Persuading the Bear: Learn how to Build Engaged Communities through Horizontal Influencing by Michael Nir

About the training

#Leading and Influencing   #Horizontal Influencing   #Persuading   #Influencing   #Communication

It was 9 pm on a Friday and I was at work, my spouse called asking when I’d be home, my boss was all over me. I had been working on a proposal for 5 months and couldn’t get team, vendor and client’s buy-in! I became insufferable, even Ron, my best friend, declined our traditional Wednesday beer date. I changed jobs frequently, feeling disengaged (my ‘record’ was 4 hours) until I became physically ill. After the third round of antibiotics, I decided to quit another position and start working for myself. Remarkably, my feeling of disengagement was not unique. According to the Gallup engagement study – nearly 70% of employees suffer from work place disengagement- a true epidemic! Disengagement hits the bottom line, it inflicts pain and unhappiness, reduces profit per share, and leads to high turnover! For over 20 years, my personal transformation journey as a consultant and later as a leading agile coach taught me to look for patterns in organizations. I have recognized recurring behaviors that plague unsuccessful disengaged organizations. The overarching problem is the traditional approach to organizational power/influence which I named vertical influencing. Unsuccessful organizations suffer from high employee disengagement since they adopt vertical influence patterns. This is true in for profit, government and non-profit organizations as well Vertical influencing originates from viewing power/influence as a zero-sum game – a win lose proposition. Where one idea is a winner and the other a loser, one side is right and the other is wrong; In unsuccessful organizations everyone competes to be the influencer, the winner, breaking support communities & leading to disengagement. On the other hand, I discovered that successful organizations adopt a fresh paradigm of horizontal influencing. Presently, these horizontal influencing structures manifest themselves in lean agile approaches. Horizontal influencing radically changes the way people interact creating engaged communities. The know how to horizontal influencing includes a set of skills fundamental to building Dyad and Triad relationships; creating a true win-win environment at the individual, team and organizational level. Through this prism, Influence is communication at a deep level, where we relate to each other compassionately and look actively for commonalities and shared goals.