Well, he’d hold the stake, wouldn’t he? Does that make him a stakeholder? This week’s fun size blog thinks about stakeholders, and what on earth you do with them.
Any change programme, any employee engagement strategy, any piece of organisational development, you are going to have stakeholders, and you are going to have to manage them. So this mini-blog is by way of a quick guide to stakeholder management, insofar as I’ve managed to make it work.
As with many things in life, begin with the questions: who, what, where, why, when and how. Thusly:

  • who are our stakeholders?
  • what do we need them for? (RACI helps here – what do they do? Are they responsible for something, or are they accountable? Do we consult them? Or merely inform?)
  • where are they – in the organisational structure (or outside?) or physically (in case you have to go and meet them)
  • why do we need to engage with them? What value do they add? (If you can’t answer that last question, then have a really good think about whether they actually are stakeholders, or well-meaning busybodies)
  • when do we need to engage them? At what point on the critical path will the value they add be of the most, well, value?
  • how do we engage them? Face to face? Via a contact? By email? At a meeting?

    • So, ask this at the start. Think of everyone. Put them on a piece of paper, and list those questions. It may even help.
    Have a think. What value so your stakeholders add? Do they add value? If they don’t, are they really stakeholders? Or are they just Jonathan Harkers, along for the ride?