G’day Chief,

In today’s minisode, we are going to guide you through the process of mastering the art of influencing stakeholders and partners, such that it catapults you forward (and upwards!) in your career.

Stakeholders have a huge impact – negatively and positively – on your career and your personal life whether you like it or not. These people can be your corporate peers, suppliers, customers, board members, executive team members, your boss, the community, media, anyone out there who's got a key stake in what you do.

As such, getting buy-in from difficult stakeholders is one of the most important tasks and skills of all senior executives and leaders.

A few stakeholder stories from my past

I get asked a version of this question a lot by my clients, especially in a one-to-one coaching session.

“Greg, I've just got this horrendous, board member or team member at work that is so difficult. They block, they obstruct, they're obnoxious, they're toxic, or I just can't seem to get through them. They micromanage, they dip down.”

First and foremost, I just want to tell a few stories from my experience that really demonstrate the power of being able to nail stakeholder management and turn detractors into ambassadors.

I was working with a medium-sized company turning over roughly $200m a year and they had a really big tender going to a government agency. This was a big, big deal, like 20% of their revenue so they went through their whole tender process from start to finish. Right at the end, they discovered that they weren't going to win the tender. When asking for feedback, the client took them aside and said, “Look, the reality is when we first met with you, you came in, sat down, showed us your catalogues, your products, everything you're going to provide us, and it looked great. However, your competitors walked in with an empty notepad and started asking questions. They wanted to know what was most important to us. And throughout the tender process, they were more dialled in than you were on just about everything.

At that moment, it was really clear that the stakeholder (the customer in this case) was not being heard.

The second story was when I was helping a mining business in Africa do a large turnaround. I was at this mine site in Tanzania one day, and I was working with the General Manager and he was telling me about an issue where they were losing money constantly because of trucks not being available, parts not being ready or poor quality parts.

They were trying to ramp up the production of the mine but every day they tried to do this, their vehicle would break down or a part would fail. So they couldn't get this momentum in increasing the production level of the mine. And I asked why they didn’t have parts or machines ready, and the GM said, “Well, the Finance team down in Johannesburg just won't get them for us.” After some prodding, he said, “It’s costing us about $10 to 15 million a year in lost production.” I followed that up by asking, “Is there a project in your business that you're running now that can deliver that kind of return?” and he said not a chance.

We flew to Johannesburg and we sat down with the Finance team and what we discovered was they had been instructed by the CFO – for good reason – to reduce the cost in the business. So they had less parts available at the site to save capital and had lower quality parts because it was cheaper. However, in contrast, the Operations were under a different instruction; they were told to increase production, not decrease the cost. So immediately it was obvious that they had competing priorities.

So how did we solve it? We got the COO and the CFO on the line and said, “Let's all just talk this through and get to an outcome.” It took us about 90 minutes and the problem was solved.

The last one was when I had this drill sergeant of a boss back in the day. He actually did serve in the army previously, and deep down he was a good guy. I actually quite enjoyed his company, but he was a ball breaker. I really had no idea how to respond to this level of intensity. The micromanagement was off the charts.

I’d had enough, so I sat down and worked out what our two personalities were. I used the Myers-Briggs model and worked out that I was an ENFP (Campaigner) and he was ESTJ (Executive). We actually conflicted naturally, but what was really interesting was in the guides I read, it spoke about where the points of conflict are most likely going to arise, and I used that information to create a strategy to get him on my side.

We used to meet at 3pm on Friday and I would just get hammered in this meeting. So after working out his personality type and conflict points, I created a really clear, quite detailed weekly report for him. It was a beautiful scorecard on the business, all the projects we were running, who did what in the last week, what was coming next week, all our numbers, and what I was doing about everything.

The look on his face was one of complete amazement. He loved it. Within a week, the level of micromanagement and intensity completely left the room. I started to speak his language. I started to serve him in a way that looked after him and it made all the difference.

Building trust is vital to stakeholder engagement

Chiefs, there are many, many different ways to deal with stakeholders, but what I want you to understand is that you all have agency. You all have some level of impact on any and every single relationship, and to move past difficult stakeholders you have to bring that ownership within you.

