handling adversaries and allies

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Stakeholder Management

The strength of the workshop lies in the exchange of ideas and experiences.

Your engagement with the process of developing a strategy to make you less vulnerable to hierarchical power exercised by stakeholders.

Stakeholder management skills include analysis, planning, mapping and engagement.

We’ll explore the processes that change agents need to follow and look at some alternative strategies to match your unique context.

There are specific techniques which having been explained, can be tested in exercise form for mapping and engagement.

Stakeholder Management is a lengthy responsibility covering the life of a project as well as the life of the products or outcomes of the project.

One management responsibility is to track that the costs outweigh the benefits. This cost/benefit relationship is laid out in a financial justification

in business terms.

However, generally costs are expended in the early project stages and the

benefits accrued later (through a profile of revenue income or cost-avoidance after it comes into operation).



These are challenging times for all of us in the workplace; there’s pressure on the way we work with each other and the way that we manage change.

In this workshop we’ll look at stakeholder management from both the change agent (e.g. a project manager, programme manager, portfolio manager, head of transformation/change, HR Director) and Business As Usual perspectives (i.e. the customers of change programmes).

One of the key issues mentioned to us concerns engagement with stakeholders i.e. about coping as a project manager with not having

influence and power over customers to do what you, as the PM, need to occur.

We’ll explore the processes that change agents need to follow and look at some alternative strategies to match your unique context.

1. To identify the stakeholders,

2. To understand their interests and impact,

3. To influence them and their relevant relationships,

4. To devise a strategy for how to incorporate the stakeholder into the

project’s design through analysis, planning, mapping, engagement and defining benefit attainment profiles.



One quarter of the globe’s annual gross product is spent on projects -approximately £10 trillion, serving as motivation enough for effectively managing stakeholders. The lives of many people are touched by projects.

Most large organisations have project, programme and portfolio levels with pools of managers. There are at least two million practitioners in the UK alone.

The relationship between the programme or project with stakeholders is fundamental to business success.

A project manager needs to cope with not having direct line authority over

stakeholders to do what is needed, when it is needed.

It is vital for a project manager (PM) to create engagement with

stakeholders. Influence needs to be engendered by interpersonal communication and by use of intelligent research & planning.



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This workshop introduces (within the time limit of 90 minutes) skills and techniques for discussion and adaptation to your own context.

Consider your stakeholders and the relative contribution they make to your work:

Identify the TEN key relationships (regardless of the relative status/rank) and map them using the stakeholder map categories which I’ll explain on the next couple of slides. You are essentially weighing how much you believe they can be trusted and are in agreement with your vision, goals or purpose. In identifying vulnerable groups, you’ll get an idea of who will need the most help in making the changes necessary for project success.

1. List all the potential beneficiaries of the outcome of the project.

2. Identify who might be adversely affected by the outcome of the project.

3. Identify any vulnerable groups (e.g. old people, disabled people, poor people, people living in a particular geographical region, etc.)

4. Create a table which maps out all the information collected which looks something like this:

You will have to make the effort to get to know people and their work on a professional basis and grow trust with them first before confirming agreement. Turning adversaries into allies needs an understanding from their perspectives of ‘What’s in it for me?’ and an understanding from them of your just cause in leading change.

Stakeholder Group Name

Interests Impact Importance Influence

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Start with the end in mind…Identify the interests and impacts of these stakeholders - are they supporters, opponents or neutral? What are the relationships amongst them?

1.ALLIES – someone is your ally if there is both high agreement and high trust between you. You have open communication, and feel authentic sharing concerns and opinions. Around allies, its OK to feel vulnerable as they will not take advantage of it. You feel authentic in their company and support flows spontaneously, easily and naturally.

2.OPPONENTS – someone is your opponent because they are genuinely in disagreement with you on a point, goal or ambition. They can be trusted to overtly communicate their reasons for not supporting your vision, purpose, direction or goals. There is no deceit.

3.BEDFELLOWS – are people who you need to be careful around because they appear to agree but you do not trust them for some reason. You might want to craft communications with them and not expose as much information as you would to your allies.

4.FENCESITTERS - you are likely to have insufficient information to know how to trust these people or to express the level of agreement between you that exists on your vision, purpose, direction or goals. Low trust and unknown agreement characterises your view of them.

5.ADVERSARIES – May well have been a bedfellow at some point but they have switched sides or become hard to pin down. They will not be supporting your vision, purpose, direction or goals. They soak up energy and may sabotage your plans.

Make sure you note in the categories those who will ‘make it happen’, ‘let it happen’, ‘are uninvolved’, and ‘stop it happen’. Keep this list private and confidential. Clarify all the contact details of the supporters and opponents first and get clear all their key meetings.



Research and identify the current and past relationships amongst the stakeholders. For example, have people had a close relationship in the past which circumnavigates their current line relationships in the organisation? They could have been together at school, college, university, management develop courses, shared a flat, have familial connections, etc. This is important because it affects what leaks out from one group to another and could negate the carefully crafted & timely messages when you later produce an end-to-end communications plan.

Evaluate each stakeholders interests and their impact on the outcome of the project. List their expectations. List the benefits that they will be responsible for achieving (cost reduction, cost avoidance, revenue streams, intangible benefits.) Benefits can be auditable or measurable or may simply be identifiable.

