Get A Real Life: Letting Go of Old Ways to Create a New Way of Being in Stressed Times, self-published by the author, Tom Thiss, in 2023. He taught a variety of management lessons and communication skills to the global business community for over thirty years. His previous book, The Wizard of Iz, teaches centering, focusing and accepting no limitations in your personal power. At the backdrop of his new book, Get A Real Life!, is the dislocating effect of shock stress experienced by calamitous events like 9-11, COVID 19 and 3-11 where lives were impacted in an instant. Get A Real Life! is about getting beyond fear and scarcity, about living more abundantly. appreciating the good times and bad times. "The difference is attitude". Tom was intrigued by the vision and philosophy of Mr Agha Hasan Abedi, President and founder of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). He joined the bank to communicate Mr Abedi's sense of possibilities and management philosophy throughout the bank.
BEING AND KNOWING A Journey into Politics, self-published in 2012 by Mr John Hillbery. He gave up formal education at an early age with a commitment to educate himself through experience. From a sailor, shipbroker, stockbroker, newspaperman and communicator, he progressed to become Director of Communications in the largest bank of the world, Bank of America of USA, working in the City of London, United Kingdom before he was head hunted by BCCI. John Hillbery joined BCCI in 1979 as an advisor of communications at the bank's central office in London that handled all the head office functions. He saw in BCCI a moral purpose and vision that he shared with the founder President, Mr Agha Hasan Abedi. With sympathy and understanding Mr Hillbery reveals the inside story of BCCI - a bank established as a Luxembourg bank in 1972 to redress the imbalances in the world economy and changing the destiny of third world countries. In 1991 the western central banks abruptly shut down BCCI but some third world countries where BCCI was an important financial institution did not do so. Mr Hillbery's book is also a study of morality and finance that is deeply relevant in modern banking crises.
Under Five Flags: Life Like a Turbulent River Flows, self-published in 2011. The author, S. Afsheen of Iranian descent, recounts his personal journey and experiences, including his years with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in London. He worked in the Human Resources Division at Central Office until taking voluntary redundancy shortly before Central Office was relocated to Abu Dhabi in late 1990.
The extract, “London Days,” provides a personal account on his time with BCCI and reflects on some of the difficulties he experienced following the bank’s abrupt closure in July 1991. His account offers a valuable individual perspective on BCCI's operations, its ambitions in the USA and on the consequences.
The WIZARD of IS published in 1995 is an expanded version of THE HOW-TO-BE BOOK: A Fable with Exercises to Take the Stress Out of Your Life, also featured in this section. The author of both books, Tom Thiss, provided Management Consultancy Services to the Bank of Credit of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in late 1980s while living in London United Kingdom. He worked with Mr Agha Hasan Abedi, BCCI President, whom he refers to in the books as "an extraordinary visionary leader" and "an inexhaustible source of wisdom and inspiration". He acknowledges that Mr Abedi, and Mr John Hillbery, head of communications in BCC, gave him inspiration for much of the conceptual underpinnings of the text of the WIZADRD of IS. The book teaches how to be, through centering , focusing and accepting no limitations to your personal power. This how-to-be book deals with the context of your life, where quantum changes help you to make a difference that is more than just making a living. Mr Thiss worked in thirty-nine countries and taught in the business community for over thirty years, and for over twenty years managed The Ridge Consultancy Group in Wichita, Kansas, U.S.A.
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THE HOW-TO-BE BOOK: A Fable with Exercises to Take the Stress Out of Your Life published in 1994. The course of the how to be book by Tom Thiss, a US national in management training and development for thirty years, was set by the profound wisdom of Mr Agha Hasan Abedi, President of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) with whom he worked while living in London, United Kingdom in the 1980s. Equally, Mr John Hillbery, head of communication in BCCI, was a source of inspiration. In a busy always changing town in middle America, Mr Thiss refers to the mystery of the Wizard. Remininsce of Mr Abedi, the Wizard is an unpretentious man, a doer of largely uncelebrated deeds of person thoughtfulnees, and in terms of stress and change, a man who helps others feel inner assurance, assuring certainty of a deeper reality that lies behind what we see. Talking with the Wizard about the differences between managers who deals with the material, and leaders with the spirit, Mr Thiss underestood suddenly the importance of not losing focus on the world of spirit to access the full power of your being. On quality leadership, the Wizard makes a very important distinction, "Management power comes from controlling material resources. Leadership power comes from releasing human resources".