One thing you have to learn is that trust is the currency of relationships. Without trust between you and the stakeholder, there is no influence. Ever. I built that trust with my boss, because I took the time to speak his language. We got the trust with the Finance team in Johannesburg because we took the effort to get on a plane and go and ask them about their reasons for making certain decisions. It wasn’t coming from a place of us wanting to direct them.

I'm going to teach you a few ways that might help you get that trust even with supremely difficult and prickly characters.

Avoid these common mistakes

I suspect one of the most common pitfalls is that we dance around problems and we don't really lean into them. We end up fearing the conflict and forgetting all of the other people that might be suffering as a result. So instead of going to bat for all those people, we actually just leave it fester and we kick the can down the road and nothing happens. The next person has the same problem that you do. So we just discount the amount of stress you're feeling and probably them as well, but all of that has a direct impact on culture, happiness, flow and results.

Sometimes we move too fast without understanding the other person’s priorities. We don't get across their incentives, their motivations, what's going on inside their head and the track record they're currently building.

We're unintentional with our influence. We wade into it, we avoid it, and that's what we really, really want to take control of now. Let's stop, use a little bit of process, so we influence with integrity.

4 powerful steps to nailing stakeholder management

     1. Get your mindset right

First, seek to understand instead of trying to get a win whenever you go into a meeting.

As Albert Einstein said, “Stop trying to be a person of success; become a person of value.” Calm down and stop trying to rush towards the results. Rather give your stakeholders what they need to become successful. The more you do that, the more you give them value above and beyond your remit.

As Noel Whitaker said in Episode 260, “I believe in the universal bank; I keep putting the positive in the universal bank and it keeps paying it back with interest.”

     2. Stakeholder mapping

Chiefs, what I find super valuable (and what we cover in depth in the Chief Maker MiniMBA) is to map out your stakeholders and work out whether they are critical, important or neutral to what you're doing. On the other side of your matrix is how much support they give you. Are they a detractor, neutral or an ambassador?

Combining the two, if you imagine that someone is critically important to your success but who is a detractor, they should be number one priority for you to remove that friction. Alternatively, if you've got someone who's critical and is an ambassador, who raves about you and supports you when you're not in the room, that's someone who you really want to leverage.

You can download a template for free in our Stakeholder Management Guide.

     3. Build an engagement plan

You've got to do this for each person who is a stakeholder, not a stakeholder group, because that's who you negotiate with. That's who you work with, human-to-human. It’s who you have to connect with.

You really need to get your head around who they are, what their pressures are, and what their commitments are. What's the reason that they have to work with you, and what are their dreams and goals? They might be the same as yours!

What is their personality compared to yours? What is their backstory away from work? What was their career and life story before they even turned up here?

What about their bonus-linked KPIs? What are the incentives they're under? Who is their boss and what kind of pressure are they under from them? Who is their key customer, internally and externally? 

Imagine how much better it would be if you were sitting down to talk with someone to get their buy-in, and you knew where they come from, who they are, what makes them tick. That's so important.

There's a great saying, “Always bet on the horse called self-interest, because it's the only one trying.” People will always be looking after themselves as that's human nature. It's not terrible, it’s just what it is.

You also have to understand what your level of reputation and trust is with them. Are you likeable? Reliable? Capable? Have you delivered for them previously? If not, and you've got a bit of a prickly relationship, you've got no chance until you've earned some trust.

     4. What is the key outcome of the initial engagement?

When you go into that conversation with your key stakeholder, what do you want that person to think, feel, and do at the end of the meeting?

Sometimes, I just want them to feel heard. I just want them to feel as though I took the time to really, really understand what was going on without any judgement.

Every person has a story, Chief, and they're dying to tell it. Start there, and you'll have an amazing experience and influence.

Remember, your brand or your reputation is what people say about you when you're not in the room. Lean into these moments because the more you can do them better, the more people will go, “Wow, that is a great person, I really want to work with them again in the future.”

Getting stakeholder management right is vital to career success and catapulting you ahead of your peers and the competition. As I said, we’ve got a free step-by-step guide with all the templates and conversations you need to have with key stakeholders, and we also cover it in-depth in the Chief Maker MiniMBA where you get to work on your engagement plans in real-time with other seriously good leaders.

Stay epic,

Greg