Why would I want even better influencing skills?
There are many reasons why people with a technical or scientific background want to influence those around them. Which of these reasons is most important to you...?
- Your success depends on influencing people
- Influencing skills will help you succeed with technology too
- These skills will continue to be valuable - they won't become obsolete
- You become a more valuable asset for your team or employer
- You increase your employment security
- You broaden your career opportunities
Let's discuss them in order, to see which of these factors are most important to you.
Your success depends on influencing people
You're in your current work because you persuaded your employers that you were the right person to take on.
Influencing people is involved in many aspects of your job, such as:
- Negotiating what work you do and how much of it there is.
- Assessing how well you're performing.
- Going for promotion or career progression.
- Decision making alongside technical colleagues and with non-techies.
No Matter how good your purely technical work is, it's going to be assessed by human beings. If you can work brilliantly with humans as well as technical stuff, you can influence what technology you get to work with and how well it is received by others.
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Influencing Skills will help you to succeed in your technical work
To do exciting technical work, you need to get agreement that it's valuable and worthwhile. You need to convince people that they want you to do it. Then you'll need to persuade the right people to cooperate and help out. Having completed the work, you need to communicate your results to a range of people - technicians, administrators, financiers, directors. To the world beyond your technical team, success is measured by how well you can convince people.
Influencing Skills will continue to be valuable - they won't become obsolete
Human evolution happens very slowly. Human Being "version 2" is not due to be released for a long time yet. Your new influencing skills will therefore be useful for the rest of your career, because you'll always be working with people. Unlike technical skills, they won't suddenly become obsolete when a new technology emerges. The investment you make now will be rewarded for years to come. Even if you move into a new industry or career direction, you'll still want to be skilled with people.
I want lasting skills!
You will become a more valuable asset for your team or employer
By adding to your set of skills, you'll become a more flexible asset to your team. You'll be able to take on a range of tasks and contribute in more ways. And being able to do this makes you a stronger member of the team. It doesn't make you any less a technical expert. It just makes you a technical expert who can do other stuff as well. (And you will be more influential in going for the technical work that excites you most!)
You increase your employment security
When people know what you do and what value you add, that makes it easier for them to reward and keep you. Influence their opinion in the right ways and they will know that you're an essential asset.
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You broaden your career opportunities
Maybe you want to be a technologist expert for the rest of your career. Maybe you want more management responsibility, or to change direction altogether. All of these will be assisted when you are able to work very effectively with the people around you. Whatever your plans, it makes sense to keep on developing your ability to influence people.
Why technicalinfluence.com?
You know that you could benefit from even better influencing skills.
What are the advantages of the technicalinfluence.com offer?
Focus on what you need, when you need it.
It's creators share your technical background.
More convenient than a 1-off training course.
Less expensive than a 1-off training course.
Less pressure and expectation on you than a 1-off training course.
Shared experience and wisdom.
It keeps growing for you.
I want these benefits!
Let's discuss each of these in turn -
- Focus on what you need, when you need it.
You can access the different courses at any time. This means that you can instantly respond to your changing needs, for example, as you take on new responsibilities, or your project moves into a new phase, or an appraisal highlights a challenge to be met. This contrasts with conventional training course, which are inevitably one-syllabus-fits-all-and-at-a-time-that-suits-the-trainer.
- Its creators share your technical background.
Our principal trainer has a background in science and technology, having spent 20 years as a technician, scientist, project manager and trainer at ICI and PPG Industries. Now a qualified coach and mentor, Jonathan's recent freelance activities include being an associate Professional Development Coach coach for the British Computer Society (BCS). He has a deep appreciation of how technologists work, how you like to learn and the challenges you often face.
The subscription price is much lower than the cost of a typical training course. Even a year's subscription to technicalinfluence.com is much lower than the price of a day's 1:1 professional training. And for this price you get access to the training materials and forums whenever you need them. Talking of which...
- More convenient than a 1-off training course.
