Your clients or stakeholders can help your business grow or even crumble!
Today, I am going to talk about the challenges while managing your external stakeholders (call them clients/customers) how to handle them and earn respect
"Customer is GOD"
Well, I definitely agree as they are very critical to our organization's success, provides us the business so no argument about it. But...
Have you managed biased or unsupportive stakeholders?
Have you been consistently challenged, irrespective of how better you perform its not enough?
Have you been at the edge of your seat not knowing what's next and unsure?
Stressed to the max not knowing what to do next?
You are not alone, managing biased or unsupportive resilient stakeholders is quite challenging and very stressful.
If you have ran a marathon, you might have experienced this feeling, you are almost done and want to give up badly, but there will be a voice telling within you, you have worked very hard to get till here, don't give up now you can do it!
Managing Stakeholders is like a marathon - you can never give up (including your own people as well)
While stakeholders are different, and quite complex to understand them, but its very very critical to know them well and manage them appropriately to meet the objectives and for the benefits of your people.
Here are the different kinds of stakeholders you will engage in your day to day work life Unaware, Resistant, Neutral, Supportive or Leading
Assuming you know who are your stakeholders, their powers and roles clearly documented in your Stakeholder matrix. Do Read How to build solid stakeholder engagement
Here are some of my experience :
Involve them: if they hold a certain amount of power and one of the decision maker for your project success, connect with them and involve them in your project. People love to be involved especially if you have shown strong winning attitude in the past.
Update them time to time on what is going on in your operations/project.
Don’t ignore them at any cause or even surprise them
keep them updated - create a newsletter or set up a Governance call to keep them posted based on the communication plan.
Ask for feedback, do share any activities you had proactively arranged like team building or some events connecting to your business which might interest them or maybe share their comments about it.
Understand What is important to them: Put more efforts to connect with them, by finding out what are they really interested and get their buy in. this is quite difficult in the beginning but it needs consistent efforts to communicate and by thorough partnership the relationship can evolve
Don’t take big decisions without involving them: it's better to hold a discussion and get their buy in or feedback before you take it without their involvement
Share the health and hygiene of your business or metrics to make them interested in your project success.
If the metrics doesn't look good - be honest and share the action plans you have put in place to improve it.
Set up regular connects with their permission to update them until you see a progress
Ask for their feedback - this is where you can get them involved and start showing improvements strategically
Watch them carefully and treat them with respect irrespective of all the challenges you have to go through
Be tactful and honest
Finally, encourage them to be your advocate
Hold regular internal meetings to understand what your team members think of your stakeholders, as they might hold some critical information which you may not hear at times as a manager.
So, listen and watch out what your team members say about your stakeholders.
I have been lucky to handle different stakeholders, like stakeholders who are very supportive, neutral, unsupportive and resistant towards my operations, my goal was to
share our vision,
build the trust,
showcase the importance of what we do based and how it solves the bigger problem they have
treating them with utmost respect and honesty,
with the above tips, I am confident that you would be able to convert a negative stakeholder into a positive one.
It is important to document the observations carefully and keep your internal management appraised on the potential risks, this way your leadership is aware and not surprised.
If it is not under control then don't hold it back, bring it up with your leadership with the observations very clearly and the actions they must take. It depends upon company to company how these issues will be sorted and handled by your leadership, they may have strategic senior leadership connects with your stakeholder's management and definitely they could bring it up if it is biased or unethical towards your team.
To Conclude:
Give your best towards your project by involving the right teams and motivating them towards meeting your targets, by providing the expected results and through consistent stakeholder communication, there is a high chance that the negative stakeholder can turn in to becoming a cheerleader for your project or operations.
What challenge did you go through with your clients or stakeholder while managing teams? please share your comments below
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