Getting To Resolution, Second Edition by Stewart Levine - Book review

Getting to Resolution, Second Edition

Turning Conflict Into Collaboration

By: Stewart Levine

Published: November 2009

Format: Paperback, 288 pages

ISBN: 9781576757710

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

"Resolution is much better than settling! Resolution provides relief and completeness", writes the Founder of Resolution Works Stewart Levine, in his definitive second edition to his classic visinary book Getting to Resolution, Second Edition: Turning Conflict Into Collaboration. The author presents a powerful alternative system, for achieving a collaborative win-win solution for resolving conflict, that replaces the costly and unproductive adversarial model.

Stewart Levine understands the true costs of an adversarial paradigm for conflict resolution. He describes how not seeking resolution, and resorting to compromise or giving in to the other party, leads to resentment. The unsatisfactory solution doesn't result in closure or healing for either party, but induce suffering instead. In place of the win-lose concept, the author offers a powerful collaborative system, where all parties work together to ensure that everyone is satisfied and benefits from the solution. The costs of failure to resolve an issue can be monetary, loss of time, lost productivity, and damaged personal relationships. As Stewart Levine points out, these very real costs represent a loss and suffering for the parties involved, for the business, and for society as a whole.

Stewart Levine (photo left) recognizes that modern society, from the polarized world of partisan politics to the litigation that overwhelms the legal system, are based on letting others handle conflicts. The author also understands that this impersonal approach to solving issues fails as the professionals don't have to live with the outcomes of their settlements. They also do little to rebuild personal relationships. In their place, Stewart Levine proposes taking personal responsibility for searching for cooperative and mutually beneficial resolutions. He calls this creative and collaborative paradigm as thinking in a "resolutionary" way. When the parties take this forward thinking approach, common ground is discovered, and very often an unexpected and satisfactory resolution is achieved. By removing the adversarial mindset, and replacing it with a spirit of trust and resolution, then the relationship can be rebuilt and strengthened.

For me, the power of the book is how Stewart Levine combines the theory of why resolution is important, with a powerful and practical system that can be used in any situation. The hands on approach to resolution, presented in the book, includes ten principles of resolutionary thinking, resulting in a sea change in a person's way of thinking and approaching conflict. Once those ten concepts are internalized, the person no longer sees the issues in a adversarial, win-lose way. In their place is a collaborative and creative system, based on personal responsibility and change in cultural outlook. As a companion to the ten theoretical principles, the author outlines seven workable steps as the crafting of a resolutionary agreement. By understanding the steps, and their application, the approach can be applied to any conflict situation, regardless of its complexity.

I highly recommend the visionary guide Getting to Resolution, Second Edition: Turning Conflict Into Collaboration by Stewart Levine, to anyone in business, government, the professions, or in personal mediation, who is seeking a more productive and conversational method of resolving conflict. Anyone who desires a move beyond the traditional and often damaging adversarial technique of problem solving will be rewarded many times over by this important book. The new way of thinking about conflict resolution is well suited to the times, and is on the leading edge of modern paradigm shifts in finding satisfactory outcomes.

Read the indispensable conflict resolution book Getting to Resolution, Second Edition: Turning Conflict Into Collaboration by Stewart Levine, and change your entire way of thinking about conflict. In place of the outdated, and costly current system, discover how a resolutionary approach will lead to happier results, more functional business cultures, and stronger personal relationships.

Tags: Getting to Resolution, Second Edition: Turning Conflict Into Collaboration, Stewart Levine, creative, collaborative conflict resolution, business book reviews.

Just Good Business by Kellie McElhaney - Book review

Just Good Business

The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand

By: Kellie McElhaney

Published: November 2008

Format: Hardcover, 216pp

ISBN-13: 9781576754412

ISBN-10: 1576754413

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

"I believe that corporate responsibility, along with being just good business, can also help to provide and repair something that's desperately lacking in our world today: hope", writes Faculty Director of the Center for Responsible Business at the University of California, Berkeley, Kellie McElhaney, in her highly practical and visionary book Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand. The author builds a powerful case for creating and implementing a corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, and for communicating that plan to all of the company's stakeholders.

Kellie McElhaney recognizes that many companies are already using a CSR strategy, but at the same time they are failing to communicate that plan both within their organization to their employees, to their shareholders, vendors, and customers. The author stresses the critical importance of companies understanding the growing gap in the general public's perception of corporate social responsibility, and the reality of increased corporate activity. The public expects companies to behave as good corporate citiens, but at the same time, has diminishing trust in corporations to act in a socially responsible manner. Many companies adopting a CSR strategy do so defensibly, out of fear of public outcry and backlash. While the author has no concerns about why a company establishes a CSR strategy, the key is to develop a plan that includes positive benefits for branding, differentiation, and for stakeholders.

