MASTER THE ART OF BUSINESS PARTNERING
MOVE BEYOND THE DATA TO IMPACT YOUR ORGANIZATION
Course Description (6-hour workshop format):
This energetic, thought-evoking, and interactive experience ensures you develop targeted communication skills to increase your influence and credibility as a valued business partner. Heighten the intention of what you ask, say, and do to impact outcomes with confidence, clarity, and conviction.
Growth Goals:
Understand why being a highly effective business partner is critical for your career trajectory
Earn respect by asking skillful questions to understand and relate to others
Increase impact with relevant, results-focused reasoning
Listen beyond the words to hear what others are saying through non-verbal cues & clues
Calibrate your communication by differentiating between information and conversation tools
Get results by driving meaningful action through clear and compelling next steps
Full Day Course Outline (8:30am – 4:30pm):
Part 1: What You Ask (8:30am – 11:30am)
Lunch: (11:30am – 12:30pm)
Part 2: What You Say (12:30pm – 3:45pm)
Part 3: What You Do (3:45pm – 4:30pm)
PART 1: What you Say (8:30am - 11:30am)
8:30am – 8:50am Capture attention, set the tone, and make a human connection by subtly and creatively modeling the business partnering skillsets that will be taught during the course
8:50am – 9:00am Build the case for why skillful questions and intentional listening are the keys to business partnering
Resource Article: “What’s Scarier Than Asking”
9:00am – 9:45am Dissect the anatomy of effective questions
Explore 4 key elements: Disposition, Design, Delivery, and Dig Dow
Develop discernment of when to use directional vs. dialogue questions
Resource Article: “Design And Deliver Better Questions”
9:45am – 10:00am Break
10:00am – 11:00am Increase internal awareness with courageous questions
Personal Activity: Participants engage in a courageous questioning challenge to overcome the temptation to point blame or make excuses. Each person reflects on a “pattern problem” in their business life and courageously answers these 3 questions:
What’s my role in this?
What might I do differently?
How can I grow from this?
Group Activity: Each person shares their insight and encouragement in small groups
Video: “It’s Not About The Nail” (by Jason Headley) comically illustrates a powerful reminder that “listening” does not mean “fixing”
11:00am – 11:30am Increase external awareness by listening to understand
Resource Article: “People Are Interesting When You Become Interested”
Video: “Strangers In A Ball Pit” (by Soul Pancake) shows how much commonality is hiding behind a few good questions
Group Activity: Participants build rapport with partners by asking meaningful questions that empower moving beyond “knowing about” to truly knowing colleagues:
Factual questions: typical conversation starters
Causative questions: uncover the motives behind the facts
Value-based questions: discover the worth people place on things
11:30am – 12:30pm Lunch
Part 2: What you Say (12:30pm - 3:45pm)
12:30pm – 1:00pm Demystify communication with a 3-step process: Open - Message - Close
Group Activity: Participants break into 3 teams, each representing a key quality of a persuasive communicator: 1.) Confidence, 2.) Clarity, and 3.) Conviction. Each team brainstorms and reports what it looks like when a communicator possesses their key quality
Video: “The Power Of Simplicity" drives home the point to get to the point
1:00pm – 1:15pm Understand what your business partners really care about so you can communicate in a way that helps them get the results they’re after
Resource Article: “Know Your Audience”
Personal Activity: Each participant makes real world application as they complete this pivotal checklist of questions to get inside the mind of a key business partner they are seeking to influence:
What challenges are they facing?
What opportunities are they chasing?
What words resonate with them?
What jargon should be avoided? (Your aim is to resonate; not alienate)
What do you want them to think, feel, and do?
Translate the truth behind objections: “We don’t have the time/money” really means “We don’t see the value”
Commit to speaking the value language of your audience
Resource Article: "Your Value Deficit"
1:15pm – 1:45pm Select the right communication tool based on your intent
Do you need to relay information or have a conversation? (Email is not for the latter)
Resource Article: “Step Away From The Keyboard”
Video: “The Letter" (by Highly Evolved Human) shows the importance of matching your message with the right delivery method
Adopt a process to create emails that people actually read and respond to
Resource article: “Why Your Email Needs An 'I' Exam”
1:45pm – 2:30pm Open your message by capturing your audience’s attention using the wisdom of Chip and Dan Heath, “The best way to capture someone’s attention is to break a pattern”
Call out the common (and boring) ways people tend to start meetings and presentations
Group Activity: Participants break into teams representing 5 types of effective openings and compete to craft the most creative opener using the category they represent: 1.) Curiosity Statement, 2.) Thoughtful Quote, 3.) Relevant Compliment, 4.) Specific Incident, 5.) Intriguing Question
Resource Article: “Choose Their Value Over Your Discomfort”
2:30pm – 2:45pm Break
2:45pm – 3:00pm Close your message by gaining commitment
What is a message without momentum? Your communication isn’t complete until 3 key pieces of data are identified: “WHO will do WHAT by WHEN?”
3:00pm – 3:45pm Strengthen a strategic business relationship through an invitation to intentional conversation
Personal Activity: Participants craft an email message they will send out when they return to the office designed to set up a conversation that strengthens a strategic business relationship. They will craft a subject line that speaks the value language of their recipient, break a pattern with their opening line to capture attention, and drive action with the compelling next step of offering 3 potential times to connect for a phone or in-person conversation
Group Activity: Participants pair up and help each other prepare and practice the conversations each person’s email is designed to secure
Part 3: What You Do (3:45pm - 4:30pm)
3:45pm – 4:30pm Knowledge isn’t power…application is
Group Activity: Participants make a public proclamation to A.C.T. on strengthening a specific skillset from the course:
A.) Accountable: Each participant will be paired with and accountability partner
C.) Clearly defined: Goals will be defined with a manageable and measurable first step
T.) Time-specific: Partners will report out on their progress via email within one week
Resource Video: “Don’t Stop Don’t Give Up” (by Blanca Ramirez) is a fun and energizing reminder that if we keep trying…we’ll get it right