How to Influence and Consult Strategically

How to Influence and Consult Strategically
Do you need to influence at a strategic level to push through your ideas and proposals? As a senior manager you need to learn the analytical, creative, behavioural and political techniques behind strategic influencing. Do you act as an internal or external consultant or facilitator who sells your strategy proposals to senior people? Or are you a manager, seeking to further develop your influencing and consulting skills to have more impact?
This challenging three day course will provide you with the skills, tools and frameworks to lift your influencing, consulting and advisory skills to a new level, helping you to manage upwards, push through your strategy ideas and proposals and be far more confident to move your career on.


Course Objectives

• Improve your strategic thinking processes
• Assess and get buy-in for strategic options
• Learn subtle behavioural tactics for influencing senior people
• Sell your ideas and proposals to senior executives
• Develop a more credible and authoritative consulting or advisory style
• Planning to improve your influencing, advisory and consulting skills
• Prepare for a more senior role with greater self-confidence and credibility

Who will the Course benefit?
All Managers both in operational and support roles, seeking to combine strategic analysis and creativity with interpersonal skills, and to have a strong influence and impact both upwards and horizontally within their organisations or externally. Besides Managers (or Consultants) in a specific advisory role, this course also applies to many Operational Managers involved cross-functionally in change management, and in somewhat â€OEpoliticalâ€� environments. Also, Senior Account Managers and Sales Professionals who find themselves working with senior level customers.


Course Duration
3 days

Course Content
DAY ONE: Analytical and Behavioural Skills
Demystifying Strategic Thinking and Decision Making â€" The Strategic Option Grid
Exploring and Evaluating Strategic Options
- Case study: from swords to ploughshares â€" role playing the advisors meeting the CEO
-Â Lessons from the role-play - how did the interactions feel / how did the parties feel?
Strategic Presentation Skills
-Â How to craft your story
-Â How to increase impact with charts and graphics
-Â Influential behaviours for a senior audience
Introducing the Key Focus Techniques for â€OEStrategic Attractivenessâ€� and â€OEFinancial Attractivenessâ€�
Advisory / Consulting Skills
-Â Managing entry, exit and the lifecycle
-Â Becoming a trusted advisor
-Â Case study:Â Zirconite Mining Company, developing and presenting strategic options to the
president
-Â Lessons for how the interaction went and the client and advisors felt (at an emotional level)
The â€OEMini-Strategy Diagnosis Processâ€�
-Â Dealing with less complex challenges
-Â Selecting the best implementation option


DAY TWO: Creative and Political Skills
Review of Day One
-Â Recap of key learning points
-Â Further consulting techniques
- Case study: â€OEBP†s problem was execution, not strategyâ€�
-Â Implementation challenges (difficulty versus experience matrix, probability versus impact
matrix, the effect of the learning curve)
Diagnosis of Own Advisory / Influencing / Consulting Skills (psychometrics)
-Â Gaining a better understanding of your existing knowledge and skills
-Â Creating your development profile
Advisory / Consulting Skills
-Â Models of consulting (expert, doctor/patient and process consultation)
-Â Facilitation techniques for workshops and meetings
-Â Dealing with difficult people in workshops
Becoming More Creative in Option Generation
-Â A process for generating strategic options
-Â Constrained thinking and unconstrained thinking
Simulation with the â€OEUnconstrained Thinkingâ€� Case Study
-Â Group work to apply creative thinking to a problematic situation
Stakeholder Analysis and Advanced Influencing
-Â The influence/attitude grid
-Â Techniques for changing attitudes
-Â Things NOT to do with stakeholders
-Â Links to your own challenges and real life scenarios

DAY THREE: Thinking Future and Integrating All Skills
Diagnosis of Own Organisational Issues Scenario
-Â Modelling and accommodating uncertainty
- How Shell†s scenarios anticipated the oil crisis of 1973 (case)
-Â Corporate story telling as a strategic tool
-Â Behavioural scenarios
-Â Exercise: scenario based thinking for your company
Project Management and Business Cases
-Â Project management: the implementation technique
-Â Building a compelling business case (strategically aligned, financially sound, realistic
probability of success)
-Â Initiating projects: the most often overlooked, yet important step
-Â Project planning techniques (creating the project management plan, defining the WBS,
estimating time and money, base lining cost, scheduling, identifying risks and planning
responses)
- Case study: producing a non complex project plan
Action Planning
-Â Following up with a project of your choice (supported by tutor help-line)