The Art of Stakeholder Management

3 key takeaways from my panel at UXDX

What do you do when you have an important stakeholder that doesn’t respond to any of your emails? Welcome to the art of stakeholder management! A single stakeholder can heavily impact the desired outcomes of a project. Early identification and engagement of key stakeholders are critical to the success of any project. However, how do you manage the stakeholder throughout each stage of the process?

I moderated a panel on this topic at the UXDX Conference yesterday. I was joined by an all-star panel, including Adam Copeland (Client Experience Architect at the Mayo Clinic), Parul Goel (Director of Product Management at Indeed), and Reed Jones (Senior UX Researcher at Zoox). Together, we explored insights on how to manage stakeholders, common challenges encountered and key tips on successfully navigating through an unclear path.

Here were our three key takeaways:

#1: Form relationships before you need them

The quote of the day was, “Build friendships and the rest will follow.” To really influence key stakeholders, you have to get to know them deeply and personally. This was the number one theme that all of our panelists agreed on, and I couldn’t agree more.

Devra Davis and I worked together when she was Product Counsel at StubHub. But way before I ever had to ask Devra to review something, we had already invested in and built our relationship. We bonded as leaders in the women’s employee resource group. This allowed us to get to know each other first and affirm our shared values. So when it came time for me to get her to sign off on my product features, it was easy to have an honest conversation with her and work together to resolve any differences in perspective.

#2: Bring your stakeholders along through a framework or technique to get buy-in

When stakeholders have the opportunity to participate and contribute to the thought process, they are bought into the solution. Earlier in the conference, Reed Jones gave a talk entitled “Breaking it down and putting it back together, together ;)”. He uses the Generic Parts Technique and Ground Theory to break down user problems together with his stakeholders and reassemble them together into new perspectives.

Similarly, when I first began to explore new senior care products at Care.com, there were many stakeholders that I needed to buy-in. There were Senior Care Advisors that knew much more about senior care than me, customer success managers that knew more about our client accounts than me, and yada yada. I knew that if I came up with an idea and shared it with everyone after the idea was fully baked, then none of my stakeholders would be on-board. Holding one meeting where I jumped to the conclusion wouldn’t cut it. Instead, I identified stakeholders to partner up with tactically and identified other stakeholders to update at key milestones. Together, we got this puppy through opportunity validation and build/buy/partner analysis, got the greenlight to build, and launched!

#3: Build skill over time and learn from missteps

Managing stakeholders is a skill that you learn and grow over the course of your career. Parul shared some examples in her talk entitled “Building strong relationships with stakeholders” also held earlier in the conference. One of my favorite stories that she shared is about how she made a misstep. She knew that a stakeholder had a different view than her, so she avoided engaging that stakeholder to avoid conflict. Later on, however, that strategy backfired because the feedback came out much later in the process when it was more damaging.

Stakeholder management has been a learning process for me too. Earlier in my career, I initially had a rocky relationship with a stakeholder. She was new to the company, asked for lots of information, stepped on toes, and never seemed to deliver anything that I needed from her. I assumed negative intent by her lack of action because no other intent had been communicated. After the friction grew, we were forced to confront the situation and figure out how to work together. It turned out that it wasn’t negative intent, but simply that being new, she didn’t know exactly what she needed to ask for or what needed to be communicated. Now, when I find myself asking for a lot of information from stakeholders, I make sure to share information back, even if I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary, so that they feel their efforts have been reciprocated. And sometimes, even though the sharing felt gratuitous, gathering perspectives from “random” stakeholders has led to breakthroughs in understanding.

* * *

Stakeholder management can be tricky, but is an essential skill to master to be effective in your career. You can and will make mistakes along the way, and that’s ok because mistakes help you grow. If you remember one thing, remember that you should form relationships before you need them.

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