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Insider Programme Sessions delivered by David Kean, co-founder of the growth acceleration consultancy, Catalyst and best-selling author

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David Kean

About David

David Kean is a communication and business development expert and was a co-founder of The Caffeine Partnership. Caffeine won the inaugural ‘Best growth agency’ award in the UK Art of New Business Awards.

He is now Co-founder and consultant at Catalyst, an alliance of experts in strategy, sales, innovation, facilitation, communication and leadership. We help you put human intelligence to work.

He is an acknowledged authority on the art of pitching, and was described by British Airways’ Business Life magazine as ‘the best pitch coach around’. David lectures on business development, prospecting and networking at conferences all over the world, teaches the art of clarity in written communication through his consultancy Forthwrite and is an executive coach to many business leaders.

He is the author of the seminal work on pitching, Pitching to Win, and co-author of the bestselling book How to Win Friends and Influence Profits.

“Whether you’re defusing a hostage crisis or closing a multi-million dollar deal, the best negotiators know this: it’s not about winning at all costs — it’s about building trust, showing integrity, and creating outcomes people want to return to.”

David Kean

THE RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SESSION

High-Stakes Conversations: Getting to a Yes

In business, we all have high-stakes conversations – those pivotal moments when the outcome of a conversation carries significant consequences. Consequences such as securing investment, negotiating a contract, getting the board’s backing for an initiative, aligning stakeholders, winning a pitch or handling conflict. High-stake conversations are characterised by multiple sensitivities, high emotional, political and time pressure, competing interests, uncertainty, risk and a high cost for failure. Which is why so many businesspeople struggle with them – they fear failure, lack practice and haven’t been trained. This Insider session offers guidance to executive teams to overcome the most common issues executives face with high-stake negotiations and to help them develop the tools of listening, creating rapport and persuasion. It teaches techniques used in hostage negotiation, behavioural science and advising leaders on high-stakes conversations in both governmental and private sector organisations.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

How to prepare for high-stakes conversations

How to plan and improvise

How to read the room and connect with the audience

How to manage pressure and emotions

How to manage power dynamics

How to frame arguments and structure conversations

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Judging by the show of hands in the room, networking is not something most people feel comfortable doing. Only 4 out of 113 people at the Marketing Society’s The Digital Day England, raised their hand when I asked who in the room enjoyed it. This isn’t unusual - networking has a bad reputation.

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