Mastering Strategic Alliances

Overview:

Introduction:

This training program is designed to enhance participants' abilities to achieve favorable outcomes in various professional and personal contexts. Through this program, participants are equipped to navigate complex situations, influence decisions, and make sound judgments with confidence.

Program Objectives:

At the end of this program, participants will be able to:

• Develop a framework for analyzing current alliances and develop an effective plan and strategy for negotiations.

• Practice and develop skills for influencing others.

• Appropriate behaviors for each negotiation stage to deliver results.

• Recognize and counter the most common negotiating ploys, manage difficult negotiators.

• Prioritize and plan their negotiation strategy through critical thinking.

• Describe a framework for the analysis of business alliances.

• Understand how to apply influencing skills during the negotiation phase.

• Understand the key principles of persuasion and its importance to negotiation.

Targeted Audience:

• Personnel from a wide range of business disciplines.

• Delegates wishing to develop negotiation skills in alliance building.

• Employees who regularly work with external suppliers or customers.

• Departmental Heads requiring to form interdepartmental alliances to achieve results.

Program Outlines:

Unit 1:

Developing Alliances:

• Characteristics of a strategic alliance – effects of market dominance.

• Culture and perception – and effects in building alliances.

• Building trust through communication and achieving results for the alliance (bearing in mind its “life cycle”).

• Personality - strengths & weaknesses in negotiations.

• Minimizing communication blockers to maintain relationships.

• Development review and action planning.

Unit 2:

Influence & Persuasion Skills in Managing The Alliance:

• Challenges of meetings – group and individual strategies.

• Positive influence of listening in challenging situations - good and bad news!

• Applying rules of influential presentations to maximize the impact.

• Maintaining compatible body language & using logic, credibility and passion.

• Feedback and action planning.

Unit 3:

Strategy in Negotiation Skills for Partners and Allies:

• Steps in win/win negotiation.

• The keys to collaborative bargaining in partnering.

• Leverage: What it is and how to use it.

• Negotiation tactics and ploys.

• Dealing with difficult negotiators and barriers.

• Ethics in negotiation.

Unit 4:

Higher Level Negotiation Skills for Challenging Situations:

• Listening and responding to signals and informal information.

• Recovering from reversals, errors and challenges.

• Developing a climate of trust.

• Higher-level conversation techniques.

• Concentrating action on the needs of alliance partners.

Unit 5:

Maintaining Alliances: Critical Thinking for Decision Making:

• Gaining control and using information – formal and informal.

• Identifying sources and testing assumptions.

• Framing the problem.

• Decision making under pressure.

• Reviewing strategic alliances and building personal action.