New Releases by Ian MacDonald

The Work of Management demonstrates how the concepts, models and tools of Systems Leadership can be applied, enabling you to become a more effective manager by improving your own work to create a more positive and effective organisation. Positive organisations, where people come together to achieve a productive and personally satisfying purpose, and which provide the basis for a good society, do not occur by chance. They are created by the work of leaders and members who are dependent upon the way the organisation is designed and operates – its structure and systems. While the theory is explained, this book primarily presents the practical aspects – the specific values, methods and tools – that can be used to improve work and the work performance of direct reports. Building on the bestselling book Systems Leadership, this book provides leaders with a manual for the application of concepts as well as an introduction to Systems Leadership Theory, a method that has been used successfully by businesses from large multinational firms and banks, to SMEs, public agencies and NGOs. It provides a predictive capability, allowing a leader to predict what will work well and what is likely to fail, according to the context. It gives the benefit of foresight as decisions must be made. Designed as a leader’s manual for the application of the concepts around Systems Leadership, this book is for people who want to improve their own, and their organisation’s, work practices and performance.

In the turbulent period from 2018 to 2021, Canada saw a majority government reduced to minority standing, a political dynasty tainted by scandal, a neighbouring nation’s struggle to transfer power, and a paradigm-changing pandemic. Political insider L. Ian MacDonald, recognized for his clear-minded commentary on national and world political issues salient to all Canadians, guided his readers through it all. In this third collection of columns and articles from Policy magazine, the Montreal Gazette, and iPolitics, MacDonald focuses on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s uneven leadership at home, the Canada-US relationship with Donald Trump in the White House, and Ottawa’s management of health and economic policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapters on prime ministers past and present, hot-button issues such as pipeline protests and the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement, and analysis of major elections show these standalone pieces as components of a cohesive body of political commentary. In these last four years, everything happened at high speed. Politics & Players ably navigates the terrain.

"For as long as history has been with us, religion has been a feature of human life. There is no known culture for which we have an ethnographic or an archaeological record that does not have some form of religion. Even in the secular societies that have become more common in the past few centuries, there are people who consider themselves religious and aspire to practise the rituals of their religion. These religions vary in form, style and size from small cults numbering a few hundred people centred around a charismatic leader to worldwide organizations numbering tens, or even hundreds, of millions of adherents with representations in every country. Some, like Buddhism, take an individualistic stance (your salvation is entirely in your own hands), some like the older Abrahamic religions view salvation as more of a collective activity through the performance of appropriate rituals, and a few (Judaism is one) have no formal concept of an afterlife. Some like Christianity and Islam believe in a single all- powerful God,

Sam can''t see his friends for six weeks and he is lonely! Mum takes him for a walk in the woods where he finds a snake made of painted stones. Where will the snake lead? (Letter-sounds featured: long /oo/ -ue u-e short /oo/ u /y+oo/ -ue u-e u). The Stone Snake is part of the Rocket Phonics teaching and learning programme from Reading Planet. Rocket Phonics ensures that every child achieves phonics success. This fully-decodable Target Practice reading book provides focused practice of a small group of letter-sounds. The book also includes useful notes and activities to support reading in school and at home as well as comprehension questions to check understanding. Reading age: 5-6.

Grandpa accompanies his grandson, Sunny, on a school trip to the museum. They see lots of interesting things, including the skeleton of a T-Rex. When a bone goes missing from the T-Rex, everyone wonders who took it! (Letter-sounds featured: /oa/ ow o-e -oe o /ee/ -ey -y) The Old Bone Thief is part of the Rocket Phonics teaching and learning programme from Reading Planet. Rocket Phonics ensures that every child achieves phonics success. This fully-decodable Target Practice reading book provides focused practice of a small group of letter-sounds. The book also includes useful notes and activities to support reading in school and at home as well as comprehension questions to check understanding. Reading age: 5-6.

