A practical guide for building and maintaining high performance business relationships Every business sinks or swims on the quality of its relationships and alliances, whether they are between management and staff, departments, subsidiaries, partners, suppliers, or customers. It's no wonder then that building and maintaining high performance relationships has emerged as one of the hottest topics in today's hypercompetitive, global business environment. This indispensable guide will help you to understand what high performance relationships are and how they work. Written by a distinguished pioneer in the field, it explains what a high performance business culture populated by a fully engaged workforce looks like. It describes simple, proven strategies and techniques for implementing and sustaining high performance relationships, both internally, within your organizations, and externally. And, it details the many benefits that await business organizations of any size that place greater emphasis on relationship performance management. Offers simple and effective methods for building successful business and organizational relationships Concise and easy to read, this book provides a common language and practice for high performance relationship management and critical change management Arms you with an array of tested-in-the-trenches tools for building robust and sustainable high performance business relationships

How can managers determine which types of partnerships will provide the best pay-offs? This book presents a partnership model which provides a structured and repeatable process to effectively and efficiently build and maintain tailored business relationships that may become an asset for executives looking for competitive advantage.

A guide to using positive organizational change to do more with less, from the acclaimed author of The Southwest Airlines Way. Whether from customers, supply-chain partners, policymakers, or regulators, organizations in virtually every industry are facing calls to do more with less. They are feeling compelled to provide higher-quality outcomes, more rapidly, at a lower cost. This book offers a road-tested approach for delivering these outcomes through positive organizational change. Its message comes just in time—for too many companies have gone the way of low-road strategies, such as cutting pay and perks, and working harder not smarter. Drawing on her pathbreaking research, Jody Hoffer Gittell reveals that high performance is fundamentally relational—rooted in both human and social capital. Based on this insight, she provides a unique model that will help companies build meaningful relationships among colleagues, develop smarter work processes, and design organizational structures fit for today’s pressure test. By following four organizations on their change journeys, she illustrates how “relational coordination” unfolds in real-world settings. In addition, tools for change guide readers as they learn how to implement this new model in their own workplaces.

The notion of sustainability continues to increase in importance for businesses. Today consumers pay attention to the environmental impacts and social consequences of the products they use. Consequently, an increase in interest in the topic from an industry perspective has been observed and the topic is considered a megatrend in today’s global economy worthy of additional academic inquiry. This dissertation looks into the role that sustainability plays for companies in the current business environment and its effect on supply chain relationships. This book highlights the effects that introducing sustainability to a supply chain relationship has on the dynamics and structure of these relationships and provides a novel methodological approach to examine the issue. For the analysis, a theoretical framework of current management theories is assembled and the insights of each theory for sustainability in supply chain management are detailed. Through a qualitative and a quantitative research phase, the findings of this dissertation show, that sustainability and collaborative behavior in supply chain relationships positively affect each other. This manuscript provides insights for both research and practice. Theoretical and managerial implications are detailed and the findings are mirrored with the derived theoretical framework. This book therefore helps to promote the effective implementation of sustainability in supply chain management practice and elaborates the theory around the topic.

How a new generation of outlaw salespeople are rewriting the rules Outlaw is a guide to what really works in the sales environment. Packed with fresh on-the-ground insights, powerful true stories, bold strategies, and unconventional approaches to selling, it explains how the best salespeople defy the conventional wisdom to achieve stunning success. But it's not just for salespeople. Since we all sell something in one form or another—even ideas—Outlaw is the sales guide for the salesperson in each of us. Outlaw explains that the world's best salespeople don't just sell; they fight for a worthy cause. They don't just pitch the customer; instead, they reframe the customer's and the market's expectations, delivering unique experiences that build value and inspire satisfaction, loyalty, and repeat business. In Outlaw, author and sales expert Trent Leyshan uses straightforward explanations and inspiring case studies to reveal the tools, traits, and skills used by the world’s most dynamic and successful sales professionals. Includes effective sales practices for salespeople, as well as account managers, business leaders, consultants, marketers, advertisers, and entrepreneurs Features proven techniques for overcoming personal limitations, understanding what customers want, and becoming a more passionate, inspiring sales professional Written by a sales expert and trainer whose clients include many of Australia's most successful sales-driven firms Perfect for anyone who works in sales or wants new ways to influence colleagues and customers, Outlaw offers effective strategies and a fresh approach to selling that really works.

An organization operating in the twenty-first century is different from one that operated during the Industrial Revolution. Today's focus is on optimizing human potential; people are the enablers of most aspects of intangible value. People develop relationships with suppliers, customers, distributors, and other third parties through which work is executed. In Reflective Leaders and High-Performance Organizations, authors Nick Shepherd and Peter Smyth take an integrated view of organizational performance that blends a focus on both outcomes and relationships. Reflective Leaders and High-Performance Organizations suggests a framework for developing and applying an improved approach to organizational leadership and management. In addition to philosophy and conceptual approaches, it presents tested practical tools and direction. It also delivers case studies of organizations that have applied Shepherd's and Smyth's ideas and realized measurable improvements in the day-to-day activities of the organization, along with measurably improved outcomes from the organizational activity. Using over twenty years of practical consulting experience as well as careers in management, Shepherd and Smyth demonstrate how effective leaders can maintain a focus on organizational tasks and outcomes and do this while building and enhancing human relationships.