Anthony McLean
Persuasion Specialist

With a career in the human professions, I have spent my entire adult life learning about and applying the psychology of influence to people problems with real world consequences. Starting my career as a police officer I quickly learned there was an easy way and a hard way to deal with people.

Studying part-time at university while working as an operational police officer put a whole other level of realism into my criminology degree. Specialising as an intelligence officer within the premiere body in my organisation opened many overt and covert doors I thought I would never walk through. Especially with some of the people standing on the other side!

Working in specialist investigative and intelligence areas my interest in people was truly piqued while working at the Homicide Investigation Group. The pivotal point came when a hardened criminal we were investigating confessed to multiple murders simply by the way we treated him. Why??

I was then approached to move into a specialist role with a counter-terrorism unit and found myself dealing with the most vulnerable of victims and the most callous of criminals. What makes people hurt those they love? What makes people being hurt willingly stay inside a building with those hurting them? What makes a hostage-taker walk out of a house after holding their children hostage for days, collapse to the ground and cry like children themselves? This role gave me the opportunity to start developing capabilities both nationally and internationally and my interest in practitioner and organisation based problem solving, consulting and personnel development was born.

I left the police and took up a consulting career that saw me work with many of Australia’s most successful private and publicly held companies. This provided me with a new insight into the application of the influence strategies and skills I honed in a very different theatre.

Today I call myself a Persuasion Specialist. I work with leaders who need solutions, teams who need skills and organisations that are motivated to outperform their competition.

Visit Anthony's website: socialinfluenceconsultinggroup.com.au