The king has an enormous garden with huge towers around it to keep the children out. But nothing will grow in the garden, so the king becomes very sad. Then one day, he sees a ladder and footprints in the frost, and everything begins to change! The Lemon Tree is part of the Rocket Phonics range from Rising Stars Reading Planet. Rocket Phonics builds a firm foundation in word reading through fresh and fully decodable phonics books for Pink A to Orange band. Reading Planet books have been carefully levelled to support children in becoming fluent and confident readers. Each book features useful notes and activities to support reading at home as well as comprehension questions to check understanding. Reading age: 5-6 years

It is easy to underestimate the impact that school organisation has on the behaviour, effectiveness, engagement and creativity of the teachers, staff and students who work within it. It also has a marked effect on the well-being of staff members, and how families and the community relate to the school. Attempts to improve school organisation are often short term "initiatives" that only cover only one or two aspects of what it takes to organise a school effectively. Improving Schools Using Systems Leadership, in contrast, provides those involved in the design and delivery of educational services with a coherent and easy-to-follow framework to help run an effective organisation. Based on theory, real data on education improvements at school and regional level, and case studies, this book demonstrates how Systems Leadership can be used to improve school organisation. It integrates models of leadership, teamwork, capability, structure and systems to help make them more effective in improving the learning outcomes of students and also sustain this improvement over time. This book explains how Systems Leadership can and has been applied in schools to bring clarity to the purpose, structure and systems within a school and have a major impact on its success. As such, it is an essential text for school leaders and managers looking for practical tools to help improve the working lives of the people within their organisation, and hence their effectiveness.

This practical resource looks at the relationship between mental illness and substance use disorders in young people. While studies show the link between the two, drug use is often mistakenly viewed as ''deviant'' behaviour rather than as a coping mechanism for unmet needs. This book offers schools and youth settings a different approach to both supporting young people and implementing preventative measures. The concept of risk taking in young people is explored, as well as how stress, low self-esteem and body image issues can lead to substance use, including performance enhancing drugs and high caffeine drinks. Examples of how to address these issues through PSHE are addressed in each chapter, as well as tips for supporting individual pupils from expert practitioners and researchers in the field.

The new edition of this influential and bestselling book is concerned with how people come together to achieve a productive purpose. Survival and success in business and social terms have always depended upon our ability to form and sustain social organisations. People have a deep need to be creative and to belong. By creating positive organisations we can fulfil these needs and build a worthwhile society. One of the failures of organisations is precisely the lack of efficient and effective social organisation, which is what this whole book is about. Poor social organisation, including poor leadership, are major drivers of poor productivity and lead people to give up or retreat into a minimalist approach of just doing what is needed to get by and survive. The authors provide a language for developing, discussing, thinking and working with propositions about organisations and management. They do not tell you what decision to make but rather present tools to help you consider, analyse and predict the consequences of your decisions. This new edition is much broader in its application areas – public, private and not-for-profit sectors. It contains new models and propositions with regard to types of social organisation, domains of work and the nature and use of authority. It contains a range of new case studies, and throughout looks at how these ideas can be used to achieve an organisation’s purpose while encouraging creative working. It is not a book about fads or fashion but an integrated approach that offers the user the benefit of foresight.

If journalism is the first draft of history, it’s equally important to see how the work stands the test of time. If the writing isn’t prescient and perspicacious, it doesn’t meet that test. This collection of columns and articles by L. Ian MacDonald – a sequel to Politics, People & Potpourri – meets that test. Much has happened in the politics of Canada and Quebec, as well as to the leaders who have defined and shaped the first two decades of the twenty-first century, since the first collection was published in 2009. The successful election campaigns of Harper and Trudeau form the political bookends of the present decade in Canada and the opening chapters of the book. Between these governments, there are the events, personalities, and issues that have shaped the political narrative and policy debate, from fiscal frameworks to clean energy and pipelines, from the Senate expense scandal and democratic reform to national security at home and the mission against ISIS abroad. In his columns, and longer pieces from Policy Options and Policy magazines, MacDonald provides clear-minded commentary on political issues salient to all Canadians – including the election of Donald Trump in the United States. He also profiles a diverse group of political figures, and writes moving tributes to departed, nationally respected figures such as Jean Béliveau, Jim Flaherty, Jack Layton, and Tom Van Dusen. This intelligent and entertaining collection presents MacDonald at his best, and offers a captivating view of Canadian politics and life.

