Influence

Why Influencing Skills Training?
In today's less hierachical and more pressurised workplace, we can no longer rely on our position or job role alone to make things happen. There's an ever-increasing need to be able to genuinely influence others using our credibilty and our inter-personal skills.

Individuals are now frequently measured by their ability to influence others at work: it is the method by which we make our mark, and by which we motivate and involve others in helping us to achieve our objectives. Most of us begin our working lives using a small number of instinctive techniques to influence others. Some of these will be effective, but there will be times when you just can't work out why what you're saying is not having the effect you want!

Individuals wishing to improve their ability to influence are often interested in finding ways to:

Influence others without the need for positional power or authority

Build trusting, productive relationships with others at work

Develop and maintain their personal credibility

Repair their personal credibility in situations when it has been eroded

Develop useful techniques and strategies to influence others who are not easy to influence

As we become more experienced, and as we see a more obvious need to influence positively, we usually develop a wider repertoire of influencing techniques. However, in order to achieve this, it is essential that we become more conscious and more strategic about how we go about influencing others. Otherwise, we will simply stick with the same methods, wondering why the people around us are becoming more infuriating...!

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"The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and to influence their actions"

John Hancock

Click the 'play' button below to see Carolyn Stevens, Australian Executive Coach, run through some useful ideas on how to be more persuasive by listening more and better understanding the other person's position:

How to spot effective influence
A skilled influencer...

1. Is prepared - they take time to consider the interaction: what they want from it, what the other person wants from it, what is the best overall approach and how to deal with any specific issues

2. Is able to protect the on-going relationship- they create and maintain a genuine empathetic rapport and seek win-win outcomes

3. Avoids manipulation - they allow the other person to have control and freedom to make their own decisions

4. Uses the power of their position sensitively and appropriately - they rarely use their role or their status as the primary tool of influence

5. Communicates clearly and persuasively - they indicate the benefits of their ideas to the other person, and are able to neutralise resistance through active listening and creative problem solving

6. Is responsive - they are flexible in their approach, matching it to the needs of the person and the situation, and seeking alternative methods when necessary

7. Is successful - they are able to create genuine commitment from the other person, and are never satisfied with reluctant compliance.

Influencing Skills Training

Would you or others in your team benefit from training in 'positive influence'?

As well as the information and advice availble from the internet and from reading books, there's huge additional benefit to be gained from the interaction, practical exercises and valuable feedback that face-to-face training and coaching gives. In relation to the topic of effective influence H2 offers:

Communication and Relationship Management Training

Held in Central London in convenient locations on a regular basis - a place costs from just £270 +VAT per person for a 1-day course. We currently offer the following open course specifically on this topic:

Influencing Skills (1-day course)

We can deliver any of our open course topics at your own premises or at a local venue of your choice, plus we offer a number of other off-the-shelf courses that can be delivered in-house, including:

Influencing Skills
Assertive Communication
Managing your Manager
Negotiation Skills

We charge a flat daily fee from £800 +VAT per day (from £700 +VAT for not-for profit organisations), for any number of attendees up to 12 people, dependent only on the location and the duration of the course. Click on the "In-house Courses" button above for more details.

Our bespoke service involves us designing and delivering a tailored course to meet your more individual requirements. Following a short but effective pre-course consultation, we put together a course programme that reflects your specified priorities, and that includes exercises based on real-life case studies/scenarios. This helps us to ensure that the course stays focussed on the issues that are most important to you and your delegates. Click on the "Bespoke Training" button above for more details.

We offer all of our open course and in-house topics as 1:1 training. The cost is dependent upon the topic, location and duration and we offer discounts for two or more sessions. For example, the fees for our standard 1:1 training in Central London covering an open course topic (such as "Influencing Skills" or "Negotiation Skills") are £550 +VAT. Click on the "One-to-One Training" button above for more details.

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