Kellie McElhaney (photo left) describes a process for developing a CSR strategy that includes all stakeholders in the organization that also gets top management commitment. Once senior management makes a public declaration of support for corporate social responsibility, the strategy can be devised that accommodates the company's core competencies and overall business goals, and aligns their CSR goals with those of their brand. A completed CSR strategy, integrated with their corporate governance, can then have performance metrics and measurements of effectiveness built into the program. A strong, well defined CSR strategy can become part of the corporate culture, and provide a benchmark for all corporate planning.

For me, the power of the book is how Kellie McElhaney combines the theoretical reasons for developing a CSR strategy, with a practical approach to creating and implementing that overall plan. The connection between the CSR strategy and the goals of brand enhancement and differentiation, have a solid bottom line value for the company. At the same time, the author's emphasis on the importance of communicating the corporate CSR strategy to all company stakeholders, is critical to its success. The book provides an easy to follow road map to developing, implementing, and communicating a CSR strategy. The author also shares ideas for creating performance metrics and benchmarks for assessing the overall success of the CSR initiative.

I highly recommend the important and company transformational book Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand by Kellie McElhaney, to anyone seeking a workable approach to developing a CSR strategy that is aligned with a company's brand and core competencies. Discover how to create a CSR plan that works for everyone both inside and outside of the company.

Read the essential guide book Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand by Kellie McElhaney, and develop and apply a workable CSR strategy that gains commitment from top management and all company stakeholders, that can be communicated effectively to customers and the general public. The result will be an enhanced corporate reputation and greater profitability.

Tags: Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand, Kellie McElhaney, corporate social responsibility CSR, business book reviews.

Will your Blogging Idea Make you Money Today?

It is no longer enough just to have a great idea for a blogging web site. It can and will be hard to tell the difference between yours and all the other blogging sites on the web today. The secret is to find your own specialization, and roll with it. No matter if you are starting out, or improving your current blogging site, if you wish to grab a hold of and maintain a grip on the blogging community, you must use your own special appeal to your advantage.

This still leaves plenty to do though. Simply finding your specialty is only the beginning. You must be able to fill a unique need with it, if you wish to develop a lasting relationship with internet bloggers and surfers.

All successful blogging sites have started with a great idea, and yours is no exception. Nowadays, there are countless sites aimed at this market, and the competition growing between them is epic. If you wish to stand out from the rest, you have two choices. You can do the same thing an already popular site is doing – and do it better, or you will have to offer something that no other site has.

Take a look at sites that already have a following, and see if you can incorporate any of their fundamentals into your own idea, while adding your own genius and elegance to your project to make it unique. You can also set up AdSense on your site, which is easy and takes less than an hour.

Most people agree that in the World Wide Web economy, the sites that stand out and do the best are the ones with the most personality. The surfers who utilize the blogging community have been shown to respond strongly to this as well, and you need to take a look at how you can give your site a strong magnetism and traits to make it stand out as a reflection of your own persona when considering its content and development.

So once you’ve implemented your great idea, have narrowed down your specialty traits and added your own identity and charisma, the next step is to generate the buzz and get the word out. Just having the grand idea isn’t enough. You must come up with an intelligent and realistic approach to market it and bring traffic to target readers. With the other qualities in place, your content will keep them coming back, but it is crucial that their first visit will make a lasting impression, and their own style recognizes the charm of your site as appealing, so that it stands out among the rest.

Some Tips for Making Money Online with Your Website

Guest Post by Anil Gupta

Do you also dream to have million dollars in your vaults? The opportunities available on internet are tremendous in number. Although the opportunities are vast but beware of the swindles. It has been seen that internet business make money online gimmicks are floating all around the web wherein many of them are fraud artists promoting their packages, which does not help you, make millions online but lose plenty of cash. Things are not as easy as scammers present them to you; you need to be extra vigilant in doing business online. It is internet that has made it possible for ordinary people to reach their million-dollar dream. You have to apply the right business building tactics and move forward systematically.

Ways to make money even without a website are online surveys, selling on eBay, writing, surfing the internet and reading email. While examples of opportunities to make money with a website are putting advertisement on one's site, blogging and affiliate marketing.

