8 Tips to better manage your stakeholders

We’ve got an all-new Zoomly workshop, ‘How to manage stakeholders’, and it’s been developed at the request of our clients. Stakeholder management – and particularly the state of stakeholder relationships – is an increasing measure of success in many sectors. Yet all too often we just ‘get on with the job’ and not pause for thought on HOW we’re doing what we’re doing, and how that impacts on WHO we do that with. Just a few small adjustments could improve our relationships with stakeholders.

1. Take time at the beginning of a project to discuss stakeholder management with your team-mates and agree some essentials. How will you keep your stakeholders happy? How will you communicate with them?
2. If you’re unsure how a particular stakeholder prefers to be kept informed – ask them.
3. Remember that, as a general rule, senior stakeholders prefer brief and clear communication.
4. Some less involved stakeholders will simply need regular updates outlining how what you’re doing will affect the organisation and possibly their own work.
5. Senior stakeholders don’t like surprises so if something’s veering off track, keep them informed. Tell them what’s being done to remedy the situation.
6. Often the people who are critical to implementing projects on a day-in, month-out basis are less senior stakeholders. Remember to thank them for their efforts, both during the project and at the end.
7. Watch out for unsupportive stakeholders, or saboteurs. Check in with your team-mates to see if it’s just you – and your way of working – that’s the issue, or if there is something that needs to be done. It may be the person is overwhelmed with work and has no more capacity, or is threatened by an aspect of the project, such as a new system.
8. At the end of the project, include stakeholder management as an agenda item in your wrap-up (you do have wrap-ups, don’t you?) How well did the stakeholders support the project? How engaged were they? What can we apply – and what can we do differently – next time?

For more info about our new workshop – and others in Zoomly’s growing menu of topics, please get in touch via hello@www.zoomly.co.uk.

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