Influencing Skills for Innovation

You don’t have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they’ve taught me.
– Scott Adams

In my day-to-day, I encounter so many great innovators who have what they think are brilliant ideas. However, some of them struggle to get these ideas across the line, because others don’t see the opportunity the same way. What’s obvious to an innovator may not be obvious to others.

Influencing skills go hand-in-hand with entrepreneurship and innovation, to onboard team members, customers, suppliers, stakeholders or investors to make great ideas happen.

I see influencing as a reciprocal process. It’s not all one way. Listening and taking other people’s good ideas on board often makes a promising idea even stronger.

In this show, I’ll provide a process and toolkit to support your influencing strategies for your innovation ambitions.

Sharing my Innovation Influencing Mix, I’ll cover:

• Prioritising stakeholders
• Innovation collaboration between organisations
• Making your case using fundamental influencing principles
• Building trust in business relationships

The focus will be on external partners, organisations and stakeholders, but these approaches work internally, too.