Influencing without Authority

Course Description

How many times have you been asked to affect change in your team or across the organization when you have no formal authority or power to make this happen? As a Change Agent, Project Manager, Supervisor, Team Lead, Executive Assistant or Department Manager you may be struggling to motivate others to listen to your thoughts, ideas, and opinions. We can all be in that position of informal leader, without the title or power to make decisions, but still needing to get things done. Most of us can successfully create a credible and coherent argument for what we plan to do. But have you noticed that being right is rarely enough to persuade someone? Analytical reasoning is merely a starting point for influencing team-members, stakeholders and project sponsors. Influencing can develop meaningful relationships, build trust and allow you to share your expertise to support growth for yourself and your career. Through discussion and role plays learn how to have influence within a workplace, even if you’re not the team lead or the CEO.

Participant Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Recognize the sources of Power and learn strategies to balance Power
• Understand and identify the motivators of others to develop lasting solutions
• Influence successfully in uneven situations
• Work with others to create new options to old problems
• Add tools to your tool kit for to manage the pitfalls of workplace interactions

Course Content

Module 1

• Define Influence
• Explore Influence and why it is important in the workplace
• Share models of influencing
• Develop strategies for influencing

Module 2

• Exploring sources of power
• Strategies for balancing power
• Overcoming resistance & active listening skills
• Experiment with skills for managing resistance and listening actively

Module 3

• Explore needs/interests/motivators
• Discover how language can influence
• Experiment with skills for effective Influencing