Overview: Strategies for Enhancing
Executive Influence

Applying the science and art of persuasion

About the Program
1. Basic Principles of Persuasion
Are some leaders natural born persuaders while others never will be? Is persuasion merely the ability to manipulate? Or are there a series of principles underlying basic learnable skills that can enhance your ability every day on the job to sway the opinions of others, get the organization to do things differently, overcome resistance, or reframe difficult situations?

The program begins by introducing a powerful conceptual framework for organizing your own persuasion efforts and observing the persuasion efforts of others.

This framework leads to an in-depth analysis of the key principles of persuasion that underlie the sources of executive influence, including personalizing, storytelling, metaphorical reasoning, and assessing the predispositions of audiences.

2. Strategic Communication Effective and Ineffective Persuasion in Action
In this session, successful and unsuccessful efforts at persuasion are illustrated by a close analysis of real-world cases from a variety of organizations and contexts.

As you plan persuasion strategies and begin to make choices about positioning yourself and your message, you should understand what specific persuasion tactics will be most effective and under what conditions they will be most powerful.

3. Interpersonal Persuasion
The dynamics of the most common form of persuasion-- face-to-face persuasion-- are explored in one-on-one and small group exercises. What you should know about: dealing with others in a way which is both assertive and empathetic; effectively expressing disapproval; the value of presenting a revelation; turning negatives into positives; clarity and simplicity; managing the counter-arguments of the other side, and more.

 4. Applying the Principles of Persuasion in Your Job
Analyze and take advantage of opportunities for influence back on the job. Position the message to match:

• the persuader
  
• the audience
  
• the nature of the argument
  
• the context or situation