decide / influencing and negotiating
TLDR
For teams and groups whose work depends on gaining agreement from colleagues, senior leaders, stakeholders, partners or suppliers. Builds the skills and habits to secure agreement and move decisions forward, practised through role play on your own situations. Adapted to the influencing and negotiating your work involves, and in line with your organisation's values.
This programme gives your team or group one structured method for influencing and negotiating. The method is based on six stages each building on the one before, and the situations you practise it on come from your own work.
Your work may involve influencing externally, across your organisation or upwards to senior leaders, and negotiating commercially, internally or with stakeholders, partners and suppliers. Discovery identifies which of these apply to your team or group, and every scenario and role play in the workshop is built around them.
The stages are: setting the tone of a conversation through behavioural influence, drawing out insight, understanding what motivates the people involved, building a narrative that resonates, negotiating, and anchoring the decision that follows.
Every session is experiential. Participants practise through role play on situations from their own work, are coached as they go and leave each session with a habit to build. Everything is applied to your own environment and context, and connects back to your team's and organisation's values, code of ethics and tone guide.
The approach is structured and ethical, and works whatever your position in the hierarchy. Participants leave able to read people, shape conversations and secure outcomes.
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Apply a structured method to prepare for and lead influencing conversations and negotiations.
Read people and adapt your approach to what motivates them.
Build a narrative that brings people alongside a decision.
Negotiate agreements that hold and turn them into clear decisions.
Build habits that apply the method to your team's own situations, in line with your values, code of ethics and tone guide.
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Stronger outcomes from the conversations that matter most to your team's objectives.
Confidence entering negotiations with partners, stakeholders and senior leaders.
A consistent, ethical approach across the team that reflects your organisation's values.
Agreements that turn into decisions people follow through on.
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Pre-workshop questionnaire
Participants complete a short questionnaire covering current processes, confidence levels and common challenges. This helps us understand your team’s context and shapes the delivery focus and practical exercises.
Full-day core workshop (in-person or virtual)
Follow-up virtual meetup (2 hours, 1 month later, OPTIONAL)
Review commitments and progress
Share embedded practices and lessons learned
Identify any new support or development needs
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09:30 – 10:00 | Welcome, introductions and context setting
Programme overview, objectives and psychological safety framing. Participants confirm the situations they want to work on, based on the results of the pre-workshop questionnaire..10:00 – 11:15 | Behavioural influence and elicitation
A short input on setting the tone of a conversation and drawing out insight, using unity, reciprocity, authority, scarcity, commitment, liking and social proof, and the CANVAS elicitation techniques. Participants then practise through coached role play on situations from their own work and choose one habit to build.11:15 – 11:30 | Break
11:30 – 12:45 | Motivation mapping and storytelling
A short input on what drives each party's position, using MICE (money, ideology, coercion, ego), and on building a narrative that humanises decisions. Participants practise reading motivations and telling the story of a real situation in role play, with coaching and a habit to build.12:45 – 13:30 | Lunch
13:30 – 14:30 | Hybrid negotiation
Harvard principles and Voss tactics. Participants negotiate through coached role play on realistic dilemmas from their own context and choose one habit to build.14:30 – 15:15 | Anchoring decisions
The National Decision Model turns agreement into a decision that holds: gather information, assess risks, consider powers, take action and review. Participants role play closing a negotiation, agreeing next steps and setting the review, with a habit to build.15:15 – 15:30 | Break
15:30 – 16:00 | Putting the method to work
Participants rehearse a live influencing or negotiating situation from their own work, whether influencing externally, internally or upwards, or negotiating commercially, internally or with stakeholders, partners and suppliers, and build a plan for it.16:00 – 16:30 | Commitments and close
Agreeing individual and team commitments and habits to apply back in role.
