As the director of the Creating Working Relationships Programme at Ashridge, one of Europe's top 20 business schools, Fiona Dent knows how important it is for individuals to work together effectively. In her latest pocketbook (she has also written our popular title on leadership) she describes how to create, develop and sustain constructive working relationships. 'Whatever your level in the organisation, profession, role or nationality', she says, 'much of your success will depend on how you interact with those around you.' The book describes how to create, build and sustain relationships. It identifies the key features that make a relationship work (eg openness and honesty, empathy, respect and trust) and those that don't (eg jealousy, arrogance, conflict of interest and misunderstanding). The focus is on helping readers recognise their own approaches to relationships at work, thereby enabling them to identify and understand the differences in other people's approaches and modify their own behaviour accordingly. This modification, combined with good interpersonal and communication skills, lies at the heart of relationship-building.
