When you have a specific goal in mind that requires influence, you need to be able to chart out the work in some way. By moving these out of your mind and on to paper, you’ll gain additional clarity about what you’ve got to do to maximise your progress. Stakeholders are the important people who can have an impact, either for or against your goal.
By thinking it through, you’ll be able to identify different categories of stakeholder. You’ll be able to start to notice the balance between those who are for you and those who are against you. This will help to focus your mind on what you need to do to move towards the realisation of your objective. Failure to map these out leaves many opportunities for influence unnoticed.
Take action on this secret…
- Make a list of all those who can have an impact on your goal.
- Indicate which are for and which are against you.
- Add a score against each to show how much power you think they have.
- If you wish, you can add another indicator of how much they could win/lose, or even how much you trust them.
- Start to consider what needs to change in these to move your goal to completion.
And remember, there are many different approaches to stakeholder management, so check out what you can find on Google to develop your practice.