You can access the course materials, the forums and our support services at any time. Much better than trying to book a training course and taking time out of the office. Develop yourself in bite-size increments, responding to your own development needs as they arise.
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- Less pressure and expectation on you than a 1-off training course.
Many people feel pressurised to change suddenly when they've been on a conventional training course, and find that it's not possible. Then they get disillusioned and give up, so miss out on the potential benefits. Most training courses have very little followup, so can't support you in those important weeks and months as you experiment with new ideas to put them into practise. At technicalinfluence.com, we provide forums and support services to give you the best chance of developing real benefits.
Other people notice that you've been on conventional training courses. This can change their expectations and attitudes toward you. They might become cynical about changes in the way you behave, thinking for example - "You're only saying that because you just got back from a Leadership Course".
With technicalinfluence.com, you are the only person who knows what you're working on. This makes it much easier to try out new tactics and skills "under the radar". People will see differences, sure, but they won't write them off as a post-training blip.
I want these benefits.
- Shared experience and wisdom.
Our forums mean that you can gain from the wisdom of other ambitious technical professionals, and also our trainers. Many people find that informal mentoring from an independent person is a great way to help them put new ideas into practice. Many others get great satisfaction from engaging in discussion, giving advice or sharing their experience and wisdom with others.
- It keeps growing for you.
We continuously update and extend the content of the site. New courses reflect our interests, and more importantly respond to the needs of you, our clients. So stay on board as we develop a really comprehensive training programme, and you develop the new skills that you need to stay ahead.
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How does it work?
It's like a workbench for scientists and technologists who want to experiment with new influencing tools.
Like a workbench, the site is equipped with an array of tools, together with suggestions for using them.
There is a workshop guide on hand who can suggest the tools that might help you to get your work done.
The workbench is a safe place to experiment with new tools before you try them out on real projects.
You get to choose which tools you take away to experiment with in real life.
It's through putting new tools into practical use that you learn to use them effectively.
You can meet with other visitors to the workshop, to compare notes on how to use the tools in real work situations.
We're always adding new tools to the shelves, and new ideas to the projects workbook.
Influencing, "soft skills" and human behaviour are huge and potentially confusing areas of study. Luckily we've picked out the bits that you are most likely to find useful. And we give you the best chance to put them into practise for yourself. All this without you having to read lots of books or wade through senseless adverts and pop-ups.
I want these benefits!
Tell me more about technicalinfluence.com
The website is created and maintained by Opensteps Ltd, a UK-based training and coaching company. We specialise in working with technologists and scientists who want to improve their effectiveness as professionals. We work with individuals at all levels from junior technicians to directors. Our clients include commercial organisations of all sizes, as well as government agencies, scientific research organisations and universities.
We have found that many scientists, engineers and technicians want and need to broaden their professional skills. Often they want to do this in a gentle, reflective, stepwise fashion, rather than trying to revolutionise their behaviour overnight. They want to take on new skills and tactics when they have a need for them, rather than waiting for a conventional course to come up. They want to build their confidence in new tactics by exchanging views with like-minded people. Technicalinfluence.com meets these needs.
The website is brand new. It has a range of carefully-targeted training modules in place already, and new ones are being added all the time. New members who register at this early stage benefit not only from a very low subscription, but also get to strongly influence the topics that we cover next.
Subscribe Right Now:
Charter Membership is now open, giving you access to all of our training modules in full, plus support through our forums. We reward your commitment with a low subscription rate, plus the chance to influence what topics we cover in upcoming modules. When subscriptions rise as the site develops, Charter Members will always be privileged with a lower than standard rate.
Register for Charter Membership - here
Free Preview Membership is designed to give you a preview of the type of content that we have on offer. It gives you a peek at some of our training modules. There's some useful information here. However, the modules are incomplete, and you miss Charter Member benefits.
Register for Free Preview Membership - here
Group and Corporate Membership can give you customised content and favourable subscription rates, subject to agreement. Contact us to discuss how we can work together to build the capability of your team.
Enquire about Corporate / Group Membership - here |
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