I have been working as an adviser internally and externally for 30 years throughout my journey from chemical engineer, to risk consultant to management consultant. I have worked with hundreds of organisations across the public and private sector and all sectors of industry. I know that all advisers face the same problem – giving valuable advice, succinctly, with clarity and with impact. No matter the length of the meeting, the decision is made in a critical 15-minute window. Those 15 minutes simply can’t be wasted.
Through my many years of experience, facilitating board and executive workshops, I came to realise that we all genuinely have trouble thinking with clarity when making key decisions. Even with what appeared to be the solid facts in front of them, I witnessed poor decisions being made by senior leaders. That is, I failed to influence their decision appropriately.
This made me realise how critical and difficult the role of advisers is. It is not enough to provide decision-makers with well-thought through options. Advisers across all corporate support functions from mid-management up to board, must find ways of navigating the barriers that people put up to protect them from poor or unwanted advice.
Over the years I researched and studied many authors, models and approaches in my quest to better understand how advisors can maximise their ability to persuade. I have found a method that works for me and for many, many others who I have had the pleasure of imparting my knowledge to through my training and mentoring programs.
I have authored many papers over the years and in 2015 I took the plunge and wrote my first book, DECIDE How to Manage the Risk in your Decision Making. In working with people exploring their decision making I soon learned we all suffer from a similar problem. We all think it is everyone else that has the problem with their decision making. If only they could see the light.
This led me to develop my simple Pathfinder Model of persuasion. From there I wrote my second book Winning Conversations: How to turn red tape into blue ribbon. This book is a handbook that supports the Persuasive Adviser Program. A program designed for you to improve your powers of persuasion so that you build trust with those you need to influence.
So join me and master the methods you will learn in my Persuasive Adviser Program and you will have the impact you know you can and need to make.