Alliances, messages and risk
Coalition building, political communications and risk appetite.
A half day on alliances, messages and risk: negotiating in practice, everyday coalition building, political communications, applied political acumen, and identifying risk and setting a risk appetite.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 4 hours
- Where
- Serving the public
- Price
- £129
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Cabinet members, senior councillors and senior officers in councils and public bodies
Overview
Cabinet decisions are made in public, under pressure and with incomplete information. This second half of Leading from the front bench begins with negotiation, from distributive and integrative bargaining to the Glasers' strategy matrix, with the 2023 Hollywood writers' strike. Everyday influence follows: stakeholder mapping, the pre-meeting, the reciprocity ledger and Muhammad Yunus building the Grameen Bank. Political communications draw on Drew Westen and Clive Veroni, and applied political acumen compares the Isle of Wight and Birmingham. The course ends with strategic risk, from the ISO 31000 process and the Airbus A380 to risk appetite, tolerance and capacity, with lessons from Wells Fargo.
Aims
This course sets out to develop front bench leaders who build support before they need it, negotiate within legal and ethical limits, frame difficult messages honestly rather than spinning them, and set a risk appetite specific enough to change real decisions.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Plan pre-meetings, specific asks and alliances that build a coalition before a decision is formally made, using the disclosure test to stay ethical.
- Distinguish ethical framing from spin, and apply message discipline and an agreed line when communicating under political pressure.
- Assess whether a risk appetite statement is specific enough to change a decision, and choose a documented response to each assessed risk.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Distinguish the distributive and integrative elements of a deal, and create value by trading issues that each side values differently.
- Map stakeholders on a power and interest grid and plan how to engage each quadrant.
- Identify the multiple audiences and time pressures a council statement faces, and check a draft against each before it is sent.
- Select and combine the right tools from the programme to read a live political situation.
- Use Failure Mode and Effects Analysis and the Structured What If Technique to identify risks precisely, asking how a process could fail rather than whether it will.
- Distinguish risk appetite, risk tolerance and risk capacity and explain why a board needs all three.
- Explain how a BATNA strengthened in advance shapes high stakes outcomes, using the 2023 writers' strike as an example.
- Plan pre-meetings, specific asks and cross silo alliances that build a coalition before a decision is formally made.
Built from 6 modules.
4 hours of learning.
- 01Negotiating in Practice: Business, Labour and High-Value DealsInfluence, Persuasion and Negotiation47 min
- 02Everyday Influence: Coalition Building and Office PoliticsInfluence, Persuasion and Negotiation45 min
- 03Political CommunicationsWorking in a Political Environment42 min
- 04Applied Political AcumenWorking in a Political Environment37 min
- 05Identifying, Assessing and Mitigating RiskStrategic Risk40 min
- 06Risk Tolerance, Appetite and the BoardStrategic Risk37 min