At a recent workshop, one delegate quipped after the stakeholder mapping exercise, that he needed to be very careful not to leave his map lying around. My response was:
“Well interestingly, quite often, you see some dramatic impacts when you start to share this, particularly with stakeholders who are not agreeing you. Even enemies, you can lay it on the table.”
Another delegate responded aghast, that, “How could you possibly accuse a stakeholder of being an enemy?”
My response: “Carefully, and in the right circumstances, it could have a dramatic impact.”
What you need to remember is that until conclusive proof is found, your categorisation of a stakeholder is merely hypothetical. You have to go out there with an initial position and discover more evidence, more clues, gain more knowledge, to get a more accurate fix on where they are. This helps you reposition them and take action to renegotiate, to build the relationship.
When it comes to an enemy, it is merely hypothetical unless you know without any shadow of a doubt, that they are out to get you, that they are so embittered by what you are doing, so angry with what you are doing, that they will not even talk to you.
Before that is proved, you can take a different approach, a different attitude to the table. One of puzzlement, one of intrigue, one of mystery, one of, “I’m sure I must be getting something wrong here, but the way it looks to me is that you’re down there and I don’t want you to be there. I think we ought to be able to find a way to work together.” This is just one example of how you could phrase it.
What it does in potential, if you get it right, if you play your cards well, is it creates an interrupt in the pattern of the relationship thus far.
In my experience of coaching, many people categorise stakeholders as enemies not because they are enemies, but because they don’t understand enough about their position vis-a-vis the goal. Once they can break open that relationship and start talking, many disagreements and disputes can be resolved in a very quickly.
So please be very careful when you’re exposing your hand, laying your cards on the table, especially at the more negative, distrustful end of the spectrum. But if you play it well, carefully, have your contingencies in place, it can have some pretty stunning results.
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