Tips for Improving Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholder engagement is a critical ingredient for successful project delivery. Unfortunately, this is a factor that is often regarded as relatively unimportant, and is sometimes even outsourced to third parties. People will only respond to something when they are engaged in its operations or participating in its decision-making process. Stakeholders are individuals or small groups with the power to change an organization’s strategic future. They are key influencers who can make or break a project. For this reason, stakeholder engagement should be maintained and refined during all project stages.

During the early stages of a project, it’s essential to undertake a comprehensive stakeholder analysis to help you identify your stakeholders. The stakeholder analysis process should examine critical factors, including interest in the project, concerns, needs, expectations, proximity to the project, stakeholder demographics, and any relevant public statements made in the past. Also, endeavor to know your internal stakeholders including your immediate staff. Understanding your internal stakeholders will allow you to assess whether your organization has the right resources to function effectively.

In the early stages, a project might be unclear regarding purpose, approach, scope, and risks to your critical stakeholders. This is why regular consultation with your stakeholders is essential to ensure that critical aspects of the project are acceptable to the majority. Early on, develop key messages and use them consistently. If your message needs to be changed for whatever reason, it’s vital to be clear about it, explaining why the change became necessary.

Communication with your stakeholders should not stop after the initial stages of the project have been completed. To maintain stakeholder support, regular communication is vital. You can achieve this through regular project updates or newsletters. Make a point to show stakeholders that the concerns they have expressed have been addressed. When they feel that their voices and sentiments have been heard, they will enthusiastically support your project.

Another way an organization can enhance stakeholder engagement is by giving them several channels through which to provide feedback. Generally, they want their opinions heard, and you must facilitate this by making it easy for them to reach you. Your stakeholders are human, and you must accept they may not always behave in a consistent, rational, predictable, or reasonable way. By understanding the root cause of their behavior, it’s possible to explore better ways of working together and maintaining a productive stakeholder relationship. For example, you could try connecting with a particularly resistant stakeholder in person rather than wait for their feedback in a public forum. This can help resolve issues more quickly and with fewer misunderstandings.

Often, corporate governance is steeped in jargon. Your senior management may be familiar with the regulatory and technical terms specific to their roles within the organization. However, don’t expect all your internal stakeholders, such as board influencers, to have the same level of understanding or knowledge. Board members generally wield significant power, and they may be hesitant to greenlight anything covered in technical jargon that they don’t understand. Learn to deliver information simply without obscuring the important details, as this will contribute to transparency and improve engagement.

In today’s online social media activism age, stakeholder engagement is more critical than ever before. Neglecting this aspect of a project could lead to delays in decision-making that could impact resource allocation, project delivery, or even lead to a project’s early termination.

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