Description

Inside this module:
Formal authority structures and actual influence patterns are rarely the same thing in complex organizations. The people whose support is essential to a decision are often not the ones with decision-making titles — and stakeholder strategies built around the org chart regularly fail for that reason. This module covers how to map influence accurately and engage with it strategically.

You’ll develop:
– Influence network analysis: identifying who shapes whose behavior, where informal authority concentrates, and how information actually flows through an organization versus how it’s supposed to
– Interest and position mapping: distinguishing between what stakeholders say they want and what is actually driving their position — and building engagement strategies around the underlying interest rather than the stated one
– Coalition and resistance dynamics: understanding how support builds and opposition consolidates in organizational change contexts, and how to sequence engagement to improve the probability of a workable outcome

Duration: +/- 6 hours

What changes in practice:
A more accurate model of how complex organizations actually work — and the engagement and influence skills to navigate them toward better outcomes than a formal authority-based approach would produce.