The Book of Agreement - 10 essential Elements for Getting What You Want

Crafting agreements with others is a fundamental life skill. Unfortunately, we were never taught how to do it. The agreements most people make are incomplete and ineffective-they usually focus on protecting against what might go wrong instead of figuring out how to make things go right. The Book of Agreement offers a new approach. Stewart Levine demonstrates the superiority of "agreements for results" versus "agreements for protection" and outlines ten principles for creating agreements that explicitly articulate desired outcomes and provide a roadmap to achieving them. He includes over thirty specific templates that can be used to create this new type of agreement for results in a variety of organizational and personal contexts.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Preface Introduction: Welcome to the World of Agreement and Resolution Business Organizations The Government The Not-for-Profit Sector Changing Personal Demographics PART I THE FOUNDATION: LAWS, PRINCIPLES, ELEMENTS, AND TEMPLATES The Law of Agreement The Ten Essential Elements of Effective Agreements Three Facets of Agreement The New Mindset: Agreements for Results Are They Legally Binding Contracts? When Conflict Surfaces: The Resolutionary Model PART II ORGANIZATIONAL APPLICATIONS Employment Relationships Senior Executive Teams Agreements with Suppliers Sales Agreements Team Agreements Diversity Agreements Learning Agreements Joint Venture Agreements Agreements Between Departments Performance Appraisal Agreements Feedback Agreements Delegation Agreements Board of Directors Agreements Stockholders Agreements Stakeholders Agreements Community Agreements PART III PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS Consultants Personal Coaches Therapists Physicians, Dentists, and Healthcare Practitioners Realtors Building Contractors Financial Planners Lawyers PART IV PERSONAL APPLICATIONS Agreements with Yourself Agreements with Spouses or Domestic Partners Agreement Ending a Marriage A Nuclear Family Agreement Agreement with Extended Families Agreement with Parents Agreement Between Parents PART V CREATING A CULTURE OF AGREEMENT AND RESOLUTION The Benefits of a Culture of Agreement Creating a Culture of Agreement: Managing by Agreement, the New MBA Designing an Implementation Plan Endnotes Selected Bibliography Index About the Author

About the Author :
Stewart Levine has been called an "empowerment guru" who creates agreement and resolution in the most difficult circumstances. He is the founder of ResolutionWorks, a consulting and training organization dedicated to providing skills and ways of thinking that people will need to thrive in the next millennium. He spent ten years practicing law before becoming an award-winning marketing executive at AT&T, where he was recognized as a pioneer "intrapreneur." He uses his approach to form teams and joint ventures in a variety of situations. Organizations he has worked for, in the United States and abroad, include American Bar Association, American Express, Chevron, ConAgra, Deloitte & Touche, DC Office of Corporation Counsel, EDS, General Motors, Oracle, IBM, Kaiser, Herman Miller, Hewlett-Packard, Honda, Safeco Insurance, Stanford University, University of San Francisco, and the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and the Navy.

Review :
"Living by the principles Stewart Levine presents in this book is like having a map in a minefield. Not only does he e describe a way to avoid messy conflict and disagreements, he takes us by the hand and walks us through it. If only I'd had this book before I renovated the kitchen!" - Annette Simmons, Author of Territorial Games, A Safe Place for Dangerous Truth and The Story Factor "Stewart Levine delivers on his agreement with the reader to provide a powerful vision and practical tools that turn potential business and personal conflicts into collaborative partnerships." - Nina B. Link, CEO, Magazine Publishers Association of America