Dealing With External Stakeholders in Diverse Environments

This course is the third of a series that will help you become an effective leader and advocate, both within and outside your organization, on issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion. In this course, you’ll explore various approaches to interacting with stakeholders who represent perspectives outside your own organization and/or perspective. Whether you are dealing with sales interactions, personal interactions or other difficult situations, you’ll be able to practice and hone your skills for engaging external stakeholders, at work and beyond. You’ll learn by playing games (realistic simulations) in which animated characters challenge you to understand their perspectives and interests. The simulations cover a wide range of situations in where you must deal with external stakeholders, providing a safe space to practice difficult conversations and explore diverging perspectives. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to: • Confirm your assumptions about the interests of others • Ask key questions to figure out people’s underlying interests • Target your communication to the interests of external stakeholders • Anticipate, acknowledge, and handle the objections of external stakeholders • Communicate “cautionary tales” to objecting stakeholders, if necessary • Influence the decision-making of external stakeholders The intended audience for this course is leaders, managers, team leads, team members, HR professionals, and others who interact in a team environment. The prerequisites for this course include experience interacting in a team environment, and any relevant experience either giving or receiving feedback to or from others

• Anticipate and handle objections from external stakeholders
• Influence decision-making of external stakeholders
• Apply diverse approaches to interact with stakeholders of differing perspectives
• Practice managing difficult interactions at work and beyond
• Enhance engagement skills with external stakeholders

• Basic familiarity with the topic and terminology
• Readiness for practical exercises or case-based learning