Operating Effectively in Relationships Characterised by Little Trust or Support
Do you work in an environment marked by adversarial working relationships? Are your managers, peers and / or team members unable or unwilling to offer you sufficient levels of trust or support? Do you think that the quality of the work you do is compromised by the fragile workplace alliances you have to work within?
Perhaps you want to know how to work productively within the ineffective partnerships you experience at work. Or perhaps you simply want to know how to get things done with less difficulty when working with colleagues who are primarily oppositional and adversarial rather than open and co-operative. If so, this book is for you.
Working in Adversarial Relationships takes you through a highly practical, personal and insightful process. It will introduce you to a valuable set of tools which will enable you to step back from your day-to-day work and review how to operate more effectively with your key adversarial senior managers, peers and team members. The book will enable you to:
- Understand the impact of adversarial behaviour on you, your work and your workplace.
- Avoid the pitfalls and overcome the challenges of working with colleagues who do not extend support or trust easily.
- Improve your ability to manage workplace relationships characterised by higher than usual levels of oppositional and untrustworthy behaviour.
Praise for the book
“Aryanne Oade has written a highly practical guide book for people at any level of an organization who find themselves in an adversarial relationship. The step by step approach to understanding and learning to manage such relationships gives the reader hope and a fresh perspective that these relationships can improve. Reading this book is like having a personal coach at your fingertips. This reader friendly book is filled with compelling insight, real-life illustrations and practical to-dos. I can’t imagine any person who won’t find a mirror image in every section of the book.”
HY POMERANCE Ph.D. | Chief Talent Officer, New York Life Insurance Company
“Aryanne has taken on this sensitive topic and treated it with consideration and care. I found the book to be both practical and challenging. I particularly liked the variety of case studies from different sectors and found the end-of-chapter questions stimulating. Aryanne’s engaging writing style coupled with her extensive experience ensures that the reader gains valuable knowledge and understanding of this important topic.”
KEVIN B. MACCOURT | Head of Learning and Development, AIB
“Working life is filled with all kinds of human relationships, and unfortunately not all of them are positive. People who approach their work and their colleagues in an antagonistic and negative way are a normal part of almost all workplaces. When faced with the stresses and challenges that this entails it is difficult to know where to turn for advice. Aryanne Oade’s latest book provides just that advice. Not afraid to deal with the difficult issues, the book speaks with the voice of experience to provide everyone at work with real strategies for navigating the sometimes toxic relationships they find themselves in. Intelligent, readable and practical, the book is a must for anyone who seeks strategies for productively dealing with adversarial work relationships.”
PROFESSOR CARL H. RHODES | Professor of Organisation Studies, Swansea University
“In her latest book Working in Adversarial Relationships Aryanne makes a compelling case against the harmful effect of people acting and behaving in an adversarial way towards their colleagues. She intelligently offers a rational as to why these people behave the way they do. Her book is filled with gems that the reader is easily able to spot as they turn the pages. Her case studies keep the issues very real so that everyone can identify with their experiences from their own workplace. The part I enjoyed most about the book was that, as I read the pages, it felt like I was having a one-to-one session with Aryanne herself (real value for money). In writing this book Aryanne has put together powerful, pragmatic and very practical solutions that she expands and navigates her way through. The book provides a suit of armour to those who need to influence their most troublesome adversarial colleagues in the work place. In short this is a must read book.”
TOORAJ SHADNIA | Senior Project Manager, Tube Lines
“Whether you are challenged with a coworker’s lack of boundaries, a team’s lack of authority oversight, frequent uncomfortable confrontation, a manager who abuses his authority, a coworker who throws a wrench into progress every time, Oade has a solution. Working in Adversarial Relationships is an important book.”