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Stakeholder Management Skills - Assessing Their Impact

Written by: Martin Haworth

Article Overview: Whilst it is very important to understand who all the stakeholders are in any project, they are not all born equal. Once you do know who is likely to have the most impact, you will be able to focus you attention best...

Stakeholder Management Skills - Assessing Their Impact

Depending on what you are doing as a manager, everything you do will have stakeholders of some sort. Day-in, day-out, you manage them as effectively as you manage your people. When change happens, be it pro-actively creating something new, or maybe defensively cutting costs and finding new efficiencies, this may well bring into the equation a whole new range of stakeholders, each of whom might have a vested interest in making things tough for you to be successful.

That there will be many stakeholders in whatever activities you intend to undertake is quite true and whilst you will be able to pay attention to many of them, some will require more of your attention than others, because of the potential impact they may have.

What is important to understand, therefore, is the stakeholders who could damage, sometimes irreparably whatever it is you are trying to achieve. Spending time and other resources with them is likely to be much more value-creating over the long haul, than paying too much attention to stakeholders who have much less influence - and hence potential for damage.

But how exactly can you assess the relative impacts of different stakeholders?

The key here is to assess four main things:-

1. How powerful is the stakeholder?

In many cases stakeholders have a valid case to make, where the impact on them is significant enough. Then they will have to assess how capable they are in the role they hold in relationship to the project, to disrupt the outcome to their own ends.

In many cases, disruption is only created as a stakeholder negotiates a better outcome that will suit them better than what has been offered already. Stakeholders usually know that change happens and whilst they might not entirely approve of it, they can accept the change as long as there is a sweetener for them and those who they stand for.

Often, stakeholders will be have a louder bark than bite. How well you are able to assess this will influence the efforts you make to come to a satisfactory outcome with this stakeholder.

2. What is their capacity to impact the project?

Sometimes, even thought there is a strong stakeholder, their influence upon the success of the project will be minimised by their capacity to influence decisions.

In fact, if a stakeholder proves difficult enough, it might be a financially sound outcome to come up with a different solution that bypasses them entirely.

This will all be the more achievable if you do your homework and know precisely where the stakeholder fits in and whether or not they have a 'killer' input that can be vital for you. Or not.

3. How motivated are they to be 'difficult'?

Whilst some stakeholders are likely to have varied interests and capacities to disrupt, it's not uncommon to find that they aren't really that interested.

This might seem to be a good thing and, even better, in some of these cases, it's worth considering whether they are ripe for conversion to become one of your 'raving fans' as a stakeholder, helping to influence those who might be slightly more reserved.

4. What level of effort is required?

For you to work on stakeholders who have major impact, you need resources and time. It's critical to appreciate the levels of input you and your team might need to make and focus that accordingly.

Unless you have virtually unlimited resources, you will need to be considered in your application of resources to make sure that what you do is the most value-creating.

You will not be able to do it all, so a closer understanding of where you will get just rewards, from the effort you make, is vital.

By being able to spot just who are the movers and shakers - who could be assets and who could be adversaries, you and your team will be able to get the best returns.

Stakeholder management is not just about knowing who they are, it's about assessing their potential impact and then using the resources you have most effectively.

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Article Tags: key influencers, management development, managing stakeholders, stakeholder management, stakeholders



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