Module2Lesson1.docx

Before we can determine the needs and goals of stakeholders, we first need to identify who they are. You will need to create a list of all the people who might be affected by your presentation, those that have influence or power over your work, or have an interest in your presentation being successful or not. To do this, we need to start out with a brainstorming session. To prepare for this brainstorming session, you will need to create a table that contains anyone who might be a stakeholder in your presentation or project. That table may look something like this:

Your supervisor Company shareholders State or federal government
Directors and executives Company allies or partners Trade associations
Coworkers Contractors Media
Team players Investors Concerned groups
Clientele Specialists The public
Potential clientele Future workforce The surrounding community
Your family and friends Significant providers Consultants
 
Remember that stakeholders can be an entity such as an organization, or people in general. More commonly stakeholders will consist of people, and you will need to communicate appropriately.

Once you have populated a list of stakeholders that will be affected by your presentation, both favorably and unfavorably, and those who don’t care, you will need to prioritize their positions.

To make your prioritization easy to understand, you need to create a map that classifies them as to their power over your work and the degree of interest that they might have in your presentation.

The media, for example, would probably fall into the low power and influence category and have either a low or high-interest level depending upon the impact your project might have. On the other hand, shareholders might fit into the high-power and influence category and have a high interest if their dividends might be affected.Once populated, you will need to take appropriate action according to where they fall within the grid.

· High Power and High Interest (Carefully Manage Quadrant): Make your greatest effort to satisfy these stakeholder’s needs.
· High Power and Low Interest (Maintain Satisfaction Quadrant): Keep these stakeholders satisfied, but don’t overindulge.
· Low Power and High Interest (Inform Quadrant): Maintain an adequate communication flow and inform them of any major issues. These people can help you with details.
· Low Power and Low Interest (Observe Quadrant): Monitor, but don’t overindulge these stakeholders.
Now that you have a good idea of who your stakeholders are and how they feel about your presentation or project, you need to know how to communicate with them.

Some questions to consider that will help you understand your key stakeholders include:

Interests

· Are your stakeholder’s financial or emotional interests in your presentation positive or negative?

Motivation

· What can you do to motivate your stakeholders?

Needs

· What do you think they need and want from you, and how do you fulfill that need?

Information

· Does readily available information influence their opinions on your project?

External Influence

· Are there other people or entities influencing their opinions? If so, you might want to add them to your stakeholder list.

Attitude

· If your stakeholders have a negative opinion of what you are doing, what can you do to reverse this attitude?

Control Outcomes

· If you don’t think you can win them over, what will you do to keep them in check?

Review Stakeholders

· Are there other people influenced by the naysayers, if so you might want to add them to your stakeholder’s list.

If you don’t have any idea what the answers might be for some of your stakeholders, ask these questions to them directly. You might be surprised at their answers, and if you ask them for their thoughts, you could develop a positive rapport.

As you develop varying levels of support from your stakeholders, you can easily summarize their level of backing by color-coding their names placed in the appropriate area on your prioritization chart. For example, green could indicate positive support, red could mean unsupportive, and orange could mean indecision or indifference.

Over time, as you develop projects and presentations that are important to your company, your influence on others will begin to grow. Hopefully, most of them will become supporters, but you will always have people who want to challenge your work.

Identifying and determining the needs and goals of your stakeholders through brainstorming and analysis is the first phase of getting to know what motivates them. With this information, you will be in a better position to create a project or presentation that will result in the best stakeholder support possible.