Stakeholder Management – How to get what you want

As you move upwards in life, whether it is careerwise, as an entrepreneur, or in life in general, stakeholder management becomes crucial. 

Let me tell you a quick story about when I didn’t and how it affected me. When I worked at FedEx as an account manager, I wanted to move into a District Sales Manager position. My numbers were there; I was liked and respected and considered a leader. I got around 30 letters of recommendation – mostly from peers and colleagues and a few from other District Sales Managers. It seemed like a natural progression. When our district manager left the company, our regional director appointed me as acting district sales manager. And of course, I interviewed for the permanent position. And guess what, I did not get it.

Later, through more experience and, more importantly, speaking with people that found success, I found out why. I did not correctly manage the right stakeholders. I didn’t focus on addressing those with the most power and influence to make me a district sales manager – the regional sales directors. They didn’t know me, nor my success or my leadership. I put most of my efforts whipping the people with the least amount of power or influence – my peers. 

Stakeholder Management: A couple of tools to help you

What you want are stakeholder management tools. Using these tools will ensure that your project moves forward, get that promotion, your ideas are implemented, or your business gets funded. 

Here are three key considerations to take:

1. You need to identify who the stakeholders are. 
2. Stakeholders will have agendas, different priorities, and opinions that are not aligned.
3. You can’t please everybody.

With that in mind, how can you identify and then correctly manage your stakeholders?. 

1. Less is more: Work to the lowest common denominator, to avoid “decision by committee” scenarios. You need to identify each stakeholder and their role in what you want to accomplish. The fewer people, the better. Here’s an excellent decision-making framework to identify stakeholders and their roles called RAPID:

2. Once you have your stakeholders and their roles identified, you need to understand how much power they have, independently of their direct involvement. Also, how much influence they have in affecting the outcome of your project, promotion, etc. Here’s how to use a power/influence quadrant to manage your stakeholders:

Using these tools, in the last five years, I’ve achieved three promotions. I also supported the delivery of ~US$200 million in revenue as a Business Development Manager and Regional Account Manager. And in my current role in the Global Strategy and Propositions team, the delivery of global strategies related to our initial response to Covid-19 and strategic enhancements for consumer experience.

If you need any help with these tools, get in touch. 

All the best, 

Jorge