Business Services Training

Directors

Influencing Partners

Why do we need to influence partners?

The firm makes decisions about how it does business every day. These decisions are made by partners either individually, through a managing board or sub group, or in a practice area. To make the right decisions for the firm it is critical that they are informed decisions based on all the relevant data. A proportion of that data will be derived from business services and how the data is presented is almost as important as the data itself. Indeed some would say that how a message is delivered is more important than what is delivered.

There are perhaps two routes to take. Firstly one can prepare the data and present it. The alternative is to prepare how the data is most likely to be accepted or in other words how the partner can be influenced. If we want to give the advice or recommendations the best chance of success we need to prepare how we will communicate as much as what we communicate.

ITD Approach

Our approach is to work with the participants on a programme with their actual or typical situations. We work through a workshop referring to their live situations to develop strategies and plans which can be implemented in the work place.

CASE STUDY

One business services manager told of a situation where they had a working relationship with a partner which wasn't working. That is whenever they presented ideas or recommendations the partner seemed to ignore them, or pick them to pieces.

This was a highly destructive situation as not only did this manager feel dissatisfied with the working relationship, the firm wasn't necessarily making the right decisions.

We explored the relationship with the manager and in doing so introduced a number of frameworks which put the situation in a different context and gave an explanation for what was happening. With this new context a number of possible solutions presented themselves which we discussed. Strategies for how to chneg the relationship were reviewed and the manager assessed their potential.

The outcome was that the manager had an action plan for influencing the partner in a new way. The result we later heard was that the partner became much more willing to listen to the manager and the working relationship has improved greatly from both their perspectives.

For an initial discussion on influencing partners at your firm please email us at info@itd.com or call 0870 777 6734