"e;I hate having no breakfast!"e; cried Baby Bear. "e;I hate making the beds every day!"e; added Mama Bear. "e;And I hate mending broken chairs!"e; said Papa Bear. "e;ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"e; This series is based around famous fairy tales, but not in the form the reader might expect. These tales have been tweaked to enchant and amuse a modern audience, including a princess who prefers frogs to princes, an intergalactic Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks the vandal, a ragtag band of characters forming a superhero league and more. The balanced combination of low word count with imaginative plots ensures that reluctant readers are stimulated and drawn in to stories that they can realistically comprehend, providing much needed confidence going forwards.

"This book covers the psychological aspects of human evolution with a table of contents ranging from prehistoric times to modern days. Dunbar focuses on an aspect of evolution that has typically been overshadowed by the archaeological record: the biological, neurological, and genetic changes that occurred with each "transition" in the evolutionary narrative"--

This supplement to Macdonalds''s Immigration Law & Practice contains all the recent legislation and commentary since publication of the mainwork, ensuring the work is kept fully up-to-date.

Josh and Safi dream of winning the scarecrow competition, but dreams turn to nightmares when the scarecrows go missing. Have they been stolen ... or did they walk? Graphic novels serve a number of needs. They encourage reluctant readers because of the high ratio of pictures to text and because they are viewed as a leisure activity rather than school work. In spite of this perception, pupils can learn a lot from them, such as the use of direct speech, the logical order in which to read text boxes and, of course, narrative forms. This brilliantly illustrated series of six books will excite and engage readers of about 11-13 who have a very low reading age of 6-7.

Gems is a series of books written specifically for struggling girl readers. Something suspicious is happening in the seaside town of Rockpool and it''s turning the residents pretty sour. Three children band together to discover the mystery behind burglaries and disappearing sweets and get a lot more than they bargained for! As the trail unravels, Millie, Jade and Sami discover the culprits and find the chief perpetrator was a lot closer to home than they realised. Will Rockpool get is rock back? Or will the Tower chase be the end of the three young detectives?

This book grew from small beginnings as I began to find unexpected patterns emerging from the data in the literature. The more I thought about the way in which primate social systems worked, the more interesting things turned out to be. I am conscious that, at times, this has introduced a certain amount of complexity into the text. I make no apologies for that: what we are dealing with is a complex subject, the product of evolutionary forces interacting with very sophisticated minds. None the less, I have done my best to explain every thing as clearly as I can in order to make the book accessible to as wide an audience as possible. I have laid a heavy emphasis in this book on the use of simple graphical and mathematical models. Their sophistication, however, is not great and does not assume more than a knowledge of elementary probability theory. Since their role will inevitably be misunderstood, I take this opportunity to stress that their function is essentially heuristic rather than explanatory: they are designed to focus our attention on the key issues so as to point out the directions for further research. A model is only as good as the questions it prompts us to ask. For those whose natural inclination is to dismiss modelling out of hand, I can only point to the precision that their use can offer us in terms of hypothesis-testing.

As a young man in Glasgow’s underworld, Ian ‘Blink’ MacDonald fought, robbed and slashed his way to the top, developing a taste for the high life along the way. His notoriety earned him an offer of work from Scotland’s most feared gangster, Arthur Thompson, but MacDonald had other plans: to finance a new life in Spain with the multimillion-pound proceeds of a high-risk armed bank robbery. But the job went badly wrong, and MacDonald was jailed for 16 years. In prison, he met scores of high-profile inmates, including torture-gang boss Eddie Richardson, high-society serial killer Archie Hall, notorious lifer Charles Bronson and Ronnie O’Sullivan senior, father of the snooker star. On his release, MacDonald became a magnet for trouble, enjoying a hedonistic, drug-fuelled lifestyle and finding himself drawn into conflict with police, gangsters and businessmen. Rearrested several times, he was the target of more than one terrifying murder attempt. In Blink, MacDonald provides an eye-opening account of his highly eventful journey through life in Glasgow’s brutal gangland.

Is this the right book for me? With over 24,000 translations, including everyday idioms and expressions, Essential Gaelic Dictionary is the perfect tool to support your Gaelic learning. This new edition is fully updated to reflect the recently published spelling conventions, and includes a guide to usage and insights from the author to help you learn and remember new words and phrases. Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design and interactive features: Not got much time? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. Author insights Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author''s many years of experience. Test yourself Tests online to keep track of your progress. Extend your knowledge Extra online articles to give you a richer understanding of the culture and history of speakers of Gaelic.

