TWHS#080: Too Many Stakeholders. How Do I Cope?

We live in a hugely matrixed world. 

We don't live in the 1950's where you just needed to manage your boss, and if your boss liked you, you were successful.

We have different departments we work with, customers, partners. Different departments inside each customer and partner.  We have our boss's skip level, our boss's peer that's influential.  We have vendors, the different departments in different vendors.  You get the point; there's loads of stakeholders.

But we do need to manage our stakeholders to be successful.   It's essential in all roles.

But it can be overwhelming.

How do you prioritise who to manage?

Well, here's a simple little graph that helps.

On the X axis we've got how influential they are on your success.  On the Y axis we've got the depth of your relationship with them.

The idea is that you want a better relationship with people that are influential over your success.  To help you prioritise, plot people out on the graph.

I do this when I start a new role, when thinking about customer accounts, or just building out a plan.

What you will often find is that your best relationships are with people that have lower influence over your success.  And you need to build a plan to move people in the bottom right of the graph to the top right.

You can draw this on paper, or download the Excel file from this link.  Warning, there is a macro in there, so if that bothers you create your own, or do it on paper.

How Do You Build a Relationship With Them?

Well that's the challenging part and the simple answer is "It Depends" on loads of variables.  But here's some things that help:

• Be intentional about building a relationship with them.
• Do some digging on the stakeholder.  Understand what pain they're facing and what they're trying to achieve.
• Understand the type of person they are.  How do they like to communicate?  Quick and direct, or long detailed.  What do they value?  What topics are important to them?
• Spend some time with them.  That could be a an informal coffee, a 1:1 meeting, attending a community event, team meetings.
• Offer them something of value (not a bribe).  If you can help them out, the relationship will deepen.  If you do that a number of times you'll be useful to them.
• Be reliable.  If you offer to do something, deliver it well.

All of these things help you build a relationship and build your reputation with them.  As the relationship grows it can become more reciprocal and a bit more give and take.

So prioritise which relationships you want to develop.  Then be intentional on developing them.

Hope this helps.

Ben

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