Following are the tips making money online with your website:

1. There is hardly any difference in online business concepts and other business concepts. The concept is to reach a well-researched idea and then pour in your time, energy, dedication and efforts for its success. For some people making money via internet is making money for nothing; which is completely disagreeable for it provides one of the most amazing business opportunities for zero cost, low risk and high reward business.

2. Never waste your precious time and money in search of software programs in order to make money. No secret tools exist that online marketers use to build internet business and most of them never even use these programs.

3. Research is very important from the initial stage itself, i.e., when you begin with your website. Many ideas that have worked for others may not work for you and many that have turned out as failures may do wonders for you. Only research and study can simplify this search. Try to locate ideas that are not yet saturated and are high in demand.

4. Stress on what you already know before following anybody else’s concepts. Exploit your skills, knowledge, experience and education for successful business make money online opportunities.

5. Making money online is about how perfectly can you make use of your personal skills and solve problems that may be small or big.

6. While marketing the internet business make sure that you obey the rules. Do not use software to trick the search engines and follow all the webmaster guidelines set by search engines.

7. A website requires good amount of fresh content all the time. People love the pages where they find full information. Therefore, the only way to keep visitors on your site is the content that delivers all their wants.

8. Do not spend hours in searching for links. Take out little time everyday for link building but do not be trapped in the link craze.

9. It takes at least three months to see kind of results. This implies that your site should have loads of content to keep it sustained for three months. Later, go around and hunt for links for each of your page.

Following the above steps will surely bring results for all those seeking online money making opportunities.

Author Bio

Want to make fast money from your Website or Blog, Subscribe to Scopeformoney.com blog RSS Feed by Anil Gupta.

A Blue and Gray Christmas by Joan Medlicott - Book review

A Blue and Gray Christmas

By: Joan Medlicott

Published: November 2009

Format: Hardcover, 336 pages

ISBN-10: 1416597352

ISBN-13: 9781416597353

Publisher: Pocket Books

When the women of Covington Homestead come into possession of a recently unearthed metal box, containing a batch of letters written during the American Civil War, their enthusiasm has very wide reaching effects. The letters were composed by two gravely wounded Civil War soldiers with a fascinating and compelling story to tell. One soldier was from the Union Army, and the other fought for the Confederacy. Discovered by a lonely widow on the battlefield, where they were left for dead, the two men saw their lives change forever. Their unforgettable stories are woven into the present in the heartwarming novel A Blue and Gray Christmas by Joan Medlicott.

Joan Medlicott creates a story that transcends time, as the experiences of the Civil War soldiers is echoed in the lives of veterans of modern wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The horrors of war, and the lasting after effects of post traumatic stress syndrome, haunt veterans from every time and place. The letters as written by the two men from the nineteenth century share an immediacy that brings that long past time to life. Their search for redemption, and a chance to start a new life after the war, leads them to make the fateful decision to abandon their past lives, and become reborn as the family of the woman who saved their lives. The two men form a separate peace, and their choice would resonate well over a century later, and other lives would be changed forever.

Joan Medlicott (photo left) blends themes of redemption, forgiveness, acceptance, and the power of family and friendship into her memorable characters and events. The letters tell a fascinating story of hope and joy, and of the lingering pain and horror of war long after the guns fall silent. The author makes clear that people are much the same in every time period, and they share the same dreams, sorrow, and emotions as today. At the same time, Joan Medlicott entwines modern issues of social and political tensions with those of the past, and her characters must rise above the petty feelings that scar both our world and that of the nineteenth century letter writers.

The most engaging and lasting part of the book are the deeply touching letters written by the soldiers. The power and depth of emotion etched into those writings moves beyond time and place, and becomes part of the overall human experience. The great themes of love and war, and friendship and family, are timeless as the women of Covington, along with the other characters in the book, discover. The two friends were seeking to change their own lives, and find redemption and a rebirth as human beings with a purpose for living. Their letters would form the foundation of other friendships and life changing events beyond those of their own lives. Joan Medlicott's novel shows how our actions in this life can have far reaching effects, both today and into the future, that we may never know or realize.

I highly recommend the page turning and touching novel A Blue and Gray Christmas by Joan Medlicott, to anyone seeking a holiday themed story filled with life affirming themes. Combining laughter and tears, the novel is both a delight and profound, and an unforgettable experience.

Read the insightful and heartfelt novel A Blue and Gray Christmas by Joan Medlicott, and discover how ordinary people can make dramatic changes in their own lives, as well as in the lives of others, even across time and space.

Tags: A Blue and Gray Christmas, Joan Medlicott, American Civil War, fiction book reviews.