Robert V. Smith
Phoenix International, Inc.
ISBN 0-9768007-0-5
6 x 9
Casebound, 224 pages
$22.95

Pedestals, Parapets & Pits (3Ps) offers a model for professional growth and development in the twenty-first century.

Pedestals—metaphors for the glories of professional life—are described as communicating and serving others, conducting strategic planning, understanding diversity, and becoming an integrated professional. Pedestals offer sources of encouragement, optimism, and hope, but are challenged by parapets and dashed by the pits of professional life.
Parapets serve as pivot points—either stimulating a rededication to pedestal-type efforts or leading—unfortunately—to pits. The parapets and pits are described in chapters dealing with ambition and aggression, jealousy and envy, drama and manipulation, forthrightness and anger, love and lust, and selectivity and prejudice, among others.

Throughout the book, real-life examples of professional successes, challenges, and failures are described from the worlds of academia, business, and nonprofit corporations, thus offering an integrated understanding of the 3Ps philosophy, pragmatism and substance, which should be of great value to educated professionals.

Bob Smith has served U.S. higher education as a faculty member and as an administrator at five research universities. Currently, he is Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (second in command) at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. A native New Yorker, Bob completed his formal education at the baccalaureate (St. John’s University, New York), master’s, and PhD levels (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) in the pharmaceutical sciences.

“I’ve read the material from your new book and not surprisingly it is appealing, effective, catchy, and fun.”

—Cecelia A. Cancellaro
Founder, Idea Architects

“ This book is a ‘must have’ for an upwardly mobile professional, manager, or leader. Dr. Bob’s significant ideas and tips can save you some missteps. This is truly a desk-side reference worth owning.”

—Robert D. Groom
Corporate Real Estate Consultant, Retired

“ PP&P is a thoughtful, concise, and entertaining smorgasbord of ‘how to’ be an effective professional manager. Through personal experience and a wonderfully eclectic review of literature, Bob Smith’s ‘do’s and don’t’s’ of organizational leadership not only provide the reader with the bread and butter of management but also provide delightfully insightful desserts spread throughout the meal. PP&P is a book the young professional will devour and the seasoned professional can come back to often and each time leave nourished.”

—Dan Ferritor
Chancellor Emeritus, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville