3.3 Taking stakeholder analysis further

So I’m Paul Walley. I'm the Director of Learning for the Centre for Policing Research and Learning.

What first got you involved or interested in stakeholder management?

My interest is first provoked when I reviewed the progress of an IT project. The project didn’t seem to be going very well. And it became apparent quite quickly that one of the main issues was that of managing the stakeholders in the project.

Their failure to engage the stakeholders has had a significant detrimental impact on the progress and outcome of the IT project they’ve been managing.

Was addressing this problem about looking at the user requirements of the IT project?

Initially, the technical spec and the user requirements was very much part of the problem.

The project team had not looked at user requirements, and so the specification for the system was incorrectly defined. However, the additional oversight was how the stakeholders were engaged at any level in the inevitable organisation change that had to take place. It was as much about working with the stakeholders on the change process as the technical spec

Would these insights also apply outside of IT to a wider set of issues?

Yes, it’s of immense value in any situation where there are stakeholders. But people don't often see how political or sensitive these issues are in many of the situations that they’re in. In the course, we’re looking at stakeholders where an economic development of a local community is taking place, how things should be done and what problems should be solved.

Even where people agree on what actions should take place, there will be winners and losers with any change that occurs. Even where people agree on what actions should take place, there will be winners and losers as change occurs. Some people may support what's happening, but may be inconvenienced by this. Others will be dead against the change and others will be supportive and can't understand why anyone resists.

How would you recommend people look at stakeholders in a different way?

Once you think you’ve got all your stakeholders involved and defined, you should understand the extent to which they have both positive and negative emotions for what is being done. Don’t overlook the fact that people can have both positive and negative emotions at the same time. And these give you an insight into their attitudes towards what you’re doing.

You should identify I think four key groups. There are the people who are inconvenienced most and benefit the least. And they will rationally resist you or try to obstruct you in trying to achieve what you’re doing.

There are people who have little or no interest in what you’re doing or some very slight negative emotions. And these people won't obstruct you. But they’ll just be very difficult to engage. The people who can’t see anything bad in what is happening, and perhaps really benefit from the changes that are taking place,

they’ll support the change, but they’re not very good at bringing others on board with the changes because they can’t really explain some of the negative sides. And so they can't see some of the sensitive issues that other people can see.

And then finally, there are some people who can see both sides of any contentious issues. They’re really good at engaging in debate and engaging others. So they carry a lot of hidden influence. These are the people you should harness to bring other people who might be wavering into supporting what you’re trying to achieve.

You mention rational resistance to change. Is that how you see it?

Yes, don’t see resistance to change as an entirely negative consequence. In fact, you should often learn from resistance to change to guide your approach to stakeholders. Are you communicating well enough with people? Because that can engender resistance in itself. Are the right ideas being implemented? Don’t forget you can actually be wrong in what you’re trying to do, and some people might have a good insight into better ways to do things.

Are people being negatively affected in ways that nobody understands? Have you understood some of their concerns? Or is it that really it's not exactly resistance, but simply response to change? And do you need to give people more time to make some of the adjustments?