Stakeholders to Focus On

by Colin Gautrey

Now that you can see the territory around your challenge, the fun starts. By stepping back and looking at the whole you can begin to see it from a strategic perspective - and identify actions to take to move it forward. Below I've highlighted some of the most important and practical aspects I've learned by helping hundreds of people focus their action.

Talk it through. Find someone you trust and share your map with them. Tell them about the goal, what you are aiming to achieve. Then explain your rationale for each individual on the map. The act of articulation is a real aid to thinking and often yields new insights, even without any help from the other person. Also, it opens the possibility that they will be able to ask intelligent questions, or even suggest other people who should be on the map. They may even be on the map themselves and able to give you some direct help!

Overall Health. Consider the overall balance between allies and adversaries. If you find yourself with few allies, you probably need to focus on getting some - quick! Also, if you find that the allies you have got have little real impact on what you are hoping to achieve, again, find some more.

Work the Borderlines. Chances are there are several people that are sat on one of the middle lines. Maybe this is because you're not quite sure you can trust them or that they agree. If you spot someone sat there who has the potential to have a high impact, focus on how you can bring them over to the right side of the line. You may even find when you engage them that there were there all along.

Avoid Low Trust. It is natural to fret and worry about the adversaries, and those who you have little trust with. Unless they have a major impact, relax. Instead focus on those where you have high trust that can potentially help you to mitigate the damaging effect the adversaries can have. For many goals, you don't have to get everyone on side, just enough to carry the day.

Spot Critical People. Often, there will be one or two people, because of their position and power that are critical to your success. Who are they? On your map, who is the most powerful person? Who will benefit the most from your success? Who has the most to lose from your success?

Value Opposition. Many people overlook this point. Opponents, while frustrating at times, are those who will put there cards on the table and tell you why they disagree with you. This can be extremely useful in sharpening up your proposal. If you can negotiate and win these over you should be able to win enough support to succeed. Sometimes I come across people who having done the mapping, find they have no opposition. This begs the question - why? Maybe it's because nobody cares about what they are trying to achieve, and so they are being under ambitious. A sad alternative reason is that the opposition has gone underground due to lack of trust.

Building Trust. Trust is an essential ingredient in being able to successfully influence. If you find that your map has few people over to the right, you have to ask yourself the question why? Is it because you don't trust anybody, or is it that nobody trusts you? We all have our own concept of what trust is and it would be worth you considering this at a general level and be honest with yourself about the way you conduct your relationships at work.

One of the things that I love about this approach to Strategic Stakeholder Management is that it is fast to action. It doesn't take very long at all to find things that you can do to move forward your goal. Keep revisiting and redrawing your map regularly because the people will move around it as you take action.

Colin Gautrey -- author, coach, facilitator and noted expert in the practical use of power and influence in the workplace. Colin has coached top executives around the world, run workshops for international teams and always gets results. As an author, he has written several books and regularly appears on the conference stage on his specialist subject of power and influence. To find out more about his work visit him at www.siccg.com