Why

Should I attend?

Highly capable and busy managers find it useful to increase their ability to convince others of their ideas in less time while still preserving relationships. Instead of communicating in one universal style, the most effective leaders and managers develop a range of styles and skills to suit the variety of stakeholders and situations in which they operate.

Who

Should attend?

This workshop is intended for senior managers with significant leadership responsibilities who want to increase their ability to influence others through communication, whether speaking in meetings, negotiations, or presentations.

What

are the program objectives?

Day 1: Creating influence

On the first day, participants will learn about the three fundamental ways people make decisions about who they will follow. They’ll identify current challenges and goals for creating influence through communication in their daily work. A discussion-based environment will help participants reflect on their strengths as communicators as well as what they would like to develop. Adopting an approach used by political campaigns, participants will then map out the climate of influence in their organization.

Participants with then begin to develop a short presentation to deliver in small groups on day one and to improve and deliver to the full group on day 2. These presentations will be an opportunity to practice using a narrative format and pyramid structure. When delivering their presentation, participants will receive immediate tips on body language and vocal intonation to improve their presence and impact - tips on easy changes which they can immediately implement.

TAKEAWAYS - Tools, self-assessments, and exercises:

• Leadership style self-assessment
• Narrative structure
• Presentation structure

Day 2:  Creating productive conversations/steering difficult conversations positively

Negotiation occurs in both formal and informal contexts. Many conversations in the work environment are actually informal negotiations in a relationship-preserving setting. Whenever people are making a decision about how to make an exchange or agree to a distribution of resources, the climate exists for using basic negotiation skills to improve the result. In day two, participants will learn how to create the possibility for the best possible result during a conversation. On the occasion a leader or manager must engage in a difficult conversation, a simple tool for preserving engagement while not engaging in an emotion-driven battle will be practiced to develop skills for diffusing tension in conflict. In this highly interactive day, participants will practice using a simple negotiation-based conversation model as well as a conflict-diffusing tool in mock conversations.

TAKEAWAYS - Tools, self-assessments, and exercises:

• Conversation pyramid - a guide to getting from start to your destination
• SBI - a model for delivering feedback effectively
• RSE - a model for opening new perspectives and possibilities in a conversation without ‘forcing’  

When