As a business owner, you should never underestimate the importance of managing and engaging with your stakeholders. You can build stronger business networks and relationships and boost your organization’s reputation with the help of effective stakeholder management.
No matter how grand or small, the project is, once all stakeholders have been identified, it becomes essential to effectively engage with them as it helps with fostering a positive work relationship. A positive stakeholder relationship is mandatory if you want the project to complete within a deadline.
In the absence of positive stakeholder relationships and management, things can get off the road, resulting in delays and even the project’s cancellation. Not to mention that it can also cast a negative mark on your company’s reputation and hence damage things for the long-term.
After we have properly established the importance of effective stakeholder management and positive stakeholder relationship, here are four ways to improve these two areas of your business. Read on to learn more!
Clear Communication
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Never underestimate the importance of clear and early communication. Once the stakeholders are finalized, initiate the conversation and ensure that all stakeholders hear from you!
If feasible, avoid the first-time meeting online; instead, plan a meeting in person so that no one feels left out in the engaging process. However, it would be smart to make a list of those stakeholders that are part of the project’s initial phase and then move on to include others as the project progresses.
You may also want to mark the shared calendar while scheduling the communication meetings, preparing all stakeholders, and giving them sufficient time to plan ahead of the meeting. This also ensures that no stakeholder feels left out.
Be Honest
If you want to start on the right foot and build a good rapport with your stakeholders, make sure to stay honest throughout all your interactions. In simple words, it is impossible to build and maintain positive and productive relationships with your stakeholders without being honest.
Honesty is also an effective way to build trust in the initial phases of the project; therefore, transparency is the key. Don’t take the unnecessary risk of hiding things as things come around eventually, and then you will have a hard time undoing things and coming up with an explanation.
You can also include visual objects, such as hardcopy reports and maps, during the meetings to boost transparency.
Indicate That You Are Listening
While ensuring that communication is scheduled with your stakeholders as often as possible, you also need to indicate that you are listening to your stakeholders and giving them due respect as well. Ideally, the communication schedules should continue even after the initial phases of the projects have been successfully completed.
Make sure to address the feedback and opinions of the stakeholders so that they (stakeholders) feel that they have been heard, which will cause them to be happier and make them more supportive of your ongoing project(s).
Incorporate Effective Collaboration
By understanding the difference between informing and involving, you will know that the latter induces enormous results. On the contrary, mere informing pushes many stakeholders off their interest and causes problems as the project proceeds. A project’s success depends on a positive stakeholders’ relationship where everyone gives their share of input and works diligently to make the project a success.
That said, you may want to provide your stakeholders with more than one platform to give their feedback on the project. You must ensure accessibility so that all stakeholders have the opportunity to voice their thoughts and opinions.