Some Success Stories

“Kerry’s session was absolutely fantastic! It was highly interactive, engaging, and incredibly interesting.”

Our client in the banking sector needed to develop its leaders’ communication and influencing skills. With major changes happening in their sector, including shifts in technology use, it was crucial that leaders could communicate effectively and motivate their teams to embrace those changes.

We tailored our three core programmes — Be Clear, Engage & Persuade, and Inspire Change — to our client’s specific needs to address this need. Participants attended the programmes based on their individual capabilities and needs, with some choosing to attend each program gradually over time. We ensured that all participants focused on their specific influencing situations throughout the training.

As evidenced by the great feedback from participants, our tailored approach was a real success. Moreover, our client was able to point to key changes in the way their leaders communicated, resulting in buy-in to critical changes across the entire organisation. We are thrilled to have been able to help our client achieve these important outcomes.

“Thank you James. The team definitely found the course very helpful and interesting. They have expressed what a great coach you were for these few days.”

Our client is an owner/operator of significant infrastructure assets, as well as a number of additional businesses.

Participants on our Influencing & Stakeholder Engagement Skills programme are drawn from across the organisation, from plant site engineering and operations staff, client contracting and sales, as well as procurement and finance roles from head office, and everyone in between.

Participants bring their own live, current situations into the programme. These include external scenarios such as discussions with suppliers, customers and regulators, to internal propositions around capital allocation, compliance maturity and efficiency initiatives. Their situations are used as a platform to learn our proven concepts and techniques, and for application back in the workplace.

A side benefit of the programme is that staff get to understand different areas of the organisation, and build stronger working relationships with their colleagues.

We have delivered the programme across a range of different locations for this client since 2014, and are their top ranking learning and development course based on staff feedback.

“This workshop was fantastic! The content was really helpful for bringing consciousness to the way you interact with and influence people…

“I thought it was probably one of the best training courses I’ve been on for a while.”

A public sector client faced a critical challenge in implementing Government policy that required major behavioural change. To achieve this objective, they needed to develop their staff’s influencing skills to effectively engage government agencies and the public. This is a critical requirement since implementing government policy is often a complex process that requires coordination and cooperation across various government agencies and stakeholders.

To address this challenge, we took a tailored approach. Our core influencing skills programme was customised to meet the specific needs of the client. The programme was designed to enable participants to work on their own scenarios that required them to influence others to buy-in to the proposed change.

The tailored programme provided a range of skills to the participants, including how to establish rapport with stakeholders, the use of persuasive communication techniques, and how to build consensus around the proposed change. These skills were essential to enable the participants to influence the key stakeholders effectively and achieve the desired outcomes.

The success of the programme was evidenced by the great feedback received from the participants. They were able to apply the skills they learned during the programme in their work to influence others for real buy-in to change. Our approach enabled the client to implement Government policy that required major behavioural change.

“I would definitely recommend this course to others who wanted to improve their influencing skills – it’s the most relevant and well-delivered piece of training I have undertaken for some time.”

– Senior Manager

Our client is a significant Government Ministry with extensive policy, stakeholder engagement and operational responsibilities.

We work with their external and overseas facing staff, as well as senior professionals from across the organisation who need to influence others around a myriad of different topics. These include strategic, policy, compliance, technical, and safety related scenarios.

Staff participate in our flagship Influencing Skills programme, and use our strategies and 7Cs skill sets to assist them with stakeholder engagement and influencing skills in a range of situations, from informal 1-1 meetings through to multi-party formal discussions.

A recurring theme is the need to influence without the authority of legislation, policy or rules. Through strong working relationships, building credibility on topic, and presenting well reasoned propositions while remaining alert to the specific needs of their stakeholders, participants gain much more traction with their propositions.

The programme has been run by the Ministry since 2015, with a long waiting list, which is testament to the value participants have received and the feedback given.

“No wonder we are hitting our targets! Thanks to James for his transforming work with us” – Finance Director

Our client is an overseas consultancy firm with global reach.

The firm has a large number of consultants who are technically excellent and deliver outstanding projects, but are also required to develop new business.

This presents challenges for the consultants, from a reticence around feeling ‘salesy’, difficulties in articulating the value the firm can bring, and taking a long term, consistent approach to developing business while managing the demands of client work.

Through a firm wide programme of workshops and ongoing coaching in person and via zoom, we introduced a clear and reliable methodology for developing new business based on precise client understanding, clear articulation of value, and building strong working chemistry with clients, contacts and champions.

As a result the consultants have reported that they are much more comfortable and confident with business development, and have a higher rate of success in winning new business.

“I attended the course to prepare for a high stakes presentation. The audience feedback I received was that I was very polished, and that my co-presenter I had great synergy and engagement from our audience.”

– Senior Advisor

Our client is a leading professional service firm with challenges around the presentation of very technical concepts and information, pressured timeframes for preparation, and demanding audiences.

Through our presentation skills programme the advisors work through the key elements of preparing interesting and engaging content, structuring for clarity and delivering with confidence and conviction. The programme is a mix of group workshop and 1-1 coaching sessions.

We regularly receive participant comments that this has been the best training they have ever attended. As a result, we have been engaged by the firm continuously over the last 15 years to develop the face-to-face communication skills of their client-facing staff.