Description: Negotiation has been a critical skill for me for most of my career. I’ve worked as a product actuary, represented a major distributor and now I’m a reinsurance intermediary. Technical actuarial skills were never my strength. However, I’m often able to get parties with differing goals to find a common ground, enabling a project to be completed to everyone’s satisfaction. From The Stepping Stone, April 2005, Issue No. 18.

Description: Principle #4: People make buying decisions based on emotion and justify these decisions with logic. To be influential, we need to take into account both logic and emotion. Of the two, emotion is a much more powerful motivating force. Unfortunately, too many people ignore the emotional component and focus solely on logic - neglecting what compels people to buy.

Description: To persuade successfully and non-manipulatively, it’s important to understand five key principles of influence. In this four-part series, I’ll be covering these five principles that are based on human psychology and behavior. Let’s look at the first two now.

Description: This article discusses how your leadership style should vary depending on the person you are leading, the situation and goal. 4 syles of leadership are discussed.

Description: Actuaries must be able to present compelling arguments to win over their audience. For the first time, they may be managing a staff looking for direction, making recommendations to senior leaders, or trying to persuade non-actuarial colleagues who see the world differently. This series of articles is intended to educate young actuarial professionals on key business influencing skills that will be beneficial in the near term as well as throughout their careers. Part 1 is focused on leading and influencing a team.

Description: The Stepping Stone issue 60, November 2015

Description: Based on a decades-long study, honesty is the most important quality in a leader. This article addresses ways to establish trust with their co-workers.

Description: Humor in the workplace can improve productivity. This article describes a typical office relationship problem and how humor helped disparate teams work together.

Description: Effective communication

Description: How to strike a balance between words and graphs.