Identify the types of resources that the stakeholder may be able to mobilise and if they are willing to do so. Map any stakeholder interests which conflict with a goal of the project or its products. Create a table which maps out their influence and its importance

1. ALLIES – someone is your ally if there is both high agreement and high trust between you. You

have open communication, and feel authentic sharing concerns and opinions. Around allies, its OK

to feel vulnerable as they will not take advantage of it. You feel authentic in their company and

support flows spontaneously, easily and naturally.

2. OPPONENTS – someone is your opponent because they are genuinely in disagreement with you

on a point, goal or ambition. They can be trusted to overtly communicate their reasons for not

supporting your vision, purpose, direction or goals. There is no deceit.

3. BEDFELLOWS – are people who you need to be careful around because they appear to agree but

you do not trust them for some reason. You might want to craft communications with them and not

expose as much information as you would to your allies.

4. FENCESITTERS - you are likely to have insufficient information to know how to trust these people

or to express the level of agreement between you that exists on your vision, purpose, direction or

goals. Low trust and unknown agreement characterises your view of them.

5. ADVERSARIES – May well have been a bedfellow at some point but they have switched sides or

become hard to pin down. They will not be supporting your vision, purpose, direction or goals. They



soak up energy and may sabotage your plans.


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One of the key issues mentioned to us concerns engagement with stakeholders i.e. about coping as a project manager with not having influence and power over customers to do what you, as the PM, need to occur. We’ll explore the processes that change agents need to follow and look at some alternative strategies to match your unique context.

If you do not have official delegated lines of authority over money and people such as in a matrix management situation, then you can become a person seen as influential through developing your expertise, sources of information and connections. People with ‘personal power’ are the ‘GoTo’

person for a particular programme – they’re the one ‘in the know’. With

hard work and research, by being diligent in getting to know the organisation structure and the key stakeholders, you can become influential even if your official delegated limits of authority are not what you

would have wished for in taking up your role.

This involves you developing a balance of responsive and assertive influencing skills AND the ability to wield a range of influencing strategies

which are mapped to the different stakeholder groups and their respective interests. This is how you learn to cope with not having official influence

and power over customers to do what you, as the PM, need to occur. This is the politically savvy route to getting the project or programme on track complementing the standard best practice methods and toolset

(PRINCE2, PMI, MSP, ITIL, etc.)



In the high pressure cooker environment of a project or programme, people will respond differently to the pressures involved. Even the most enlightened in normal circumstances can behave against their norms in these circumstances.

Think about what pressure individuals may be under from work or their home life when you experience or observe unproductive behaviour in them.

The best mix of behaviours is a balance of assertive and responsive behaviours as seen on the Left Hand Side of the matrix.

This means that people hear what you say and feel heard, understood and respected by you too.

Now have a think about the Stakeholder Map and the list of your top ten stakeholders. What influencing strategies do you need to pick to improve the number of allies, to change the mind of opponents or minimise their negative impact? Who can you enrol to help you monitor and control adversaries and to manage bedfellows? Who has common interests with you and positions of influence or opportunities?



If you do not have a position of power over all the stakeholders then you need to match your need to influence them with the time that you have available.

It may be that the people with the most decision-making authority are doing their job and helping the project along. Alternatively, they may be inexperienced, overly busy or preoccupied elsewhere with matters other than your project. This is where you need to understand the relative importance on each stakeholder group over the different stages of the project.

Friendliness takes the most time and is the weakest of influencing strategies.

Assess the stages at which they impact the project through their influence and

how this affects their relative importance. Expect stakeholders with higher

importance and influence to be involved earlier and more intensively in the

process.

Identify their power and status in terms of political sway, social influence,

budgetary control or through some diversity (e.g. representing a minority group’s interests), legal compliance, or control of some resources.

Identify how organised opponents are as well as supporters.

Identify individuals who control strategic resources and make yourself known to them.

Identify individuals with informal influences through past relationships which give them power beyond their role impacting your role.

Map the project stages and the type of participation you, or they, want to keep on

side.



Typically the flowchart shows you the kind of cyclical influence process that you will go through.

By doing your homework on each stakeholder (group and key individual) you will be able to craft relevant messages which will build your credibility in their eyes and interest in you. You must create rapport in your interactions and have emotionally intelligence behaviour in all your communications with them.

It is a cliché to say that you have to win hearts and minds, but neuroscience backs this up with hard evidence of how people communicate deeply with each other in generating trust and achieving agreement.

Each stakeholder group will be impacted by change in a unique way, and your role as a change agent is to mobilise this change and help make the changes.

By planning the involvement of stakeholders throughout the project stages you can create opportunities for monitoring their commitment and consolidate the transition.

This could be a whole series of workshops on their own!



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STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP Knowledge Café Output

Team 1 - Importance of:

Interpersonal skills

Reliable communication

Really knowing your people

Revisiting all influencing factors on a regular basis to ensure up-to-date understanding

Team 2 - The impact of:

Stakeholder Lifecycle management

Staff changes within the project and also leave the organisation as in dramatic restructuring has an impact on the stakeholder map

Stakeholder versus line management influence & subsequent reinterpretation of objectives

Team 3 - Concerns:

Really understanding stakeholder’s true views

The management of dispersed teams

The dangers of assumptions

Team 4 – Keeping up with

Capturing the requirements and how they change – mistiming when resources are allocated

Timely engagement of stakeholders and the level of communication with them; awareness of their needs

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The impact of organisational culture

Sources of power and how they are used to influence stakeholders & their motivation

Maintaining motivation regarding stakeholder needs


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