All forms of life require food materials in certain minimum amounts to insure an active life and successful reproduction. Nutrition is concerned with what these materials are, how they function, what effects they have when absent and what happens to them when ingested. During the past two centuries such nutritional disorders as scurvy, beriberi, rickets and pellagra have been discovered, successfully treated and eradicated by physicians in developed countries. In this century, such noted researchers as Rose, Meyerhof and Krebs have contributed enormously to the field of nutrition. Currently, research is evolving new concepts and facts so rapidly that the average practitioner can hardly keep current, even in his own field of medicine. Bona fide research by universities and governmental agen cies has produced voluminous information, much of which seems contra dictory and therefore tends to confuse the general public, particularly in the area of potential carcinogens. This confusion has prompted consumer groups, politicians, and social welfarists to bring pressures and demands on medical schools and prac titioners of medicine to increase their knowledge and concern in the field of nutrition. Taking advantage of and adding to this confusion are the health food faddists and cultists, some only for monetary gain and others with a real religious zeal.

Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith was the victim of a 1924 tragedy that ignited racial tension in a very young Vancouver. At the core of the issue were the mysterious circumstances surrounding Smith''s death, particularly the fact that the only other adult in the house at the time was the Chinese houseboy. When Smith''s death was followed by the assassination of Davie Lew, a well-known Chinese man, it only strengthened the European view that Vancouver''s Asian community was a hotbed of violence and corruption. Newspaper editors and most of Vancouver''s white community raised an outcry, charging the police with incompetence and demanding arrests, while Presbyterian indignation called for law and order as well as an end to Chinese immigration. Before the summer was over, the tongs of Chinatown and the clans of Canada''s West Coast were set to defend their own, and one Scottish minister went so far as to declare it a time of "holy war."

Is this the right book for me? With over 24,000 translations, including everyday idioms and expressions, Essential Gaelic Dictionary is the perfect tool to support your Gaelic learning. This new edition is fully updated to reflect the recently published spelling conventions, and includes a guide to usage and insights from the author to help you learn and remember new words and phrases. Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design, in particular: Author insights Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author''s many years of experience. Want to learn more? Why not check out Teach Yourself Languages Online? Over 65 languages all available online from Teach Yourself.

Explains how the distant past underpins our behavior. This book describes phenomena such as why Dunbar''s Number (150) is the maximum number of acquaintances you can have, why all babies are born premature and the science behind lonely hearts columns. It is suitable for understanding why humans behave as they do - what it is to be human.

This lively biography of Bishop Edward Cridge and his wife Mary paints a vivid picture of early Victoria as it developed from an isolated Hudson''s Bay Company post into the bustling capital of British Columbia. Recruited from England by Governor James Douglas in 1854 to be the Church of England chaplain of Fort Victoria, Edward Cridge became an important figure in the spiritual life of the city as the rector of Christ Church.The Cridges also became two of Victoria''s foremost social reformers, leaving an indelible mark on British Columbia''s social institutions. Living through the terrible smallpox and black measles epidemics, the latter taking four of their own children, the inseparable pair worked to create the first hospital, beginning with a few beds in a rented cottage and living to see it transformed into the Royal Jubilee. As the first superintendent of education, Cridge played an essential role in B.C.''s early school system. When abandoned children were left at the parsonage door, Mary created Victoria''s first orphanage.The biography also tells of Cridge''s very public argument with Bishop Hills, a dispute that caused him to break with the Church of England to found and build the Church of Our Lord, a Reformed Episcopal church, which is today an historic Victoria landmark. Included also are cameos by many of the notable people of the day, such as Emily Carr, who as a young girl lived opposite the Cridge family.

With contributions from over 50 experts in the field, this book provides an overview of the latest developments in evolutionary psychology. In addition to well studied areas of investigation, it also includes chapters on the philosophical underpinnings of evolutionary psychology, comparative perspectives from other species, and more.

A gripping account of Western Canada''s worst aviation disaster.