Collaboration and Influence

Discover what motivates your organization's internal and external stakeholders to build trust, promote positive engagement, gain support for new ideas and ultimately drive long-term success and growth.

Counts toward the Certificate in Leadership & Management
Counts toward the Management Development Certificate

Upcoming Dates

Program Dates

Format

Time Commitment

Program Fee

5 May 2025 - 9 Jun 2025

Self-Paced Online, Online

5 weeks

$1,600.00

4 Aug 2025 - 8 Sep 2025

Self-Paced Online, Online

5 weeks

$1,700.00

26 Jan 2026 - 2 Mar 2026

Self-Paced Online, Online

5 weeks

$1,700.00

4 May 2026 - 8 Jun 2026

Self-Paced Online, Online

5 weeks

$1,700.00

Request More Information

Overview

Become a more influential leader and gain support for your ideas by honing your skills in negotiation, managing key relationships and effectively handling pushback.

New in 2025: In partnership with Abilitie, this program now features immersive AI cases that simulate real-world stakeholder dynamics. These interactive scenarios provide hands-on practice in navigating complex conversations, building empathy, and mastering strategic engagement—all in a risk-free environment designed to accelerate learning and impact.

This program is hosted entirely online and self-paced. Practice what you learn with assignments and implement your new skills with toolkits containing strategies to handle common challenges. Participants should expect to spend approximately 2–3 hours per week on coursework. Program completion grants 2 Continuing Education Units (CEUs).
__________

Payment is due in full at time of registration.

Intended For

Individual Contributor, Team Leader

Focus

Leadership

Request More Information

Why Enroll?

Learn to deliver a powerful vision, orchestrate complex change or gain support for a key innovation by developing your competence in stakeholder engagement, influence, strategic engagement and negotiation.

Upon completion of this program you will be able to:

Better manage key relationships
Build consensus through influence
Use storytelling as a persuasion tool
Master negotiation
Implement learnings immediately

Key Themes & Topics

Stakeholder Mapping - Based on the tenets of the Stakeholder Engagement Theory developed by Darden's Professor R. Edward Freeman, this module will help you discover how to better manage your key relationships.

Influence - Explore the six principles of influence, the art of giving and receiving difficult feedback and the balance between advocacy and inquiry in communication.

Strategic Engagement - Practice the craft of “telling a story” to be a more persuasive advocate. Adopt strategies for handling pushback more effectively and for making sure your plan of engagement is prepared for any eventuality.

Negotiation - Master the art of negotiation by studying the five stages of the negotiation process, the spectrum of negotiation styles and a variety of key terms, concepts and strategies that will help illuminate your way.

Continued Learning and Growth - Continue to develop your engagement and negotiation skills through role play, after-action review, partnership reflection and cultural competence.
Impact & Outcomes
Build empathy by identifying what matters to each stakeholder group

Engage more effectively with your key stakeholders

Align purpose and address conflicts within groups

Appeal to and leverage different stakeholder perspectives to develop more effective solutions

Develop a negotiation style and approach that opens communication and builds trust between parties, making it possible to create mutual value in the final agreement
Format & Time Commitment
Collaboration and Influence is a self-paced, online program conducted over the course of 5 weeks. There are five modules, which each contain:

Videos covering important concepts

Learning Surveys to benchmark your pre-program knowledge and track your progress throughout the program

Assignments that give you a chance to learn by doing

Toolkits that provide you with strategies for taking these skills back to the real world

AI cases that provide interactive simulations and real-time feedback in a risk-free environment

Participants should expect to spend approximately 2–3 hours per week on coursework.
Participant Profile
This program is designed for leaders and team members who need to:

Communicate a vision and gather support for it

Motivate teams to do accomplish goals

Manage the risks of diverse stakeholders failing to achieve alignment on key projects

Become more influential inside and outside their organization

Efficiently and effectively navigate daily interactions with peers, teams and other stakeholders

Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholder Mapping - Based on the tenets of the Stakeholder Engagement Theory developed by Darden's Professor R. Edward Freeman, this module will help you discover how to better manage your key relationships.

Influence

Influence - Explore the six principles of influence, the art of giving and receiving difficult feedback and the balance between advocacy and inquiry in communication.

Strategic Engagement

Strategic Engagement - Practice the craft of “telling a story” to be a more persuasive advocate. Adopt strategies for handling pushback more effectively and for making sure your plan of engagement is prepared for any eventuality.

Negotiation

Negotiation - Master the art of negotiation by studying the five stages of the negotiation process, the spectrum of negotiation styles and a variety of key terms, concepts and strategies that will help illuminate your way.

Continued Learning and Growth

Continued Learning and Growth - Continue to develop your engagement and negotiation skills through role play, after-action review, partnership reflection and cultural competence.

Build empathy by identifying what matters to each stakeholder group
Engage more effectively with your key stakeholders
Align purpose and address conflicts within groups
Appeal to and leverage different stakeholder perspectives to develop more effective solutions
Develop a negotiation style and approach that opens communication and builds trust between parties, making it possible to create mutual value in the final agreement

Collaboration and Influence is a self-paced, online program conducted over the course of 5 weeks. There are five modules, which each contain:

Videos covering important concepts
Learning Surveys to benchmark your pre-program knowledge and track your progress throughout the program
Assignments that give you a chance to learn by doing
Toolkits that provide you with strategies for taking these skills back to the real world
AI cases that provide interactive simulations and real-time feedback in a risk-free environment

Participants should expect to spend approximately 2–3 hours per week on coursework.

This program is designed for leaders and team members who need to:

Communicate a vision and gather support for it
Motivate teams to do accomplish goals
Manage the risks of diverse stakeholders failing to achieve alignment on key projects
Become more influential inside and outside their organization
Efficiently and effectively navigate daily interactions with peers, teams and other stakeholders

Professor Bobby Parmar shares a brief overview of the program and impact for leaders.

Earn Your Certificate

Collaboration and Influence counts as one program toward a noncredit Darden Certificate in Leadership & Management. Complete this program and three additional programs within a four-year period to earn your certificate.

Faculty

Bidhan L. Parmar

Associate Dean for Faculty Development , Shannon G. Smith Bicentennial Professor of Business Administration

Bidhan L. Parmar

Associate Dean for Faculty Development , Shannon G. Smith Bicentennial Professor of Business Administration

Strategy, Ethics & Entrepreneurship

Through his focus in business ethics and leadership, Parmar works with executives in a wide variety of industries and functions on topics related to decision making, stakeholder management, design-thinking, leadership, and collaboration and influence.

Full Bio