High Performance People Skills for Leaders

Academic Focus

Thomas is an expert on the psychological foundations of organisational behaviour. More specifically, his interests include trust and cooperation, judgment and decision making, negotiation and influence, the self, interpersonal processes and stereotyping. Much of Professor Mussweiler’s research focuses on social comparison processes – he examines how comparing with others changes people’s self-image, their motivation and performance.

Experience

Professor Mussweiler has extensive teaching experience at a variety of institutions. In his 20 years of teaching, he has taught decision making, negotiation, organisational behaviour and social psychology to a variety of different audiences. Professor Mussweiler is the recipient of a series of prestigious national and international awards, including the European Young Investigator Award and the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Award, and is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences. He has published more than 70 scientific articles in a broad spectrum of the leading journals of his field, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Review, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Psychological Science, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making.

Academic Focus

Kathleen O’Connor is an authority on negotiation, conflict management, and collaboration. 

Recent Clients

Danone, Nestle, Air Liquide, KPMG, Deutsche Bank, Prudential, World Economic Forum, Johnson Matthey and Young Presidents’ Organization.

Experience

Kathleen’s corporate consulting aims to help managers make smarter decisions, negotiate better strategic partnerships, build more effective networks, and foster high levels of sustained engagement and outstanding performance. The empirical research that backs her teaching and consulting appears in top-tier academic journals.

She has studied the impact of teams at the bargaining table, how stress influences negotiators’ choice of tactics, and how reputations for toughness undermine negotiators. Her recent research investigates how men’s and women’s facial features—their attractiveness as well as the masculinity/femininity of their facial features—influence how other people treat them.

Kathleen’s research has been honored by awards from leading academic organizations, including the Academy of Management and the International Association for Conflict Management and has been cited in a number of news outlets, including the Financial Times, Associated Press, and the Wall Street Journal.

Experience

Dana Minbaeva is a Professor of Human Resource Management at King's Business School, King’s College of London, UK. She also has a part-time appointment at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

Professor Minbaeva has published over 70 articles in international peer reviewed journals, numerous book chapters and reports. Her research on strategic and international HRM has appeared in top international journals as Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Human Resource Management, and many others.

Professor Minbaeva is the Fellow of the Academy of International Business (AIB). She received several national and international awards to research achievements, including the prestigious JIBS Decade Award 2013.

Dana is actively involved in the MBA and executive teaching at various European business schools. Previously, she has taught in Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Russia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Finland and Germany as well as having held visiting research positions in Ireland, Australia and Canada.

Dana is a founder and research partner of Nordic Human Capital Advisory ApS.

Experience

Dr. Lucy Ford is Professor Emerita at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, where she served on the faculty for fifteen years, retiring in 2023. She is a guest lecturer at London Business School teaching on topics such as leadership, power and negotiations. She is also a management consultant, working across sectors.

The combination of her rigorous academic background with her extensive corporate and consulting experience has allowed her to become a trusted advisor to many executives and organisational leaders seeking to enhance their strategic thinking and leadership capabilities. She has designed and delivered leadership development programmes for numerous organisations, with demonstrated positive impact on organisational outcomes. Her approach combines cutting-edge research, practical insights, and interactive learning methodologies, empowering organisational members to unlock their potential and drive organisational success. She is a skilled executive and group coach, formalising that skill through the completion of an ICF accredited coaching programme in 2018. In her academic role, Dr. Ford has authored or co-authored over sixty presentations, articles, and book chapters. Her research has been published in Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Performance, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, and Journal of Business and Psychology, amongst others. She has also recently co-edited The SAGE Handbook of Survey Development and Application (2023).

Dr. Ford served on the board of the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management, and as a member of the Board of Governors of the Southern Management Association. In 2012 she and her co-author, Dr. Ben Hardy, received the Sage Publishing / Research Methods Division Best Paper Award for their work on item miscomprehension in surveys, and also in 2012 she and her coauthors received the Emerald Citation Award for their 2008 scale development paper in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. She has also served on the editorial board of Group and Organization Management.