5 Stakeholder Management Tips To Meet And Exceed Expectations

As a HR manager, stakeholder management is the order of the day, for that reason, it will not sound strange to you that this is one of the trainings which we offer. Afterall, it is an essential skill that does not always come naturally.

How great would it be if you could offer employees a push toward this direction? In this blog you can read how we train employees on the basis of an influence/interest model. Feel free to use this format to your advantage for your own activities and for your organization. An extra reminder is always nice, right?

How to execute good stakeholder management.

Especially for those who are not eager to continuously manage expectations, stakeholder management can get low on the list of priorities. “After all, people who need you will find you by themselves, right?”. Well, perhaps that is not the case. Whether you like it or not, stakeholder management is important. And you can make things a lot clearer for yourself and employees if you systemize this process. By structuring this topic and making it tangible, you ensure that you and the employees in your organization master the art of stakeholder management.

Influence versus interest

The influence/interest method is, in essence, an effective way to approach stakeholder management. By creating an analysis of all the stakeholders that take place in a project, you can clearly define which role they undertake in the general picture. There, you can also address how much interest or how much value a stakeholder sees in the outcome of your project. Thus, basing your project on these dimensions, stakeholders can be divided into four potential categories:

Keep relevant stakeholders satisfied

There will always be people you depend on for the success of your project, who personally don’t care too much about it. Make sure that these people stay on your side.

Actively involve them

Those individuals who care deeply about the potential outcome and have power to get there are the most important stakeholders to involve and stay in an ongoing dialogue with.

Minimal effort

There is no need to spend a lot of energy or time on stakeholders who may not have any consideration nor influence on your project

Keep them up to date

If someone, without much power to influence your project, cares a lot about it (they might be affected by its outcome), you should always keep them informed, but you don’t have to convince them of anything.

The best way to properly involve someone in a project differs, as more people means more wishes to consider. Of course this will always depend on how each individual is involved in the project.

The Influence-Interest matrix is a useful tool to determine how intensively a stakeholder should be involved.

5 Tips to take your stakeholders into account

In order to involve stakeholders in a project properly, it is also important to consider the following factors:

1. Position: Is the stakeholder currently in favor or against your project?

2. Personality: What is the communication style of the stakeholders? Is it better to have a formal meeting or an informal coffee chat?

3. Culture: The organizational culture of your stakeholders, or, for international projects, the other customs in the different countries you are dealing with.

4. Specific Interests: Why exactly do the stakeholders care about your project? What are their priorities? How are they affected?

5. Conflict: What possible conflicts can arise based on everything mentioned and how can you deal with them?

Leading stakeholders and being able to manage the relationships you create with them can be a challenging task. Professionals require communication skills, social skills, being able to identify sources of conflict, and more. At Lepaya, we offer solutions to help you with this, our Build! program.

Leading stakeholders and being able to manage the relationships you create with them can be a challenging task. But we are here to help you! We have created a free template where you can map your own stakeholders. You can find it right here.

Also published on Medium.

5 Stakeholder management tips to meet and exceed expectations