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GLOBAL MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES published in 1989. The author, Dr Ronnie Lessem, who has written other books on management principles, ran the MBA course on global management principles and the undergraduate business foundation programme at the City University Business School in London, United Kingdom. There are many references to Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCC) and the visionary founder, Mr Agha Hasan Abedi, with contributions from BCC by Mr John Hillbery, advisor of communications, and Mr Vilayet Hussain Abidi, UK Regional Manager, who was a close associate of Mr Abedi in the previous bank he founded, United Bank in Pakistan. Dr Leesem observes that while management personnel around the globe were grappling with primal, rational, and - less evidently - with developmental approaches to managing their enterprises, the real 'management' philosophy appeared on the horizon via the developing countries, and evolved in BCC. According to Dr Leesem, where BCC parted company with entrepreneurial management was in the degree of attention it placed on independence, as opposed to interdependence, particularly on the merger of energies resulting in what it calls 'joint personality'. Conventional management is beset by goal setting, strategy formulation, and by tangible measures of success. He concludes that these have an important part to play in real management, but a subordinate one to morality, purpose and the role of vision.
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FAITH, HOPE, and the CORPORATION: Working on Outlook published in 1987 is just one of such books that reflect the outlook of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) fashioned by the bank's President, Mr Agha Hasan Abedi, whose true discussions with employees as BCC family members, was on a deeper level and on developing people through work and bringing in the sense of possibility in them.
The Phenomenology of the Social World is a translation of Alfred Schutz's Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt, first published in Vienna by Julius Springer in 1932, and again, in unaltered form, by Springer-Verlag in 1960. The book is Schutz's major systematic work, setting forth his attempt to provide a phenomenological foundation for the basic concepts of the social sciences.
Alfred Schutz gradually gained recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the twentieth century. Recognition of his importance coincided with an awareness - extending far beyond the academic world - of the centrality of the problems which he discussed. Two of these problems are the role of objectivity versus subjectivity in the social sciences and the nature of human action.
The development of Schutz's later thought is to be found in his Collected Papers, published in three volumes by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, in 1962, 1964, and 1966 under the editorship of Maurice Natanson, Arvid Brodersen, and use Schutz, respectively. An English adaptation by Thomas Luckmann of Chapter 4 of the present work has previously appeared in the second volume of Collected Papers.
The Roots of Excellence (The Successful Manager) published in 1985. The author, Mr Ronnie Lessem was a graduate of Harvard Business School and at the time Director of the only university based programme in Business development in the UK. He has published a number of books, including GLOBAL MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES (1989) also featured in this section. The Roots of Excellence was a breakthrough in business thinking and intended to be as relevant to the ambitious young entrepreneur as to the seasoned corporate leader. Mr Lessem points out that the corporate universe, unlike the more narrowly based company culture, represents a fusion between the whole individual and the total environment. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), then 12 years old and already reaching a state of maturity, was an example of this; 'Although is origin lie in Pakistan, its mission is universal and its operational headquarters are in London, UK'. Mr John Hillbery, advisor of communications at BCCI and closely associated with the President of the bank, told Mr Lessem that "the reason for their phenomenal growth was that they were in touch with the fundamental laws of nature, and were able to relate these to economics and finance ...". Mr Leesem refers to what BCCI called a 'spiritual profit’ and says that "To survive over the long term, individuals, corporations, and whole nations need to 'profit' spiritually as well as financially".