ring this project I came up against a fair amount of opposition from long-term employees who were resistant to the changes that were being implemented, as this was the first overhaul of the organisations procedures in many years. I utilised “Social Approaches to Influencing” Bacon T R, (2010) whereby I was able to socialise and appeal to the relationship, depending on the employee, so that they would see me as a ‘one of them’ and then I moved it forward by consulting with them, so that they could feel part of the reforms and understand the reason for the project, and the benefits to them long-term. I was also able to use alliance building by getting groups of persons together to help influence wayward individuals.

Persuading

One of my greatest challenges on this project was involving the Directors in the project. They had instructed myself to take full ownership, however sections of the assessment required direct involvement from them, and they were unwilling at times to participate. I had to persuade them to make the required inputs. I utilised the “Psychology of Persuasion” DeMers J, (2016) by being confident, knowing my subject matter and “subtly imply[ing] that you’re already going to get what you want” Demers J (2016), then introducing the logical argument about their required involvement to attain the standard. I then showed them the benefits of their involvement, not just for the criteria, but for staff moral and participation, making sure I chose my words careful to emphasis the importance of their involvement, and then using flattery, by appealing to their vanity over their knowledge of the industry and how committed to their employees they were. Finally, I had to have patience, but ensuring at all times that I persistently reminded them, and eventually I managed to persuade them to take a great involvement in the project.

Negotiating with others

One of the core criteria was the additional Security Screening of all personnel within the organisation. This included sub-contracted staff, and I was required to negotiate with our main sub-contractors to obtain confirmation that standards had been adhered to without physically seeing documentation, so as to r