Making Relationships Work at Work: A toolkit for getting more done with less stress

Table of Contents:
About this book............................................................... vii Part one: Building the foundations: the must haves...........1 1 It’s all about relationships............................................3 2 The master builder lays the foundation stone: rapport and trust.........................................................15 3 Is it just me? Working with different personalities................................................................35 4 Mind-sets and relationships........................................55 5 Communicating from the inside out.........................77 6 Listening heart and soul.............................................99 Part two: Handling the everyday stuff........................... 117 7 Things we haven’t talked about: how are we going to work together and what are our values? .......................................................................119 8 No-con, no-sham influencing..................................129 9 Getting going and keeping going: motivating myself and others......................................................147 10 My best self: making the most of my strengths.......161 11 The art of good feedback: feedback for learning...............................................175 12 How come I’m doing what you could be doing? Delegating without resentment...............................197 Part three: Succeeding in special circumstances............ 211 13 Is there anybody out there? Working in a dispersed or virtual team..........................................213 14 Ouch! That wasn’t nice! Handling challenging relationships..............................................................227 15 The riches of diversity..............................................249 The stepping up toolkit.....................................................267 Conclusions................................................................... 271 Author’s biographical details......................................... 273

About the Author :
Richard Fox was a partner in The Learning Corporation, a pan European firm of leadership coaches, facilitators and business mentors. He was a PCC credentialed coach with the International Coach Federation, a Master NLP practitioner and a member of the International Association for Coaching. He helped create The Learning Corporation after a successful period as a partner with KPMG, having played a leading role with them in setting up an office and developing a thriving client base. As a leadership coach Richard helped leaders and managers create and sustain an environment in which people can express themselves, optimise their potential and do their best work. He was an experienced business mentor, facilitator and coach with specialist skills in the key areas of developing people in line with strategy; collaborative working, talent development, building strategic alliances, partnerships and structured networks. As a master facilitator, Richard worked with organisations facilitating workshops on e.g. personal effectiveness, building networking capability, visioning, strategic thinking, managing change, leadership, coaching and mentoring, organisational learning, team working, creativity and innovation. His previous book, Creating a Purposeful Life: How to reclaim your life, live more meaningfully and befriend time, was published by Infinite Ideas in June 2012.

Review :
This book contains advice, tips and tools on the practical application of building effective relationships at work. It could easily form the basis of part of an induction process or other training to ensure highly effective teams. Very useful and easy to absorb and use in all life’s interactions. ‘Making Relationships Work at Work’ is a much-needed toolkit for the modern leader and manager. I wish I had had this book earlier in my career when I was ‘in the thick of it’ in several organisations around the world. Each chapter is short enough to capture the essentials of the point being made and long enough to provide useful models to try out with further references to look up later. There is so much help provided in this book for those tricky relationship situations we all experience in the workplace where we need to step back and reflect on the bigger picture, including our own actions and behaviour. I appreciate this book because it synergises so much of the author’s wide experience with an extensive knowledge of a wide variety of interpersonal business situations. Many of the character types that I have worked with appear in this book. Valuable and thought provoking suggestions are given about developing effective working relationships across the board. I shall be dipping into this toolkit regularly. I thought this was a really useful book. The style worked so well for me - short chapters, in built reflection and questioning, recommendations for further reading at the end. I'm not sure it told me anything new but it did cover a lot of ground quickly. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on mindset and giving feedback - and the importance of active listening. The inclusion of practical exercises was super useful. It's the kind of book where I'll absolutely go back and read particular chapters. I liked that it made you think about who you communicate with effectively - for me it's definitely my internal colleagues rather than external. The chapter on virtual teams was particularly relevant right now as many of us have to work from home. Good to know I've been doing some useful things for my team! Overall a neat and tidy guide to work relationships. I received a digital copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. What an amazing book! I can say that I'm honestly impressed by the quality of the content. It took me a while to finish because it was heavy on information that I needed to revisit and think about. The author himself recommends pausing for reflection, as it is a very pragmatic book that requires you to apply certain notions to your own situation. Knowledge of the technique in this case is nothing without implementation. I can confirm that this book was designed to make your working week more enjoyable, productive and fulfilling through building great relationships. It teaches you this by exploring many angles of relationships in the professional setting. I could say that it's a great material for HRs and Learning & Development Professionals who are responsible to guide others professionally. From the book description, I was aiming at improving my interpersonal skills, which to me professionally have always been challenging to navigate, even with my work experience in the hospitality industry where you have to often deal with multiple types of people whether you intend to or not. Structured from building the foundations to succeeding in special circumstances, I can confirm that the author walked me by the hand through the whys and whens, dos and don'ts in a succint and efficient manner that I've not encountered in other resources. Some of the topics you'll encounter are personality tests, trust, self-limiting beliefs, delegation, listening, feedback vs. criticism, communication types and many more. At the end of each chapter there are nice exercises and suggested tools coupled with references, which I liked instead of having all the references just piled up at the end of the book. All in all, a great read that will definitely boost your relationship skills at work! This is a great guide to navigating through relationships of all kinds at the workplace. I love that this book encompassed all levels of experience and hierarchies, as everyone from a high-level manager to an entry-level assistant could benefit from the information. The emphasis here is on collaboration, clear communication, and setting firm boundaries, as most relational breakdowns come from a lack of respect, trust, or clear expectations. Fox gives great advice on how to manage relational breakdowns, as well as how to diffuse situations both internally and externally. Much of the research and advice here focuses on mindfulness and using CBT principals to understand how you often assume other people behave and think in the same way you do, which causes assumptions to be made that put relational distance between you and your manager/co-worker/boss that deteriorates the quality of the relationship and work environment. Not your typical self-help book, anyone can benefit from reading this guide to making relationships work at work. A really enjoyable, informative and timely read. It will stay on my ‘easy reach’ bookcase for years to come as no doubt I’ll want to refer back to it in the future!