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"Excellent course. Exactly what I needed to learn to tackle my current job challenges. " Carlos Mata, course student
"Excellent course. Full of practical advice." Juan Antonio Fernandez, course student
"Really nice training. Short and to the point." Tushar Shrikhande, course student
"Straight to the point, no bullshit, practical and enlightening advice with good visual aids." Dan Bartlett, course student
About this course on influencing stakeholders using ethical office politics course
"Excellent course. Exactly what I needed to learn to tackle my current job challenges. " Carlos Mata, course student
"Excellent course. Full of practical advice." Juan Antonio Fernandez, course student
"Really nice training. Short and to the point." Tushar Shrikhande, course student
"Straight to the point, no bullshit, practical and enlightening advice with good visual aids." Dan Bartlett, course student
About this course on influencing stakeholders using ethical office politics course
Office or company politics is present in every organisation and developing good political acumen - political skill - is vital. This is backed by a 2008 survey that revealed 90% of British managers believe political skill is required to improve career prospects. However, another survey that investigated what most stresses people out at work put office politics at the very top — ahead, even, of workload, a stalled career, job insecurity and red tap.
This is why so many people in the workplace ignore or avoid office politics.
But ignore corporate politics and you'll soon find your career stalls at a middle management level. So don't ignore what is one of the most crucial career development skills: engaging in effective, ethical office politics and developing political acumen - which is really nothing more than a combination of emotional intelligence, assertiveness, stakeholder management and common sense.
Engaging in office politics and developing political acumen in the workplace is necessary to get results and to get you the career you want – and this course shows you how to engage in office politics ethically – without compromising your integrity or values.
What you’ll learn on this office politics online course:
How to overcome any unhelpful beliefs you might hold about office politics
How to improve your visibility within your organisation & build your reputation
How to identify & build trust with key stakeholders
How to network and build social capital - key to developing a successful career
How to counter the moves of any colleague - the office machiavelli - using underhand tactics to undermine your position
How to deal with bullies and those of the Dark Triad
Hear case studies of how to engage in office politics - and how not to.
How to sell your ideas to key stakeholders and improve your stakeholder management
How to counter dirty tactics used by others
How to network effectively with the right people
How to influence effectively through corporate politics
How to get on to high visibility projects
How to know who to communicate to when
How to engage and communicate with all levels of an organization
How to improve your emotional intelligence
A note from the trainer, Peter Willis
In interviewing many successful senior executives for this course, from my own experience working in large organizations, and from my time coaching 100s of individuals in large blue businesses, charities and schools, I’ve come to understand that people who undertake dark tactics are at not the norm, and that there is such a thing as healthy mature, corporate politics.
If you want to achieve your career goals, you need to develop political skill, political savvy and political acumen. You need to learn how to develop leverage to get people to do what you want them to do. And in this course I’ll be showing you how can do this ethically without compromising your integrity. You can do corporate politics without being the office Machiavelli .
In fact, I’d put it to you that unless you do develop political skills and apply them you’ll be doing yourself, your team and your organisation a disservice because you will allow the people with the loudest voices and/or the office Machiavelli — who do not necessarily have your or the organisations best interests at heart — to set the agenda and run the show.
I’ve coached middle managers who’ve sat in this layer of management way beyond the time it takes their peers to achieve promotion. They say they don’t do company politics as it’s unethical or unfair - they believe hard work gets rewarded fairly and that organisations are meritocratic. But when we dig deeper the reality is that it’s an excuse to hold themselves back — to stay small and to avoid challenging situations and so they underachieve. This may harsh, but given, in many cases, their deep level of knowledge, skills and expertise, they are not delivering for themselves, their teams or their organization. You need to engage in corporate office politics - not ignore it. And you need to develop good political acumen and a good understanding of your organization and its political landscape. You need to develop political intelligence - you need political savvy and an understanding of company politics.
So, take control of your career, and sign up to this course on how to engage in office politics - in an ethical way.
Note:
This office politics online course comes a 46 page course office politics workbook, which includes extra tips, exercises & subject area research in the field of office politics.
You will also get each video as a mp3 audio download - so you listen to this course while driving or commuting.
"A complex and sensitive topic of office politics has been explained very nicely. While various theories were explained they were well supported with examples..." Dinkar Joshi, course student
"The course is well put together , backed by research and has all the practical hacks to successfully navigate the inevitable office politics encountered at almost every organisation. Thank you very much. Rashmi Vikram, course student
Who this course is for:
Employees, managers and leaders in businesses and organizations of all sizes who want to develop political acumen, political science and understand office / corporate politics and engage with key stakeholders in an ethical way.
"Loved this instructor. He presents the information in a clear way with engaging examples. I will be taking more of his courses." Jennifer Ripley, course student
"Good speaker. Relevant information" Betty Huntington, course student
"Trainer has a lot of knowledge, you can tell, and his approach is very professional, you can easily absorb what is talking about." Katarina Miklec, course student
Many people fool themselves that hard work and hitting targets will lead to career progression. This module shows you why you must promote yourself and engage stakeholders if you want career progression – especially as you progress through the managerial stages.
