Alliances and Adversaries

The Insider's Guide to Stakeholder Analysis

“If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”. African Proverb

Nothing slows down or completely derails a program more than the lack of stakeholder alignment. Fixing these issues can be a painful exercise in perseverance and resilience that can be easily avoided with some prep work to better position yourself and your portfolio of initiatives.

A stakeholder has a significant interest in your work and can influence or be influenced by the outcomes of that work. Stakeholders can be external or internal and it’s vital to understand them.

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Stakeholder analysis is a discovery exercise to better understand those individuals and how they work. While you can never have all of the information, probabilities or scenarios worked out you can be PREPARED by talking with your stakeholders. It’s an ongoing effort that is part of situational awareness. Your ability to understand the environment around you allows you to perceive, anticipate and see the unknown of programs and adapt as needed.

Yes, this requires work yet the investment is well worth the exponential returns. Nothing great comes easy and if you want to deliver exceptional results, don’t settle for a passive and reactive relationship with your stakeholders.

Using a “5 Whys approach” to stakeholder management here are some details to unpack:

Why even bother doing this? To build trusted relationships. I need to make connections within the organization, customers, and external partners.

Why deeper relations? To understand these individuals at a deeper level - what motivates them, how are they inspired, their goals, their vision, mission, perspectives and thought processes, and so on. This requires multiple conversations to build up a rapport with the individual and earn their trust so that you can better understand them and help them achieve their goals…all the while you’re trying to deliver on your outcomes well. You may also look to allies and adversaries of stakeholders for details and perspective on them. Every stakeholder wants to know how your work will help them achieve their goals; “what’s in it for them”. You need to figure that out.

Why all of this information? To make the best decisions possible with the information available. These individuals can also be decision-makers for you, budget authority and control (including P&L accountability), advocates for your work, organizational influencers or people to be mindful of (ie - detractors) when going about your work. The information helps you determine the course of action with stakeholders and within your initiatives.

Why better decisions? To win more of course!!! We want to be as wildly successful as possible in our endeavors…and when we’re not - we know that we are confident with the approach taken and learn and grow from it.

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Why WIN? Because it feels AMAZING to deliver positive, lasting change and value.

More reasons why stakeholder analysis and management is important:

1. You are likely leading initiatives by influencing others (no direct reports)…which requires you to understand those stakeholders and all of the aforementioned details to get them to deliver on the mission and expected outcomes. This ESPECIALLY holds true in large enterprises with programs that stretch across multiple organizations (BUs), products and platforms. If you have direct and indirect reports, you STILL need to work with other stakeholders.

2. Communications. Communication makes or breaks programs. You need a comms plan that articulates stakeholder engagement.

   1. For example - I once worked with a client that faced the challenge of numerous executives who did NOT want to change the organization whatsoever (we were doing a large enterprise transformation to a product operating model)…they had seen numerous transformations crash and burn and weren’t interested in change - period. These same executives were also misinformed about the mission, vision, and strategy of what we were trying to achieve and the tremendous value that it brought them. They heard the word transformation and immediately put up defenses and blockers. I built a multi-layered if/then/else exec stakeholder communication plan to educate them on the value of what we were doing and subsequently alignment. It included the order of who to talk to and when, why it was important to gain support from specific stakeholders ahead of others and further plans to execute once we hit certain goals with each executive. In parallel, a standard comms plan for the program was established for a regular cadence of communications across multiple channels (web, chat, email, old-school reporting and presentations) with stakeholders and the overall team. This created awareness, understanding, trust, expectations, and cohesion…and exec alignment amongst key individuals to drive us forward.

3. Team dynamics and chemistry.

   1. You will rarely have everyone agree. EVER. But, if you build solid relationships with stakeholders you can have respectful conversations and agree to disagree. This notion of “agreeing to disagree” means you may not wholeheartedly agree with a decision or path forward but it’s in the best interest of the overall mission and desired outcomes…and therefore there is agreement to move forward. You may look to address that matter again at another time or leave it as it stands. In addition, you will see where stakeholders are flexible (or inflexible) in how they work, make decisions, risk tolerance, and more.

Where do I even start????

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Figuring all of this out begins with asking smart questions and listening intently. You’re in discovery mode. I have listed some basic questions below. These aren’t set in stone and depending on your knowledge of your organization, you can ask more specific questions.

1. Who is your customer? (internal or external or both)

2. Who are your key decision-makers?

3. Who are the executives?

4. Who controls the budget?

5. Who are the supporters of the work you're delivering?

6. Who are the influencers and detractors?

7. Who do you need to stay in contact with regularly?

Once you have a list of stakeholders, you need to know more about them…

1. First - get to know the individual and their background.

2. What’s their role in the organization and their involvement in your portfolio of work?

3. How do they operate? Do they have a “Working with Me” doc?

   1. e.g. - Make decisions, lead their team(s), motivations, communication style

If you are new to the organization or the team, you may have some onboarding as an IC or Leader where someone should be assigned to help you with these base details. If not, then you have to hunt for it yourself. I always find it helpful to validate the information regardless of your tenure because it’s typically out-of-date.

It helps to create a network map in Miro that can show who these people are and their connection to your work. You can have additional details within MIRO or have it link to a Wiki or Word doc.

This information changes over time and requires a commitment to update it…if you plan on sharing this network map and details with others be mindful of the level of detail and the audience(s).

What’s my ROI?

You can now use this information to:

• Deliver better value for your customers

• Make more money for your organization (revenue for product capabilities) and your team (perf-based bonuses!!)

• Make better decisions

• Be more productive

• Identify and solve problems faster and with greater confidence

• Mitigate or eliminate risks and issues

• Communicate more effectively and avoid mishaps

• Create a happier work environment

Thanks for reading!

-Adam