Absolute Honesty

Dishonesty does not pay, and in the wake of headlines involving the likes of Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, organizations need to establish ways of maintaining cultures where open, honest communication is the norm. This handbook demonstrates how readers can maintain an environment in which employees speak their mind without fearing reprisal, and truthfulness and accountability show themselves for what they are: business assets. The authors offer a toolbox of strategies that can be used to improve an organization's ability to confront and resolve difficult issues. Provocative and sensitive issues are also addressed, including dealing with a difficult or even dishonest boss, "agreeing to disagree", and accepting criticism without becoming defensive. Many examples, both positive and negative, are given, along with scenarios, anecdotes and quotations.

Practice These Principles is an edited, up-to-date version of What is the Oxford Group?, a core book for early AA which is also printed in this two-book volume. Those interested in A.A. history will find this two-book volume to be a must-have edition. Practice These Principles is an edited version of the original work, What is the Oxford Group? (full text reprinted) which served as a basis for the text of Alcoholics Anonymous. What is the Oxford Group? was written in 1932 and served as one of the core books for early A.A.s.

Victor C. Kitchen was a New York City advertising executive who wrote one of the Oxford Group's most important books. He also went to the same Oxford Group meetings as Bill Wilson, who later became the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is a book about A. A.'s roots in the Oxford Group, as seen through the pages of Kitchen's work. It explains how the key ideas, which the two movements shared, arose out of the evolution of the modern evangelical movement. The author begins with John Wesley's Aldersgate experience in 1738 and traces this understanding of the healing power of grace down to Kitchen's and Bill W's time, traversing en route the world of nineteenth century revivalism, the Keswick holiness movement, and the early twentieth century foreign missionary effort. The great theme, around which all of this is centered, is that of God's grace as the power to change human character itself. This book shows what faith and grace are really about. It shows how even faith mixed with doubt can lead us into true spiritual awakening, and it explains the basic nuts and bolts required to obtain a constant conscious contact with a God of our understanding. "Each century produces a small handful of great spiritual books. I believe strongly that Changed by Grace is going to prove one of the greatest of our present century. The best way to describe it is to say that it does for us today what William James' Varieties of Religious Experience did for the world of a hundred years ago."-John Barleycorn in The Waynedale News.

The definitive work on Frank Buchman's Oxford Group and its links to Alcoholics Anonymous in New York and Akron. The 28 spiritual Oxford Group principles that impacted on A.A. are, for the first time, laid out for all to compare with A.A.

Dick B. is a writer, historian, Bible student, retired attorney, and active recovered member of A.A. He has sponsored more than 100 men in their recovery. Dick has devoted 18 years of his life to researching the spiritual roots of A.A. and has now published 33 titles on the subject with more to come. His special attention to the early Akron program which had a documented 75% success rate among seemingly hopeless, medically incurable real alcoholics who went to any lengths to establish their relationship and fellowship with the Creator has made this a landmark study resource of students of Old School A.A.--students who want to utilize the program and achieve the successes of the 1930's.

Dick B.'s second great discovery concerned the contents of the spiritual journal that Anne Ripley Smith had kept, shared, and used to teach Bill W., other AAs, and their families the underlying principles of A.A. The notebook lay unnoticed by historians and AAs alike even though it held the key to what early A.A. was really like--as related by the lady who was there as teacher, founder, and recorder. Dick B. is a writer, historian, Bible student, retired attorney, and active recovered member of A.A. He regards the Anne Smith discovery as perhaps the greatest of his historical finds and subjects in helping AAs to recover today.