This online class looks at the various limiting beliefs people have about office politics that they use an excuse to avoid engaging with stakeholders. Using a belief change exercise, you’ll reframe any limiting beliefs you have, to switch from the notion of surviving politics to seeing office politics as a necessary and important part of any management job.
At work we have two goals: our organisation’s goals; and our own personal goals. The way in which our behaviour affects these two goals will determine if your behaviour is going to help your career or hold it back, which of the four political animals you’re being at any given time – and whether you survive or thrive in workplace politics.
In this online video, we look at the case study of an employee who proactively engaged and influenced a key stakeholder to ensure his Machiavellian manager didn’t sideline his career. It shows you the tactics and mindset he used to deal with workplace politics.
Multiple choice quiz
Without having career goals and knowing what you want when you engage in office politics, you can end up wasting a huge amount of time and energy building, for instance, a random network and relationships. Instead you need to have a clear focus on which people you need to get on board, and then start building quality relationships with these people. What’s more, understanding what you want from office politics is important — otherwise you won’t know if you’re succeeding at it.
Understanding your organisation or your department’s culture is crucial. The size of your organisation or department, its structure, and how effective any employee evaluation processes are, will all have some influence on the culture. And culture determines how much office politics is played, whether darker politics are tolerated, and which kind of people are attracted to and thrive in an organisation.
To plan your career path long-term you need to think about building a network of people who have influence. And in this online video, you’ll learn the process for doing this: first, you need to identify all your stakeholders; second, you need to assess how much power each stakeholder has. Psychologists John French and Bertram Raven identified several factors that contribute to someone’s level of power, and in this online video you’ll see what these factors are and how they affect workplace politics.
For any given scenario you need to work out how interested a stakeholder is in the decision being made. What will the decision mean for that individual, and for his / her goals? When you know what their level of interest is going to be in a certain scenario, and their level of power and influence, you can plot people on to a stakeholder map to see who are the pawns, who are the Knights, the Castle and the Queen players. This is a key part of how to deal with workplace office politics.
Multiple choice
The best way to get people on board is to get into a sales mindset. And the best sales people are problem solvers. In this lecture, you’ll see how to influence people by solving their problems for them. This is a key to dealing with work politics.
In this case study you’ll see how not to play office politics. How failing to be proactive and to allow others to govern your career can lead to disaster.
If your stakeholders own the fuel that you put into your car, and which you need to drive your career, they’re not going to want to waste fuel in a car that’s untrustworthy. If there’s a choice, stakeholders will want to be seen to be refuelling a brand and car they trust, like a BMW. But trust takes time, and in this lecture we investigate the six elements that build trust in a relationship. All this is key to how to handle office politics.
To get noticed and up your reputation, you need to think how your job role can affect your business in the most profitable, productive or perhaps innovative way. Then you need to deliver a success story and get people to hear about the story — so key stakeholders sit up, take note, and pin your photo up on their star players’ board. In this lecture, you’ll see how it’s done.
Perhaps most obvious of all when thinking about leverage is build solid relationships with decision makers and influencers. This lecture gives you tips and techniques for networking, critical in office politics.
There are going to be times when you stand in the direct path of a colleague who will play dirty moves or sneaky games. So, to save you from being trampled on, you need to be awake to these games – you need to manage them effectively, which at times, will require countermoves. This video identifies the most common underhand tactics people might use when playing office politics, and how to deal with each on turn.
Here look into how to deal with bullies. We also show you how to spot those of the Dark Triad – those individuals who stand outside of the normal bell curve of normal behaviour, and make your standard insecure, cowardly bully look kind: psychopaths, narcissists and Machiavels. We’ll show you how to deal with each of these three characters in turn, and do it without turning office politics into some stressful, unpleasant Game of Thrones!
When dealing with others there will be times when you get angry. And there will be times when you feel the urge to give that person a piece of your mind — to teach them a lesson. But when you get caught up emotionally, then you’re not thinking clearly, and that’s when we end up doing things we regret, and making enemies is never a wise move. This online video shows you how to keep a cool head, and how you can create win wins – how not to let office politics become a game of one-upmanship.
Multiple choice
This final online class provides a summary of the key learnings, and provides you with a list of useful further reading on the subject of engaging and influencing stakeholders, and office politics.
Save
Workbook and audio files are valuable additions.
Course content is well-organized and easy to follow.
Instructor is knowledgeable and clear.
Directly applicable to job challenges.
Strategies for handling challenging colleagues.
Teaches political skills with integrity.
Offers actionable steps for workplace influence.
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Free preview video lectures available for all courses; optional 7-day free trial on Personal Plan subscriptions (cancel before trial ends to avoid conversion).
30-day money-back guarantee on all eligible individual course purchases (provided course content has not been substantially consumed or downloaded). Subscription fees are non-refundable once billed.
Lifetime access to purchased individual courses and future updates, verifiable certificate of completion, and direct student Q&A forums.
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