Each chapter starts with a short extract from the hypothetical introduction of AL training into a mythical pottery manufacturer - Glospot Ltd. - designed as an intro to the subject matter of the chapter. I personally found these pieces too short and poorly written (especially the dialogue), and eventually came to dread facing yet another piece of stilted and (in my perception) vaguely patronising prose.
The main text is primarily concerned with Accelerated Learning (about which both authors obviously know a great deal), with occasional references to NLP, about which they seem to *understand* considerably less (the description of 'anchoring' on page 123 verges on the ludicrous).
To my mind the key paragraph in the whole book is to be found on page 132:
"There are a number of other memory techniques which can be useful when studying. These include the 'Loci System', the 'Chain of Links', the 'T for I' system, and creating sentences in which the initial letter of each word stands for words which are to be remembered. They are described in Michael Lawlor's book 'Inner Track Learning'.
Maybe it's just me, but I strongly object to this practice. I believe the authors should describe the techniques, or not mention them at all - certainly not as an advert for another book by the same author.
I was equally non-plussed by the choice of the HBDI (Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument) as the preferred tool for determining someone's learning (Chapter 8). The HBDI is a very closely guarded product and (according to the text) only the staff of the Ned Hermann Group(UK) are authorised to score the questionnaires, at £35 each. That's nearly enough to purchase the highly successful Honey and Mumford Learning Styles Manual, complete with questionnaire and scoring details and a licence for *unlimited* personal use.
Both of the authors have long since founded their own training establishments, and I couldn't help feeling that this book might have been a whole lot richer and more detailed in it's descriptions of the various techniques if the authors hadn't had to deal with this apparent conflict of interest.