Executive Communication in Action · Track 2 · Influence & Persuasion
Honest influence is a structure — not a personality trait, and not an accident.
The problem
The good ideas that got traction and the good ideas that died were rarely separated by quality. They were separated by structure — whether the case was built to be heard, or simply built to be right. This Track shows you the structure underneath what worked, so you stop leaving it to accident.
Why now
Anyone can generate a persuasive-sounding paragraph now. What still changes a decision is a case built, in good faith, on how people actually say yes — named, chosen, and defensible. That judgment is yours, not the machine's.
The thinker — your lens
The lens is theirs; the practice is yours. You meet the thinker in an original reading, see the idea in use, then make it your own.
Why people say yes — the real answer, not the logical one. Six principles you can name, study, and use in the open: reciprocity, social proof, authority, scarcity, commitment, liking.
The instrument
Used in good faith, these are not weapons — they are how clear, well-founded ideas finally get heard. You learn to name the one a situation needs.
What you leave with
Who conducts it
Sandra M. Szwarc, M.Sc. has spent 35 years training executives to construct meaning under pressure — across finance, industry, energy and healthcare, in four languages. Strategic Narratives is where that practice meets the AI era: the machine can describe; you decide what the data means.
Fit4Global Learning Systems®
The other doors
Influence & Persuasion is one of five Mini-Masterclasses in Executive Communication in Action. Each is a door: roughly 90 minutes, one usable tool, sold on its own or as the full program.
Presence as deliberate signal — how you are read before you speak.
Turn a chart into a decision the room can act on — and own the AI's draft.
Know which rung you are on — and bring a hard conversation back down before it breaks.
Close on interests, not positions — and design follow-through that survives the week.
Begin
Join the next cohort, bring it to your team, or take it as a standalone. Part of the ECA full program — also available on its own.
No. Cialdini himself separates honest use — in the open, with real intent — from weaponising. This Track trains the honest version.
The value is applying the framework to your specific, executive-level situations. Familiarity is a head start, not a substitute.
No. It is standalone. In the program sequence MM1 comes first, but this can be taken on its own.
The next cohort is mid-August 2026. Small by design.
Part of Executive Communication in Action — five Tracks, one capability: communication as judgment.