Cross-Functional Decision Making
Influence Challenge
A Simulation for Leaders Who Need to Influence and Align Stakeholders
Abilitie's Influence Challenge is a team-based simulation that gives leaders hands-on practice influencing without direct authority. Through a series of high-stakes conversations, participants identify the motivators and competing interests of the people around them, balance those against their own priorities, and build influence strategies that win support regardless of title or position.
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Why It Matters
As "dotted-line" reporting and cross-functional work increase, unclear authority creates friction in everyday decision making. Influence Challenge builds the habits leaders need to navigate that conflict, hold their ground without escalating, and strengthen cross-functional teamwork.
Skills Participants Build:
Explore stakeholder interests, power dynamics, and motivations to design effective influence strategies
Create shared interests among disconnected or conflicting stakeholders
Apply influence tactics to advance projects without relying on formal authority
Adapt communication approach to navigate resistance and influence outcomes
How the Simulation Works
Duration: 6-8 hours | Format: Cohort-based | Group size: 12+ participants | Modality: Virtual or in-person
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Engage with realistic scenarios
Participants respond to interpersonal dynamics in live conversations with peers.
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Compare approaches
Teams debate options, test strategies, and align on recommendations.
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See the ripple effects
Every decision influences trust, engagement, and future interactions.
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Apply insights to real work
Facilitators connect simulation outcomes to participants' actual roles.
What Participants Gain
Influence Challenge puts participants in an entirely new context where they can explore influencing and communication strategies outside their corporate roles. They gain:
Clarity on influence drivers
See how interests, relationships, and approach shape the way stakeholders react.
Confidence addressing resistance
Practice guiding difficult conversations forward without escalating them.
Experience with realistic interpersonal dynamics
Interact with peers and life-like characters that reflect real workplace behavior.
Actionable learning
Approach validated by 100,000+ managers across Fortune 500 companies and SMEs.
Who Influence Challenge Is For
New and experienced leaders Individual contributors operating in cross-functional teams High-potential individual contributors and team leads
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Inside the Simulation
Participants join the Grassagreena town council, each member holding distinct motivations, pressures, and constituencies to answer to. Over several decision cycles they learn to separate positions from interests, build relationships deliberately, and discover that most decisions can be reached by more than one route.
Participants face scenarios such as:
Gaining support from skeptical colleagues
Influencing peers across functions with competing priorities
Navigating emotionally charged conversations
Building alignment without relying on authority
Responding to ambiguous expectations
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Why organizations choose Abilitie simulations
Award-Winning, Enterprise Simulations: Our multi-award-winning simulations have earned us a place on Training Industry's Top 20 lists for Leadership Training and Experiential Learning Technologies
AI-Powered Interactivity: AI enhances the learning experience through realistic characters, personalized feedback and responsive narrative outcomes
Expert, International Faculty: Our skilled faculty draw on deep business and management expertise to surface key lessons and introduce tools for leaders to apply in the simulation and at work
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Book a Demo
Schedule a 30-minute demo with our team
FAQs
Who it's for
New and experienced leaders, individual contributors working in cross-functional teams, high potential individuals, and team leads.
The recommended number of participants is 12-30 per facilitator but it is possible to deliver to larger groups with additional facilitators.
Each participant serves as a member of a town council, representing a distinct constituency with its own priorities and pressures. The setting is deliberately outside anyone's day job, so no one starts with a home advantage.
How it runs
6-8 hours, delivered as an instructor-led, cohort-based session. Influence Challenge can also be delivered as part of an extended program.
Yes, it runs virtually, in-person, or hybrid.
No. Influence Challenge is built around influencing without formal authority, so it works for individual contributors and team leads as well as experienced managers.
Abilitie employs highly qualified facilitators, each with a background of corporate leadership and a love of teaching the next generation. Alternatively, we offer Train-the-Trainer to certify client-internal trainers.
Influence Challenge develops the ability to build support and move decisions forward without formal authority through a series of one-to-one and small-group conversations. Enterprise Challenge focuses on the business judgment and alignment a senior leadership team needs to make enterprise-wide decisions together.
Case Studies
Abilitie's global partners have won industry awards for the quality of our shared programs and their positive impact on business outcomes.
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Goodwin Procter LLP enhanced its lawyers negotiation skills, which are essential for their dual client and internal negotiation roles, by incorporating Abilitie’s Influence Challenge.
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Afua Akoto
Attorney, Goodwin Procter LLC
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Global food and beverage manufacturing company ADM leveraged Abilitie's leadership development simulations to boost business outcomes and engagement, growing team productivity 76%.
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Jennifer Alesia
Chief Learning Officer ADM