A stakeholder is any individual, team or organisation which has an interest or stake in what you are doing. Thinking about the work you are involved in, who benefits from what you do? These are stakeholders who have a positive interest in what you are doing.
The term stakeholder management refers to taking a proactive and strategic approach to making sure that these stakeholders are “bought in” to the benefit you can bring to them, and support you in achieving your objective.
As part of the process, you also need to recognise that not everyone will benefit from what you are doing. These people are also stakeholders even though they hold a negative interest in what you are doing. Because they are going to lose out in some way if you succeed, they may take action to prevent you from getting done what you need to get done.
Because of this, stakeholder management also requires that you be proactive and strategic in handling this opposition.
Overall, stakeholder management is a process that will help you to achieve your goals by building greater levels of support and reducing opposition. Many people think that they are already doing this; however, unless there is a process in use, there will inevitably be gaps and oversights which could threaten your success.
Over the last ten years, I have developed and used a very simple process which helps people to take simple and practical steps to engage and manage their stakeholders. It’s a process that takes an hour to learn and a lifetime to use, and it is currently in use at all levels in some of the biggest organisations in the world. Here are the six steps in the process …
- Focus: Assess your priorities and focus your Influencing Goal.
- Identify: Work out which stakeholders can have the biggest impact.
- Analyse: Map the position of each stakeholder.
- Plan: Decide your strategy for increasing buy-in.
- Engage: Adapt your approach to influence your stakeholders.
- Maintain: Keep motivated, moving and refreshing.
You don’t have to be working at a high level to make effective use of this process. You simply have to be ambitious and determined to achieve stretching goals. Oh, and prepared to invest a little time in maximising the likelihood that you’ll succeed! The reading below will help you to learn how to make full use of this process.
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