After spending years reviewing business books, Kelly Barner knows how to recognize authors who truly move the needle–and Kate Vitasek is one of them. Her latest work, Preventing the Dispute Before It Begins: Proven Mechanisms for Fostering Better Business Relationships, co-authored with James Groton, Ellen Waldman, and Allen Waxman, takes on a surprisingly neglected topic: dispute prevention.

While this topic can be applied to procurement, it’s also very human, looking at business relationships from their most troubled moments and aspiring to lay out a plan as well as offering up resources to help teams and individuals stay away from the trouble. 

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner takes on her first audio book review and covers:

• The difference between handling conflict and proactively preventing issues in the first place
• How certain language, particularly within contracts, can lay the foundation for disputes even before they happen
• Who peacekeepers are and the role they have in strategically averting crises

Links:

• Kate Vitasek on LinkedIn
• Preventing the Dispute Before It Begins: Proven Mechanisms for Fostering Better Business Relationships
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement