Influencing and Personal Effectiveness Skills

Introduction from the course director

Course overview

Developing your personal influence and impact skills

Most MBA type programmes major on the functional skills associated with strategy, finance, marketing and information technology, but they fail to address how people will utilise and leverage that knowledge through the art of effective influence. In today's high performance organisations technical and problem solving skills are seen as a given – they are simply the ticket to entry and will only get you so far. The reality is that high performance executives differentiate themselves by possessing a superb range of people and influencing skills. It really is the big differentiator in our leaner, flatter and matrix type organisations.

This Masters Programme in Influencing and Personal Effectiveness Skills is an extremely concentrated programme of personal development and will enable you to improve – and to practice – the impact you have on those around you. You learn how best to make truly effective contributions to key decisions in your organisation. This exciting skills-based programme aims to place people and influencing skills at the heart of the Mini-MBA curriculum. It will help you develop your asset base in this most critical skill area. However in contrast to classic MBA programmes, the case studies we use will not be academic, but rather will be based on you and your own priorities.

What this programme will do for you

1 Provide a comprehensive review of YOUR individual effectiveness in influencing and impact on people in the modern workplace.

2 Deliver a unique experience to get expert and peer feedback on how other people see you in a business environment.

3 Present a highly practical and business focused skills development – The programme is centered on the business context – How we operate in:

• Presentations
• Meetings
• Negotiations
• Performance management scenarios

4 Combine insightful input on personal drives and motivations together with intensive real life business scenarios.

What this programme will do for your organisation

After 4-days this programme will deliver you back to your organisation with a full compliment of people management techniques that will significantly improve both your performance and that of those around you, including the ability to:
1 Help you utilise your full asset base of influencing skills
2 Deliver presentations with conviction, belief and influence
3 Influence and persuade others in meetings and project teams
4 Understand your personal drivers and those of your team and peers
5 Handle difficult people situations with confidence
6 Deal with conflict in a positive and constructive manner
7 Secure commitment of others to a given task
8 Manage your team to high performance
9 Negotiate win:win deals

Who should attend?

The programme will appeal to key executives who:

• Want to assess and to improve their effectiveness in influencing others
• Are technical specialists moving into a more generalist and people intensive management role
• Wish to develop greater flexibility and variety in the way that they deal with others
• Are successful but who sometimes have a problem in carrying other people along with their ideas
• Want to undertake a full review of how they impact and influence others
• Want to manage their individual strengths and drives so that it attracts rather than pushes people away
• Feel frustrated that their ideas and strengths are not getting heard in meetings and other situations
• Find it difficult to say "No" to others
• Feel that they are not always getting the credit they deserve
• Get frustrated when they see others getting credit for using their same ideas

Consequently the programme is applicable to specialists and managers of all levels and experiences including:

• Directors
• Experienced line managers and leaders
• New managers
• Project or team leaders
• Functional or department heads
• Supervisors
• Technical support specialists

Indeed we welcome a mixed range of experiences as it reflects the reality of the real world. Directors need to appeal to supervisors and managers need to push back against tough directors sometimes. We use that dynamic to help people learn and grow.

Programme - Day 1

Day 1 – Understanding your personal brand and communicating to get the brand you want!

ARE YOU A PROJECTOR OR ATTRACTOR?

• Understanding your basic influencing drivers
• Understanding what drives other people
• Learn about the Compliance and Commitment Continuum
• Avoiding the "Judgemental" trap! and liberate yourself in dealing with others
• Thinking about your brand!

PRESENTING YOUR BRAND WITH INFLUENCE – THE BRAND YOU WANT OTHERS TO SEE

• Discover the image others see of you
• Learn about the factors that really contribute to personal power and influence
• Projecting that crucial first impression
  • the first four minutes
• Looking and sounding more confident
• Establishing effective personal contact
• Understanding 'the autobiography of how you move'
• Recognising that you can not NOT communicate
• Managing your self image and personal brand
• Getting feedback about you and your style

UNDERSTANDING SELF AND OTHERS – INFLUENCING AND IMPACTING ON OTHERS

• Understand the notion of preferences
• Understanding what motivates and influence others
• Seeing the world as the other person sees it
• Calibrating your antennae and radar screen
• Communicating on different bandwidths to achieve what you want
• Learn about the choices you have
• Develop your flexibility
• Explore the difference between who you are and your effectiveness

Programme - Day 2

Day 2 – Meeting strategies and negotiations – making sure you get noticed

SEEING MEETINGS AS A SHOP WINDOW FOR YOUR BRAND

• Achieving real influence in meetings
• Understand what successful people do
• Learn about the essential do's and don'ts
• Developing a new set of meeting strategies
• Strategies for maximum impact in meetings
• Getting your ideas across
• Handling awkward situations – frustration, anger and other emotions

DEVELOPING YOUR RANGE OF INFLUENCING SKILLS

• The fundamentals of successful negotiating skills
• Learn about strategies and tactics
• Negotiating scenarios – one-to-one, team meeting, commercial and third party
• Planning routines which increase the probability of success
• The classic behaviours of a successful negotiator
• Assessing individual negotiating styles – how can I improve?
• Dealing with difference styles
• Conflict evolution

Programme - Day 3

Day 3 – Managing people performance – The differentiator for a high performance manager

UNDERSTAND YOUR INTERNAL DIALOGUE AS A DRIVER OF SUCCESS

• Learn how your internal conversations drive your behaviour
• See the linkage between what you do and how you see yourself
• Identify your positive and negative belief patterns
• Apply it managing yourself and others

GETTING READY FOR MANAGING A DIFFICULT PEOPLE SCENARIO

• Identifying assertive, passive and aggressive behaviours
• Recognising the emotional triggers you respond to
• Recognising where I am – too strong? Too soft?
• Learning to be assertive
• Saying 'No' without feeling guilty
• Applying strategies to manage other non-assertive behaviour
• The toolbox of effective assertiveness techniques

REAL LIFE CASE SCENARIOS

• A safe low risk and confidential environment
• Working on your people management challenges!
  • The problem is my boss?
  • The problem is my colleague?
  • I have got a difficult customer?
• Analysis and skills practice
• Practical improvement strategies
• Feedback review

Programme - Day 4

Day 4 – Pulling it all together – Making it happen

• Recognising your values – what it is you want in life and career
• Feedback consolidation
• What I have learnt about myself and others
• Where you are now – and where you want to be!
• Key learning reviews
• Overcoming obstacles and reaching your goals
• Making it happen – Action planning
• Programme summary and review

FACILITATED WORKSHOP
The last day session is driven as a facilitated workshop/review to enable people to reflect on their learning and feedback and develop real commitments to moving forward. The trainer will spend time coaching the participants, one-to-one and in groups to ensure they have successfully identified their strengths and weaknesses.

They will consolidate the learning from the previous three days to build an effective action plan that will enable them to employ the tactics and techniques developed back in the workplace to overcome difficult people situations, apply maximum influence in meetings, presentations and negotiations and ultimately become a high performance manager.