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The Arts of Influence: Soft Power and Distant Relationships

by Hugh MacDonald

282 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #08-0466; ISBN 1-4251-7575-9; US$29.00, C$29.00, EUR19.81, £14.97

If you work with internal clients or external partners, this book provides a wealth of principles, ideas and techniques to help you create and maintain an effective and professional relationship.

About the Book

Effective working relationships depend on our ability to go beyond our own interests and consider the needs of others. Despite this, the simple reality is that our needs must be met.

Relationship management is not a feel-good exercise. It's not about taking a client to a ball game or having lunch at a trendy restaurant. It certainly is not about having a group hug every time there is a challenge. It's about keeping distance and perspective. It's about being professional and working with others to satisfy our first priority – getting what we need and advancing our interests.

This is a highly practical book written by a former VP of Strategic Alliance Management for one of Canada's largest financial institutions who has managed workplace relationships for more than thirty years. It provides a wealth of principles, ideas and techniques to help establish an effective and professionally distant relationship based on soft power – our ability to influence others.

"Having sat at the opposite end of a negotiation table from Hugh MacDonald, I can attest to his skillful ability to deal with tenuous issues in a diplomatic and direct way. He is a true master of the art of relationship management and I am delighted he is now sharing his knowledge and experience with others."
— Robert Hakeem, Relationship Executive, Boston

About the Author

Hugh MacDonald is a certified HR and workplace learning professional with an MA in Conflict Analysis and Management from Royal Roads University. As VP of Strategic Alliance Management and, later, VP of HR Operations and Knowledge Management for one of Canada's largest financial institutions, he helped create some of Canada's largest and most successful joint ventures and outsourcing arrangements.

As the relationship executive for Canada's first, and one of North America's largest, HR multi-process arrangements, he was recognized as an industry pioneer by the editors of HRO Today and named four times to their annual list of outsourcing 'superstars'.

Based in Toronto, he is a popular international speaker and workshop leader and manages his own consulting practice to enable business leaders, HR consultants, project managers, outsourcing professionals and anyone else who needs to manage complex relationships to develop and improve their negotiation and influencing skills, improve their ability to implement transformative change and deal with inter-group conflict.