Reimagining Influence: Leading Through the Mess

Cohort-based Course

A Lift Up Collective Cohort for UX and Product leaders navigating chaos, change, and blurred roles

Course overview

When the playbook breaks, influence is what keeps you standing

The tech world is in flux. Teams are shrinking, roles are blurring, AI is rewriting workflows overnight and yet expectations are higher than ever.


Titles no longer define success. What matters is your ability to bring clarity to chaos, influence outcomes without authority, and rally people around a vision when everything feels uncertain.


This cohort is your roadmap to leading through the mess.


The Challenges We’ll Tackle

• Your recommendations get watered down because executives aren’t aligned.

• You are leading change, but without the authority to make final calls.

• Your team is burned out by reorgs, layoffs, and shifting priorities.

• You’re trying to hold a product vision while the ground keeps moving.


Being the smartest person in the room isn’t enough anymore. To thrive, you need to influence without control, with clarity, confidence, and calm amid the noise.


What Makes This Cohort Different


• Collective learning, not one voice. You’ll learn from four powerhouse leaders each building on the other to create a journey from Vision → Alignment → Resilience → Trust.

• Connection and community. You’ll be matched with a Council, a small peer group you’ will meet with throughout the cohort to reflect, support, and apply the lessons together.

• Hands-on, real-world practice. Each session includes scripts, frameworks, and applied exercises you’ll use on your own high-stakes challenges.

• Beyond persuasion. This isn’t about spin or politics. It’s about clarity, confidence, and creating environments where influence sticks.

• Hosted by Lift Up Connections. Our mission is to amplify women leaders and share their collective wisdom with the field.


The Four-Session Journey

Across four interactive sessions, you’ll develop the clarity, tools, and confidence to move ideas forward without waiting for authority.


Session 1 – Vision: Strategic Rallying in Times of Uncertainty - Christine Perfetti

Learn how to rally your teams around a clear, energizing vision even amid shifting priorities and blurred roles. Practice scripts and framing techniques to align executives, influence priorities, and say no without losing credibility.


Session 2 - Alignment: Executive Buy-in When Everything’s Messy - Tamara Adlin

Turn complex, ambiguous challenges into sharp, executive-ready narratives. Use persona-driven alignment techniques to win buy-in and navigate pushback with clarity and confidence.


Session 3 - Resilience: Leading Outcome-Focused Teams Through Change - Malini Rao

Shift your team from output to outcomes. Build resilience through change and use data + storytelling to keep teams motivated, aligned, and focused on business impact.


Session 4 - Trust: Building Psychological Safety in Uncertain Times - Alla Weinberg

Learn how to foster trust, safety, and connection — even under pressure. Create an environment where influence thrives and courageous conversations move the work forward.

Who is this course for

01

Senior ICs navigating role ambiguity and burnout. You’re expected to drive strategy, but often without authority.

02

Directors & Heads of UX/Product stuck translating vision into silos. You need tools that help you communicate up, down, and across.

03

Experienced leaders holding things together. You’ve survived reorgs, layoffs and shifting priorities. Now you need to lead through clarity.

What you’ll take away from this collective cohort

Your Strategic Rallying Narrative

Christine Perfetti will share a repeatable process for creating clarity and excitement around your vision. You’ll practice scripts and framing techniques to align cross-functional teams, influence priorities, and say no without losing credibility.

Executive Communication and Persona-Driven Alignment

Tamara Adlin will help you structure high-stakes conversations with leadership and turn messy challenges into executive-ready narratives.

Outcome Mapping Frameworks

Malini Rao will outline a set of practices to to shift your team’s mindset from outputs to business outcomes. You’ll leave with methods for resilience through uncertainty, and strategies to keep teams engaged when the path forward is uncertain.

The Psychological Safety Toolkit 

Alla Weinberg will share methods for building trust and credibility: diagnosing trust gaps, fostering risk-taking without fear, addressing conflict constructively, and creating an environment where courageous conversations can thrive.

What’s included

Live sessions

Learn directly from your instructors in a real-time, interactive format.

Lifetime access

Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.

Community of peers

Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.

Certificate of completion

Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.

Maven Guarantee

This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.

Course syllabus

Week 1

Nov 5—Nov 9

    Nov

    5

    Session 1: Vision - Strategic Rallying & Organizational Alignment

    Wed 11/56:00 PM—8:00 PM (UTC)

    Nov

    7

    Session 2: Alignment - Executive Buy-in and Product Strategy

    Fri 11/76:00 PM—8:00 PM (UTC)

Week 2

Nov 10—Nov 14

    Nov

    12

    Session 3: Resilience - Building Outcome-Focused Teams

    Wed 11/126:00 PM—8:00 PM (UTC)

    Nov

    14

    Session 4: Trust - Psychological Safety as an Influence Multiplier

    Fri 11/146:00 PM—8:00 PM (UTC)

Meet your instructors

Christine Perfetti

Christine Perfetti

CEO, Lift Up Connections

Christine Perfetti is CEO of Lift Up Connections, a product and UX strategy consultancy bringing together a collective of powerhouse leaders in tech.


Christine built the product discovery programs at GoFundMe, Carbonite, Acquia, and TuneIn, and has led collaborative product visioning workshops for Harvard Business School, WeSpire, HubSpot, Curriculum Associates, and Penn Medicine, among others.

Tamara Adlin

Tamara Adlin

Founder, Adlin Inc. and co-author of the Persona Lifecycle books

Tamara Adlin has 20+ years of experience in product strategy, executive alignment, and user-centered design (including early Amazon). She is co-author of the groundbreaking Persona Lifecycle books. Tamara specializes in untangling complex challenges, aligning leadership around shared vision, and guiding teams to execute with clarity and purpose. Whether you're navigating a major transformation, redesigning customer experience at scale, or aligning leadership on strategic direction, she bring a structured-yet-human approach that results in traction—and transformation.

Malini Rao

Malini Rao

UX Executive (Ex- Red Hat, Oracle, UKG, Acquia)

Malini Rao is a results-oriented UX Executive with a proven track record of scaling UX functions, driving innovation, and delivering exceptional user experiences for enterprise B2B applications. She's been a UX leader and led teams at UKG, Acquia, Oracle, and Red Hat. Malini's passionate about aligning design strategy with both business objectives and customer outcomes, while defining and tracking concrete experience metrics to measure success.

Alla Weinberg

Alla Weinberg

CEO, Four Percent and author of the book, A Culture of Safety

Alla Weinberg is a psychological safety consultant and coach who has incorporated 20 years of product, service, and experience design with the principles of neuroscience, positive psychology, and relationship research to help establish safe workplaces. In her book, of 𝘈 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘢𝘧𝘦𝘵𝘺: 𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘌𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘯 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬, 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦, Alla delves into the tools, practices, and rituals that help leaders create physical, emotional, and psychological safety.

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Reimagining Influence: Leading Through the Mess

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Active hands-on learning

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Interactive and project-based

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Learn with a cohort of peers

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you