Stakeholder Management: Seeing the Whole System
Key Points:
- See the whole system, not just the org chart.
- Understand where interests align---and where they do not.
- Stay positive, act constructively, and help everyone win.
Formal project management training is a bit of a slog to get through. As I had already worked for many years, I was well familiar with the basic tools and principles, so I wasn’t getting much out of it. Until I came to the parts about stakeholder management. Wow, this was an eye-opener.
Until then, I had always equated stakeholder importance with how close someone was to me in the organization, and I respected that leadership flows from the top down while information propagates, hopefully, from the bottom up. This was the disciplined way to make progress. My job is to make my superiors succeed.
What I learned in PM training was that the circle of stakeholders is much larger. It isn’t just my peers and the technical leaders of the project. It is everyone who has any kind of interest in it. It includes those who champion and fund the project, the business development side and customers, support staff, third parties, and subject matter experts in the field. Do not forget regulatory, legal, environmental, health and safety interests, and perhaps even the public at large. Not all of these are applicable to every project, but when they are in the game, they should be considered in proportion to their relevance, both in the short and long term.
The biggest learning was that stakeholders are not limited to those who want the project to succeed. They can include those who would rather see resources in your project or program reallocated to theirs. Once “adverse stakeholders” are included, we can also consider those with divergent or conflicting objectives. Keeping them on your radar makes decision-making and strategizing much more productive.
It could be very interesting to share examples of all types of situations, and given that this is a forum, I expect experiences will be shared both by me and through your contributions. Let’s do so in a way that helps the community and does not turn into a gripe fest.
The key for me is that by opening my eyes to the full system, I am better able to navigate it. As I come to understand all stakeholders’ hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, motivations and reservations, I can better select my actions.
I am a stakeholder too, and subject to all the same human influences. I have convinced myself that when programs succeed, almost everyone is happy, while personal gains made at the expense of others are short term at best. I consciously commit myself to the former. I find that when my objective is genuinely to improve the outcome for the whole, I get more traction and avoid unseemly situations.
One last thing: as I have adopted this attitude, I have become fascinated by how humans work, possibly even more than I am interested in technology development itself.
A second thing I have committed myself to is never thinking of anyone as simply a bad or evil person. Humans are far more complicated than that. I am better served by observing actions, incentives, and consequences than by passing judgment on any person. Judgement closes doors. Adopting a broad label makes me stop looking for ways to understand and navigate the situation—and I am the one who carries that burden. Stick to the task of making progress as best you can, and work with facts and observations, not labels.
Keep upbeat, eyes open, positive, and try to help everyone win!
— Cassandra
Wybrand Hendriks: Directors of Teylers Foundation (1744-1831)
