On October 21st (12pm ET/5pm BST/9am PT), I will be the guest host on
the #kaizenblog twitter chat where we will be discussing Stakeholder Management.
Proactive and strategic stakeholder management is fast becoming the must have skill, and
critical activity of the ambitious. It is also a common practice of those who succeed. It refers to a systematic way of
organizing your thinking and planning your action towards achieving a chosen goal, which relies
upon the agreement of a broad range of people. This takes you beyond logic and business case
arguments into the realm of relationships.
The term “stakeholder” refers simply to
people (or groups) who have an interest in what you are seeking to achieve. Normally, people
consider those who will gain from their success, and rarely pay enough attention to those who
have a negative stake in their work.
The approach I have developed over the years (and
explored in detail in my new book, Advocates & Enemies: How to build practical strategies to
influence your stakeholders) suggests a simple process of focusing on a specific objective;
identifying who can help or hinder your achievement and then analyzing them in terms
of (a) their agreement with your goal and (b) the quality of the relationship you have with them.
Agreement considers not only that they agree with you, but also takes into account
the level of benefit (or loss) and how active they are on the topic. Relationship
assesses the degree of trust which exists (each way), how open you are with each other
and also how often you engage with them. The analysis is not a precise science; guestimates
are all that is needed.
As a result of this assessment, you end up with people fitting
into a number of boxes (see diagram).
- Advocates are fans who at their best
are proactively shouting from the rooftops about what you are aiming to achieve and will
help you all the way.
- Critics are people you work really well with and trust is high, but for some reason
they just don’t agree with what you are trying to achieve.
- Players nod, smile, and agree, but underneath something is wrong. They
never seem to deliver on their promises.
- Enemies stand to lose if you succeed and at the extreme, they are out to get you.
If you are unsure about where to place someone, leave them in the gray for now. Once
you have put your stakeholders in a box (so to speak), you can then start to develop a
strategy for engaging them to ensure that you achieve your goal.
The purpose of this chat is to help participants to refine their own stakeholder
management practice. These discussion questions will highlight a number of statements
which I commonly encounter (and/or use) as I help people to become more influential using
stakeholder management…
- What is the practical meaning of the term Advocate? How does this differ from an alternative
term – supporter?
- No Critics? Big problems! Why would no critics be detrimental to you?
- Players are people who say one thing and do another. What can you do to move them?
- Some say, “hold your Enemies closer” but I say “carefully ignore your Enemies”. Which is
best and why?
Join this twitter chat via tweetchat.com or tweetdeck at 12pm EST.
We'd love to hear what you think about this. Please email us or post on our new
Facebook Wall.
|
Posted by Colin Gautrey on 19-Oct-2011. Viewed by 5838 (4218 in last 3 months) |
|
