REVOLUTIONARY AGREEMENTS - Hardcover

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Marian Head has been a pioneer in training and organizational development since the early 1970s. Her diverse experiences as organizer, facilitator, entrepreneur and leader have ranged from being child-President of her 4-H Club; to serving the US Senate (which she calls "the agreement capitol of the world") as its first Manager for Educational Development; to initiating and co-chairing the Boulder Graduate School’s Department of Organizational Transformation and Change; to being program coordinator for the Soviet-American Citizens’ Summits in Washington DC and Moscow and co-facilitating the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders in Oxford and Moscow.

In 1985 Marian co-founded the Geneva Group, a network of businesspeople formed around a set of principles that has since evolved into the Revolutionary Agreements. Since that time, Marian has devoted herself to introducing these principles into the lives and work of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world.

Marian’s passion for the principles of authentic leadership and compassionate communication have led her to speak before audiences of thousands; to consult with businesses ranging from mom-‘n’-pops to the Fortune 100; to serve on and chair national and international committees and boards for both profit and nonprofit organizations; and to continually search out new avenues and contexts for her pioneering work.

In 2002 she served as the first woman chairperson of the Mannatech Corporation’s peer-elected, ten-member Associate Advisory Council. Prior to this, in 1998, the Mannatech field leadership adopted an early version of the Revolutionary Agreements as their "Leadership Agreements," which now serve a quarter-million active associates worldwide. Marian has been honored as one of Mannatech’s top 100 independent sales associates every year since 1997.

Among her pioneering works, Marian co-authored VisionWorks: Setting Your Sights on Success (1991, New World Design Center); The American Team: 7 Steps to Genuine Teamwork in the White House and Beyond (1992, New World Design Center, and incorporated into Blueprint for Presidential Transition, Washington DC); and Rings of Empowerment (1993, Global Family).

She currently serves as a senior writer and editor for Networking Times and as a coach to private individuals and business leaders nationwide.

Aus dem Klappentext

The principles behind Revolutionary Agreements have helped hundreds of thousands of people worldwide whether dealing with the common challenges of marriage and parenthood, effectively managing high-performance work teams, or contributing to improved community and international relations.

From the mundane to the extraordinary, the personal to the political, the heartwarming to the hilarious, the author brings these agreements to life with examples, anecdotes and explorations culled from her 30 years of facilitating personal and organizational excellence worldwide.

Revolutionary Agreements can be immediately applied in your own life, whether at home, at work or at play. Engage them today: you will be amazed at the results!

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Excerpts from Chapter Seven: I AGREE TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS DIRECTLY.

DISMANTLING THE RUMOR MILL. The workplace is a notorious hotbed for gossip, yet interestingly enough, I ve found this Agreement is invariably welcomed in the workplace with tremendous enthusiasm. When offered a way to dismantle the fickle and destructive institution of the rumor mill by adopting a more constructive way to behave, people embrace it with open arms.

The next time you hear an upsetting rumor at work, what if instead of passing on the bad news and your upset feelings to your co-workers, you instead went directly and immediately to the source of the issue and said, "I just heard X, and wanted to know whether or not it s true."

I have done this dozens of times. Sometimes I hear the response, "No, it s certainly not true!" and then have the privilege and delight of sharing the good news with my co-workers. Sometimes I will learn that yes, in fact, the rumor is true. I can then find out exactly why this is so first hand, with all the salient details and perspectives, which in turn enables me to share with my co-workers the reasons and the truth behind the rumor.

I heard once through the grapevine that "Jack," a friend and member of my network marketing organization, had begun working for a different (and competing) company. My first angry impulse was to call the key people in our organization up and down the line, as well as key people at the corporate offices, and tell everyone of Jack s traitorous acts. In my shocked disbelief, my mind scrambled to come up with a plan for researching the competing company so we could map out a defensive strategy for keeping Jack s people from leaving our company and joining the new one with which he had so blackheartedly aligned himself.

Luckily for all involved, the essence of this Agreement kicked in before I took any action. Instead, I sent Jack an e-mail: "I just heard that you were leading a training call for another network marketing company. Can you enlighten me?"

He wrote back, "I have been hired by this new network marketing company to teach their associates my cold-calling techniques. I am getting paid to do this, and yes, they have also given me a position in their network as part of my compensation. However, other than the teaching I ve been hired to do, I am pursuing no other income from this new company. My allegiance always has been and always will be with the company we both love."

It took only minutes to go to the source and resolve this issue to my complete satisfaction. How long would it have taken me to clean up the damage I could have caused had I passed on the rumor that Jack had abandoned ship?

THE CAMEL AND THE STRAW. In this Agreement, the word "directly" has two meanings: it means going straight to the person involved and speaking with him or her--and it also means as soon as possible. One of the keys to successful problem-solving is timing, and that applies here.

We don t want to engage a contributor to a problem until we are calm enough to listen with our heart, yet at the same time, we also don t want to wait too long to deal with it. Here s an analogy that has helped me remember to resolve problems as quickly as possible: Every time something upsets you, imagine that you are taking a rock and dropping it into a pack that you wear on your back at all times. Small upsets may be only small rocks ("No big deal . . ."), but after years of accumulating them, that pack can get pretty heavy. Once you reach a certain point, adding even one more rock, no matter how small--even a pebble!--can finally throw you completely off balance.

That pebble is what people call "the straw that broke the camel s back."

Have you ever said something you thought was minor, yet the person you said it to came back with a major response, one that seemed way out of proportion to your slight transgression? Even if it seemed like a pebble to you, what you gave that person may well have been more than their heavy backpack could carry . . . the last straw.

We may think (as I have many times), "This is so small, so insignificant it s not worth the trouble to bring it up and hash it over again . . ." Perhaps not; but by not resolving it at the earliest opportunity, we ve chosen to add a rock or two to the heavy accumulation of emotional baggage in our lifelong collection.

THE POWER OF MULTIPLE AGREEMENTS. The practice of any one Agreement leads naturally to the others. This is especially obvious with this Agreement.

Before going to speak with the person to resolve the conflict directly (Agreement Seven), stop and look within at your reaction (Agreement Three). Examining your own reactions and emotional responses to the situation first can go a long way to removing any excessive emotional charge on the issue for you, and you may find yourself in far better shape to present the issue clearly and dispassionately--if the issue isn t already fully resolved from within.

When you do go speak to the person, you ll want to speak your truth, with compassion (Agreement Two). It is a wonderful feeling to have the habit of asking ourselves, when faced with an emotional issue, "How can I speak my truth--with compassion--in this moment?" rather than simply reacting: "All right--how can I unload this lifetime of rocks right now?!"

And as you problem-solve, you ll be listening with your heart (Agreement Five).

Do you see how in this one situation, you can use not one, not two, but four of these Revolutionary Agreements to transform the situation?