Effective April 9th 2018, Wendeen’s latest updated seminars, workshops, and one-on-one coaching sessions will transpose negotiating gambits into connected decision strategies for confernece rooms courtrooms and situation rooms, alike. They are available for law firm leaders, corporate management, governmentagency personnel and charitable events, in addition to law firm retreats.
Following a series of previews for attorney clients and individual CEO’s, last year, Wendeen Eolis created an interactive seminar, “Power Poker from the Board Room to the Card Room, at the Friars Club*, for members of the elite Women’s Forum of New York (WFNY). It showcased an innovative and evolving “playbook” for deal-making. This year she focuses on dealmaking as just one aspect of decision making.
Customized for the demographics of her audience, Wendeen’s workshops get to the heart of the matter, quickly, with a three-part program: tips to assess negotiating DNA—yours and others; a system for selecting the best decision-making strategy for you to drive your deal to the finish line, and secrets to insure you play to YOUR personal strengths and conceal weaknesses every step of the way in today’s task and extrapoltae from winning moves opportunities to excel the next time around–in another arena
Designed for participants long on ambition and short on time to fine-tune negotiating strategies beyond conventional counsel, Wendeen’s, first tip to her mostly female audience at the traditionally male dominated Friars Club, was “Women often win more by bluffing less!” At the more personal workshops she hosts at organizer’s homes, where each attendee gets one-on-one attention, Wendeen tells women about the slew of advantages they bring to the table; she tells men they are naturals and paves the way for more nuance in decision making moves.
Wendeen knows from whence she speaks; inventor of the legal search industry and the first woman to be appointed 1st assistant to the Governor in New York State, she has been interviewing hard-to read lawyers for 50 years and navigating corridors of political power almost as long. and and she stands as the first woman to “cash” in the main event of the World Series of Poker. Wendeen counts 10 record-setting performances for a woman in major poker competitions around the world—in her spare time.
At the WFNY event, Wendeen got down to business quickly, calling on three eager attendees to leave the room while she assessed their “negotiating DNA,” based on a cursory review of their high-profile biographies, and a few tidbits of information gleaned in conversation with them at the earlier cocktail party. She used her basic theories about negotiating DNA, to guess the most and least favorite negotiating strategy of each one of them and proved her points when they returned. She guessed right–for all three of them.
Wendeen’s new programs move from negotiating strategies onward to the anatomy of decision making, with the same upfront caveats of last season: “Good listeners can be disastrous negotiators at any table unless they hear and process accurately.”
Revealing her “people- reading secrets” for women, at the Friars Club, one of New York’s last bastions of male rugged individualism, Wendeen got hearty laughs, and knowing applause when she explained how she overcame sexist abuse at her first poker tournament. She made a key decision on a hand, while staring at his most precious asset—not his chips.
Wendeen ticks off the surefire combination of verbal and behavioral people-reading techniques to master, offering a primer of clever tips and tells at a poker table that travel well back to the office. And, she includes her foolproof observation to determine, if a person is happy to meet you—within seconds of an introduction! Wendeen closed the seminar with her mantra, “Poker is a mind-bending game of bets, raises, calls, and folds that is only sometimes played with cards.” She says, “Briliant decision making is filled with nuanced poker principles.”
Wendeen’s seminars are not gambling events but private poker lessons can be arranged and special events can be customiuzed, to include a No Limit Texas Hold’em competition, with crib notes for the players, You will fit right into a winner’s circle if you are an Alpha personality betting your chips with highly calculated gusto!
Editor’s Note Note: Recognized as the “Grande Dame of Poker” at the legendary World Series of Poker, Wendeen is a celebrity player on Poker Night in America (CBS Sports Network). For further information and to book Wendeen: Email: ehote@eolis.com or Tel: 212-472-4000
**An earlier version of this article appeared in 2017, near the time Wendeen presented her new seminar for the Women’s Forum at the legendary Friars Club.
