From Stakeholders to Raving Fans in 5 Steps!

One irreverent view of a “Stakeholder” is of someone armed with a “stake” ready to drive it through your heart at the first sign of a problem with your project. Indeed, to listen to some project managers you would be forgiven for assuming that this was the correct definition! Even the phrase “managing stakeholders” can set you off in the wrong direction; implying to some that stakeholders are an overhead to be kept at bay with periodic communication and formal reports.

However, adopting this view is not only unhelpful but potentially fatal for your project. Think about it; your stakeholders are the future beneficiaries of your project’s deliverables so why would you keep them at arms length? More than that, they want you to succeed and are, potentially, the biggest advocates of the solution you are building. First and foremost, your stakeholders are your allies. Put your arms around them and give them a reason to believe that they have given their allegiance wisely.

The following “5 Step Stakeholder Management Plan” will help you to not just manage your stakeholders but turn them into your first group of Raving Fans!

1 - Recruit
2 - Plan
3 - Train
4 - Arm
5 - Mobilise

Recruit – who are your key stakeholders? An obvious question but actually one that many people often neglect to pay sufficient attention. One of the first tasks for your emerging project team should be to create a Stakeholder Map. Brainstorm every possible person or group that could be affected by your project, including, but not limited to, existing and future customers/clients, suppliers, managers, sponsors, investors, partners and financiers.

Plan – once you have identified your stakeholders, it’s time to plan how you are going to utilise them in the design, development and delivery of your solution/product. The quickest way is to create a matrix with the stakeholders listed on the left and a series of columns to the right that would want to include as a minimum; key contact, communication vehicles to be used, dates of next interaction, who is responsible from within the project for the relationship with the stakeholder. This last one is important and the column should not contain the same name in every row. Everyone on the project should at least consider how they can get involved and drawing on existing relationships is definitely a good idea.

Train – The first task of the project team is to agree and standardise the core themes and key messages of the project. What are the generic business benefits and what are the specific benefits for each Stakeholder group? The first role of your Stakeholders is to become advocates of what the project is trying to achieve but they are not going to do this by osmosis. How can you help them? Or, more importantly, what training can you provide to ensure that they are confident in communicating your message?

Arm – As the project develops any number of risks and issues will arise and not all of them will have been identified up front. Your Stakeholders will be particularly vulnerable when things are not going smoothly so make sure you arm them with as much detail as possible. Obviously, it is not always possible to provide every detail but as long as they are aware of the anticipated timescales for delay and then delivery, they will be able to defend the you and your project and, continue to feel confident in the outcomes.

Mobilise – So, the project is signed-off and the launch party is announced. Remember that the most important component of the celebration is to mobilise an army of advocates. If you have done your job properly throughout the design and delivery phases, your Stakeholders will already be aware of the key benefits of the solution/product. Now all you need to do is issue them with some great PR phrases, identify for them the target client groups and send them off. Provide everything they will need to transmit your messages clearly and your job is done!

Cultural Awareness & Self Awareness

Cultural awareness is the key to building successful international business relationships and should include understanding cultural differences and acting appropriately. No doubt most of you associate this with this with learning about the cultural habits, customs and negotiating styles of the country of the person you are going to be doing business with but this is only one part of the process and certainly not the first.

If you read some of the literature on intercultural or cross-cultural studies, you might get the impression that all you need to do is do a bit of background reading on your target culture/country, perhaps buy a special report on the business style and negotiation tactics there and you’ll be set. But there’s a lot more to it than that.

The problem with this approach is that it immediately sets you up an “Us vs. Them” relationship. The Germans are like this and the Japanese are like this – “they” are unusual, different, the other. This is ultimately quite unhelpful when you come to meet your prospective client because as you’ve already pigeon-holed them you’re likely to miss subtle behavioural clues that don’t confirm your picture of people from that culture. More importantly, although these categorisations of countries and cultures work well at a group level, they break down when confronted by specific individuals. For example, the Japanese businessman who is visiting you from Tokyo may have spent a significant amount of time working or being educated in the USA which may have totally transformed his way of doing business and negotiating.

For me, the first step in cultural awareness is not finding out about other cultures but finding out about yourself: your “myths”, attitudes, beliefs, preferences, worldview and stereotypes. This may seem surprising and you may even think that you know all about yourself already but it’s extremely important for the following reasons.

1) You’ll be better prepared to overcome problems in meetings with foreign business people
2) You’ll be a better negotiator
3) You’ll be a better communicator

In short it will give you an edge.

So “How do I find out about myself?”, I hear you ask? You’ll probably be glad to hear it isn’t necessary to meditate on a mountain top for 20 years but you do need to begin a process of personal observation in your encounters with others. We need other people to show us our blind spots and show us more of how we really behave instead of how we like to think we behave. This process can be as simple as asking others for their feedback about us and our behaviour in specific contexts (e.g. at work, at home), to reading books (see suggested reading list at the end of this article) and taking online assessment tests, such as the one contained in this article on EQ.

This step in developing intercultural awareness is probably the most challenging to take as it necessitates a willingness to change and some difficult moments as we uncover uncomfortable truths about ourselves. However, once it is then the other steps in the process of developing cultural awareness - knowledge of the culture, politics, history and business customs of the target culture and skills development in culturally-sensitive verbal and non-verbal communication - are much easier to acquire.

