Professional Relationship Skills and Influence

Being able to relate to other people well is a kind of superpower, just making everything else easier. We may think of this as something we can only learn by trial and error, but that’s not true. We can build our abilities systematically, with the right understanding and the right tools.

Please get in touch for a conversation about how David’s systematic and powerful approach to relationship skills could be transformational for your business and career

Benefits

Working on your professional relationship skills and deepening your insight about interactions with people in a systematic, psychologically-informed way has benefits like:

Improved collaboration

Increased opportunity

Managing conflict and disagreement

Unblocked careers

More effective leadership and influence

Improved sales

Please get in touch for a conversation about how David’s systematic and powerful approach to relationship skills could be transformational for your business and career

Who I work with

I work with professional people who know that improving their interactions with other people is key to their success, either because they’ve realised that some weaknesses in this area are holding them back or because their role requires a heightened level of capability.

Please get in touch for a conversation about how David’s systematic and powerful approach to relationship skills could be transformational for your business and career

How we can work together

Specific programmes to improve results and solve problems through strengthened leadership and strategic alignment throughout your organisation

Development of your team as leaders, individually and collectively, including facilitation of small and large groups

Support for you personally in your senior leadership role, as a sounding board and trusted adviser

Accessible opportunities to participate in through-time development of leadership and professional relationship skills and influence

Results

I developed the Relationship Mastery Formula as a result of my own experiences in industry. I found that what I could achieve in a senior leadership role was determined not so much by what I knew about engineering or even management, but by how I handled all the different relationships in a complex organisation, some of which were significantly challenging.

The whole environment was difficult and ambiguous with corporate restructuring and many project uncertainties. It could be unclear who your stakeholders were in the first place, never mind what their expectations were. I felt I’d never really been trained to deal with this.

I consider myself fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from some great sources many relevant skills. I gathered these into a system of 12 skills areas, documented in my book Relationship Mastery: A Business Professional’s Guide and conveyed to participants in easily-accessed online workshop groups.

One tangible outcome of sharing these skills is increased revenue for my clients, or in the case of universities, increased research grant income.

Testimonials

“David ‘gets’ people – what makes them tick, how relationships work (and don’t), and offers deep insight and expertise into how self-awareness can help improve our relationships to others, and the quality of our work-lives. Gently challenging and with a compassionate and light approach.”

Joolz Lewis, Culture Change Agent

“The most valuable workshop I’ve attended in a long time. David brings sharp, relevant advice and well-chosen references to every challenge we raise, which makes the sessions highly practical and engaging. The small-group format allows us to learn from each other’s experiences as managers and share our challenges in a supportive way.”

Evgeniia Rosenzweig, Senior Sourcing Manager, Dover Fueling Solutions

“Your real strength has been mediation – getting people to talk to each other who wouldn’t do that naturally. I just don’t think we would have got there without you.”

Captain Peter Merriman RN, Deputy Naval Base Commander

“Extremely practical and relevant to everyday situations. Absorbing and fun.”

Michael Leathes, Director, International Mediation Institute

“David is practical and has a logical way of thinking which is missing in many authors’ approaches to subjects like this. He combines the pragmatic with the creative… quite a talent. I recommend this highly.”

Sue Knight, author NLP at Work 

Resources

Professional Relationship Skills and Influence Masterclass online workshop

Join your fellow professionals for mutual interaction and insight in a monthly, 1.5-hour online group focusing on learning a systematic approach to excellence in relationship skills

Relationship Mastery: A Business Professional’s Guide book

The ability to relate to other people is the most critical skill a person can ever have – at work, at home, or anywhere else – and strong relationship skills simply make everything else easier

Self-Assessment Exercise on Relationship Skills

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FAQs

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Aren’t relationship skills just common sense?

Yes and no. It’s true they are a natural ability. However, they can be honed by conscious attention and practice and by drawing on profound insights from practical psychology and timeless wisdom. The effect of gaining more understanding can be like switching the lights on. A minority of people become adept in this area through their upbringing; even for them and definitely for the majority, some investment in learning yields a big return. You can have a level of expertise not available to people who rely only on common sense. If you used it unethically, it would be an unfair advantage.