Interaction With Our Stakeholders

Stakeholders play a critical role in successful businesses. Among other things they are approvers, contribute to solution development, remove obstacles, offer the business perspective and are advocates and influencers. Stakeholders play a fundamental role in planning, etc.

Stakeholder engagement and communication are  normal components of any initiative, but it’s not always done most effectively. There are two things that must be remembered:

• Inconsistency in communication. Basically, if you say you are going to keep them updated, then do so. In fact, go one step further and agree with them upfront how often they want to be updated and through what channels. Then there’s no misunderstandings.
• Not being listened to. This happens when the updating is more to tick a box than to get feedback or engage them in the conversation. Always keep the lines open both ways for feedback and don’t leave their engagement so late that they have no opportunity to contribute because the solution has already been agreed. Don’t pretend to want their feedback and then do nothing with it. And equally frustrating for them, don’t forget that when you take their feedback, you need to let them know how it was used. Close that feedback loop.

Keeping your stakeholders informed and engaged takes work. The consequences of not doing this effectively feed through to project sustainability and returns.

Inconsistency and not allowing people to provide feedback and have input are some of the major mistakes that you can make with stakeholders.