Suggested reading:

1) When Cultures Collide by Richard D. Lewis, (Nicholas Brealey, 1999).
2) Riding the Waves of Culture by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner (McGrw-Hill, 1998).
3) Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, (Bantam, 1997).

Biography:

Neil Urquhart is a cross-cultural consultant who helps individuals and public and private sector organisations win new overseas business through training, facilitation, coaching and consultancy. With extensive experience of working in international contexts as diverse as Japan, Brazil and Germany for firms such as SAP, John Deere and Cargill, he also delivers induction training for the civil servants of 27 different nations at the European Commission.

Spotlight on Malcolm Follos - An Agent for Change

Leading a change project is a great opportunity to learn a lot about yourself, your colleagues and your organisation. Let’s start this article with the most important of the three, you! Amongst the many attributes you will need during the change journey one that is critical to your success is determination. Of course determination can range from ‘grim’ to ‘stubborn’ however my suggestion is to set your dial to ‘flexible’.

‘Flexible determination’ is what is needed if you are to survive the many twist and turns and ups and downs most change projects have to endure along the way. It is also a key attribute to help you bring your colleagues along with you on the change journey. It enables you to stay on course and remain open to new ideas. It allows you to explain the why, when, what, who and how of the change process whilst encouraging you to ‘entertain and consider’ thoughts and views that others may have along the way.

Then, with your dial suitably tuned, you need to get your colleagues on board. At the start of any change journey the final destination can seem far away and shrouded in mist. It is important therefore to spend some time working with your colleagues to bring this destination clearly into focus. What Stephen Covey calls ‘starting with the end in mind.’ To do this I use ‘Imagineering’ which is a technique similar to engineering except it uses your mind and your imagination as the raw materials. Organise a workshop with your colleagues in an open environment away from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day activity. Then reset your internal time clocks and imagine the project has finished and it has been a great success. Give everyone some quiet time to bring this to life in their minds. Ask them to consider what is different?; what has been achieved for the organisation?; what obstacles have you successfully overcome together?; what are they proud of?; what is still left to do?; how do they feel now?; etc. The resulting discussion will create most of the raw material that you will need to craft a suitable Project Charter.

The Project Charter ,(or project brief as it is sometimes called), is a key document that you should build with the team that will help you make the change a reality. It represents the starting point for the journey and should contain the collective thoughts and views of all the team. I encourage teams to ‘sign’ this document as a symbolic way to demonstrate they are committed to the journey ahead. It also needs to be ratified by the Project Sponsor – the senior manager who is acting as the link back into the strategic process from which the change project should be born.

Project Charter’s come in many shapes and sizes but the key sections are:
Purpose – a short paragraph explaining why this project is necessary – this clearly has to answer the ‘why bother?’ question that will inevitably be asked once the journey starts.
Objectives – Clearly expressed statements of intent that are SMART: Specific to the project (unique if possible); Measurable (you need to know the starting value so pick something you measure now); Ambitious (why waste your time doing something that is easy to do life is too short); Realistic (a relative word what is realistic to you might be hopelessly optimistic to me and vice versa – get the team to discuss and agree this level); and Time-bound (objectives need dates otherwise they are just dreams).
Scope – a section explaining what you will and more importantly what you will not consider and work on during the change journey ahead. The Scope Out section enables you to manage expectations early and is key to your success. It needs to contain all the areas that other interested parties may assume you are going to tackle but in fact you are not.
Milestones – the significant achievements you intend to deliver with dates – it is important to make the milestones statements of achievement not simply big tasks.
Deliverables – what will exist at the end of the project that does not exist now – make them tangible if possible.
Risks – what might prevent you succeeding and how you can prevent or mitigate these things before the project gets going?

Once the Project Charter has been ratified by the Project Sponsor then the journey can begin in earnest.

Clearly the better the quality of the thinking in the planning phase the easier the journey will be. Try hard to involve as many people as necessary in the thinking stage as involvement is a great way to build commitment and commitment is the most elusive thing you need to secure during the change journey. It is the fuel that propels the journey forward and locks change in place along the way.

It never ceases to amaze me how people are all for change and how they think it is a great idea until they realise that they may also have to change themselves. As an ‘Agent of Change’ building personal commitment to change in your colleagues and across the organisation as a whole will be your biggest challenge by far. The habits and rituals surrounding the way people work are very pervasive and will fiercely resist any attempt to be changed. Think about it yourself for a moment. When was the last time you changed a habit? How easy did you find it? These are the forces you have to overcome when you are leading a change project. It is perfectly natural for people to resist change so expect it. Making the process inclusive, enjoyable and liberating can help. I am firmly of the view people want to do a great job and they have many ideas on how to remove the day-to-day frustrations that exist in all organisations. The latency to improve exists, it is your job to tap into this and unleash the potential people have to improve.

Finally, it is prudent to expect the unexpected and with enthusiasm and flexible determination in your locker the journey should be both challenging and enjoyable. Leading a change programme can be a very rewarding career move and if the opportunity comes along my advice would be to grab it with open arms!

Malcolm Follos – Managing Director Bowman Group Ltd. – Malcolm is a leading change management consultant, facilitator, trainer and coach.