complete details including dates and prices on this link: https://mce.eu/programmes/p_0205/

After taking this programme, you will be able to:

• Influence the people you need to get your project done and to meet your goals and objectives 
• Manage internal politics and difficult people and overcome resistance 
• Project a stronger, more confident and professional image so that others will listen to you 
• Build, manage and leverage a personal network of colleagues  
• Apply a wider range of high impact influencing strategies to get what you need, regardless of your position or level of authority 

This programme is facilitated by an experienced manager who has risen up through various organizational positions in multinational organizations to hold a senior position, and has extensive experience using ethical influence to achieve outcomes.

You’ll bring your own influence challenges to the programme, and your facilitator will adapt the programme to address the challenges of your group of participants.

You’ll get plenty of chance to practice your influence skills through a variety of case studies, exercises and role plays, with feedback from your facilitator and your fellow participants.

Module 1:  You, Influence and the Managerial Context  
We will look at the role of influence in strategy implementation – getting things done through people over whom you have no authority – your peers whose collaboration your team needs to meet its own goals and even your superiors whose sponsorship and resource allocation you’ll need to achieve your departmental strategy. We’ll also introduce the basics of influence and you’ll learn about your own influencing style and capabilities. Through case studies, self-assessment, role play, peer discussion, and reflection you will:

• First, gain awareness of your own influencing style and skill level
• Build a deeper appreciation and understanding of the role of influence in management
• Get a conceptual introduction to the essentials of influence – power, politics, persuasion, and strategy implementation/goal achievement
• Identify your own influencing challenge with respect to implementing your strategy

Module 2:  Navigate your organization’s politics 
Like it or not, organizational politics are an integral part of daily working life. They can help or hinder you in strategy implementation. You’ll learn to map the power dynamics in your organization and how to ethically use them to support your strategy implementation. You’ll also learn ways to identify and counter people who are acting overtly or covertly to obstruct your strategy implementation. Through case studies, self-assessment, introduction to concepts, peer discussion and self-reflection, you will:

• Develop situational awareness and learn to read the dynamics behind organizational politics – what are people trying to achieve?
• Examine manipulation and influence from an ethical point of view – when is it good and when does it cross over the line?
• Learn typical influence tactics, and how to defend yourself against them
• Learn to construct an influence map as a basis for analysis and development of an influence approach
• Develop your own influence/political map of own strategy implementation challenge and the stakeholders involved, including your own political, power and influence position

 
Module 3:  Build networks and coalitions  
You can’t do it alone; you need people to help you implement your strategy. You’ll need the collaboration of your peers; this means understanding their goals and constraints in relation to yours and in relation to organizational goals, and identifying opportunities for both of you to benefit. It means mapping to their interests, gaining their respect and trust for collaboration. This is a lot easier if you have already built trust and reciprocity ahead of time by creating an informal influence network. Through practical exercises, peer discussion, and self-reflection, you will:

• Understand the principles behind networking, the power of an informal network, and how to leverage it for your strategy implementation.
• We’ll look at internal and external networks.
• The importance of credibility through empathy, honesty, and trust – hard to build, easy to destroy
• Use the influence map to determine not only what you need, but what your potential coalition partners need in order to be successful – can you help them?
• More work on your own influence challenge

 
Module 4: Persuade, and win over the resistors  

How can you communicate with impact, and persuade, or even inspire people to join you? This takes some work on your personal style. How do you deal with difficult people, how can you win over the stubborn resistors? We will work on practical persuasion and communication through exercises and coaching. During the afternoon, there will be time for taking stock of your learning points and getting back to your personal influence challenge. Through individual exercises, reflection and coaching, you will work on:

• Creating presence and communicating powerfully
• Demonstrating credibility and authenticity through facts, emotions/values and visuals
• Persuasion techniques
• Being assertive
• Identifying resistance, the different types of resistors, and how to handle them
• Mini-course in conflict handling
• Putting it all together and key learning points from the programme
• Work on your individual influencing challenges with the support of your programme coaches.
• Develop an “influencing” action plan that will help you with executing your department’s strategy