly been manipulated to promote his own interest - not the interest of the true learning organizations.

The book lacks credibility. I am not very convinced about the author's credentials in writing the book. I would not recommend it. There are better books out there on this subject.

I found this quite disappointing, especially after seeing the reviews of others. While there are lots of interesting and accurate facts sprinkled throughout this book, for the most part is as a self serving effort at trying to build a brand for the term Emotionally Charged Learning. The author uses gross generalizaions, over simplifies very complex issues and pulls supporting data and "proofs" out of context to justify his thesis.