Million Dollar Influence: How to Drive Powerful Decisions through Language, Leverage, and Leadership - Hardcover

by Alan Weiss (Author), Gene Moran (Author)

This book will show you: How consensus building is something to live with, not something to die for. The fundamental difference between accountability and authority. The need for innovation and even improvisation in wielding influence.The scientific and magical contrasts of language...

Author Biography

Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it. His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations.

He has served on the boards of directors of the Trinity Repertory Company, a Tony-Award-winning New England regional theater, Festival Ballet, chaired the Newport International Film Festival, and been president of the board of directors of Festival Ballet Providence. His speaking typically includes 20 keynotes a year at major conferences, and he has been a visiting faculty member at Case Western Reserve University, Boston College, Tufts, St. John's, the University of Illinois, the Institute of Management Studies, and the University of Georgia Graduate School of Business. He has held an appointment as adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Rhode Island where he taught courses on advanced management and consulting skills to MBA and PhD candidates.

He once held the record for selling out the highest priced workshop (on entrepreneurialism) in the then-21-year history of New York City's Learning Annex. His Ph.D. is in psychology. He has served on the Board of Governors of Harvard University's Center for Mental Health and the Media. He is an inductee into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame(R) and the concurrent recipient of the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence, representing the top 1% of professional speakers in the world. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants, one of only two people in history holding both those designations.

His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 30th year and sixth edition. His newest is Legacy: Life is not about a search for meaning but the creation of meaning (Routledge, 2021). His books have been on the curricula at Villanova, Temple University, and the Wharton School of Business, and have been translated into 15 languages.

His career has taken him to 60 countries and 49 states. (He is afraid to go to North Dakota.) Success Magazine cited him in an editorial devoted to his work as "a worldwide expert in executive education." The New York Post called him "one of the most highly regarded independent consultants in America." He is the winner of the prestigious Axiem Award for Excellence in Audio Presentation.

He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Press Institute, the first-ever for a non-journalist, and one of only seven awarded in the 65-year history of the association. He holds an annual Thought Leadership Conference which draws world-famous experts as speakers.

He has coached former candidates for Miss Rhode Island/Miss America in interviewing skills. He once appeared on the popular American TV game show Jeopardy, where he lost badly in the first round to a dancing waiter from Iowa. Alan is married to the lovely Maria for 52 years, and they have two children and twin granddaughters. They reside in East Greenwich, RI with their dogs, Coco and Bentley, a white German Shepherd.

Gene Moran is the President of Capitol Integration. He is a strategic advisor to defense and security companies who are selling to the federal government. His strategic influence has resulted in billions of dollars in federal sales for his clients.

His firm, Capitol Integration, is recognized by Bloomberg Government as a Top-Performing Lobbying Firm, and by the National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics where he is designated a "Top Lobbyist." Gene is a Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame (R) inductee and a recipient of the Corrie Shanahan Memorial Award for Advancing Consulting.

Synthesizing his unique experience spanning decades, Gene guides companies through the arcane ways of Washington, DC, integrating his groundbreaking academic research of defense lobbying, deep military experience commanding US Navy ships and advising senior leaders, as well as leadership in corporate government relations. Gene understands and uses influence to educate and inform others while shaping great outcomes.