Dealing With External Stakeholders In A Diverse Environment

Overview

This course is the third of a series that will help you become an effective leader and advocate, both within and outside your organization, on issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion. In this course, you’ll explore various approaches to interacting with stakeholders who represent perspectives outside your own organization and/or perspective. Whether you are dealing with sales interactions, personal interactions or other difficult situations, you’ll be able to practice and hone your skills for engaging external stakeholders, at work and beyond. You’ll learn by playing games (realistic simulations) in which animated characters challenge you to understand their perspectives and interests. The simulations cover a wide range of situations in where you must deal with external stakeholders, providing a safe space to practice difficult conversations and explore diverging perspectives. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to: • Confirm your assumptions about the interests of others • Ask key questions to figure out people’s underlying interests • Target your communication to the interests of external stakeholders • Anticipate, acknowledge, and handle the objections of external stakeholders • Communicate “cautionary tales” to objecting stakeholders, if necessary • Influence the decision-making of external stakeholders The intended audience for this course is leaders, managers, team leads, team members, HR professionals, and others who interact in a team environment. The prerequisites for this course include experience interacting in a team environment, and any relevant experience either giving or receiving feedback to or from others.

Syllabus

Understanding The Interests of Others

This module explores techniques you can use to understand the underlying interests that motivate people and drive their decision-making. You will learn how to develop targeted assumptions you can evaluate by engaging various external stakeholders in conversations about their interests. You'll learn by playing games (realistic simulations) in which animated characters challenge you to understand their perspectives and interests.

Speaking To The Interests of Others

This module examines methods to communicate effectively with external stakeholders. In this module, you will evaluate what happens when you do not speak to the interests of others, learn how to recover from missed opportunities, and explore ways to target your communication to capture the full attention of external stakeholders. You'll learn by playing games (realistic simulations) in which animated characters challenge you to understand their perspectives and interests.

Overcoming Objections and Influencing Others

This module addresses a variety of situations and reasons people may object to your suggestions and proposals, so you can anticipate and overcome those objections. In this module, you will explore how to handle objections to influence the decision-making of others. You will also determine when and how to use “cautionary tales,” and when it makes sense to push back against people with power who oppose or resist your objectives. You'll learn by playing games (realistic simulations) in which animated characters challenge you to understand their perspectives and interests.