Building Positive Influence: Managing the Tasks

Pareto's Optimal Curve

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Not a day goes by when most professionals and leaders do not need to influence others to achieve their goals. Whether in project teams working with people who are not your direct reports, negotiating internally over shared resources, or solving challenging problems involving cross-functional groups, influencing is a critical part of today’s workplace. Yet, influencing others is challenging and requires a process that focuses on reaching a positive outcome for both parties. This live interactive module, delivered over a three-hour, virtual webcast session, is based on the work of Dr. William Ury of the Harvard Negotiation Project. This workshop builds participants’ skills in questioning, listening, building trust, problem solving, persuading, and strategizing, helping participants become more effective.

Building Positive Influence: Managing the Tasks (BPI-MTT) demonstrates the difference between bargaining and true problem solving; this module equips participants with the tools to successfully manage reallife influence situations. Participants explore the interests behind the positions that people take, as well as how to gain agreement through inclusion of more explored interests. Additionally they learn how to create options for win-win solutions, leverage independent standards that add credibility, create best alternatives to a negotiated agreement, and positively handle resistance. This module will equip them with tools, processes, and strengths to manage the task side of the process.

Program Outcomes

Building Positive Influence: Managing the Tasks helps individuals and leaders understand that influence is a series of negotiations. Learning how to handle these negotiations in a way that is win-win and enhances relationships is essential to success over the long run. The Managing the Tasks module provides processes and tools to achieve win-win outcomes.

Approach

Building Positive Influence: Managing the Tasks is a three-hour, instructor-led virtual module facilitated by a Wilson Learning-certified instructor.

This enables:

• Live virtual interaction among the participants and the facilitator
• True-to-life skills practice
• Opportunities to use the Strategizer planner to outline insights for applying the new tools in real work situations
• Opportunities to record and share key learnings to gain commitment for applying the new tools in their teams

This modules can be used individually or together with Building Positive Influence: Managing the People; the order in which the modules are facilitated can be decided by your organization.

The Influence Strategizer Tool

This tool is used for a workshop application exercise and is accessible after the workshop to assist participants in planning for an upcoming negotiation, or to use for a post-negotiation review. The Strategizer assists participants as they work to align people, explore issues, and reach agreements. It also provides a means to reflect these influencing skills for completed agreements; this reflection will help individuals apply their learning to their next negotiation experience.

Enabling Improved Performance

Building Positive Influence: Managing the Tasks features the Strategizer planning guide so participants can capture real situations where they will need to influence others, as well as and journaling activities that enable them to summarize key insights, application ideas, and tips for use at a later time. Involving management and training them to coach is key for a successful implementation.

Measurement and Evaluation

Organizations that implement Building Positive Influence: Managing the Tasks have access to a broad range of tools to measure initial behavioral changes and business results. One approach may be a web-based survey of participants’ direct reports to identify the degree of change and differences that this change makes. Other research options are also available.

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 Building Positive Influence: Managing the People