How Do You Address Challenges in Stakeholder Management?
Navigating the complexities of stakeholder management, executive leaders often encounter unique challenges that test their resolve and strategic acumen. From balancing diverse stakeholder needs to facilitating transparent restructuring dialogues, we've compiled the experiences and solutions of ten Executive Directors and Managing Directors. These seasoned professionals share how they've successfully addressed some of the most pressing issues in stakeholder management.
- Balancing Diverse Stakeholder Needs
- Affirming Stakeholder Experiences
- Creating Community Advisory Groups
- Strategies for Leadership Transition
- Engaging Board Members as Active Leaders
- Centering Access for Geographical Diversity
- Adopting an Open-Door Policy
- Reframing the Organizational Narrative
- Introducing Electric Vehicles with Stakeholder Involvement
- Facilitating Transparent Restructuring Dialogues
Balancing Diverse Stakeholder Needs
At Techlahoma, we frequently navigate the challenge of balancing the needs and preferences of our diverse stakeholders, which include sponsors, grantors, and our community members. For example, sponsors may prefer a focus on trending technologies or specific programming languages, while our grantors might prioritize broad educational outreach. Simultaneously, our community members express varied interests, from in-depth coding boot camps to more general tech skills workshops. To tackle this, we engage with all parties through consistent surveys and feedback sessions, ensuring that our programming remains relevant and valuable to everyone involved. This collaborative approach allows us to coordinate these diverse demands effectively.
Affirming Stakeholder Experiences
As a psychotherapist for the past 45 years, I know that one interpersonal exchange that fortifies a person is to feel that one has been heard, understood, affirmed, and validated. That kind of human confirmation usually creates a strengthening of the relationship and a more stable sense of self from which to grow and expand the limits of one's comfort zone. The same growth and stabilization usually occur when a stakeholder feels that an Executive Director has listened thoughtfully and has indicated a true understanding of their views, concerns, and aspirations.
Accordingly, I think that a wise and forethoughtful Executive Director should approach and engage a stakeholder by first making it clear that he or she wants to hear, understand, and appreciate the stakeholder's views, concerns, and aspirations. In this atmosphere in which an Executive Director shows that he or she is sincere in wanting to appreciate and affirm the stakeholder's phenomenological inner experience, the stakeholder is most likely to be open, truthful, and amenable to a genuinely collaborative relationship toward understanding and improving whatever endeavor is under discussion.
For example, over the years, I have often heard from childless people about the barriers that they have experienced while trying to adopt a child who is a 'good fit' between themselves and the adoptive child. Such callers are often noticeably apprehensive that they will not be listened to, believed, and/or appreciated as someone who has been in a legitimate emotional struggle while trying to adopt. When these callers experience my inquiries and demeanor as sincere, thoughtful, and affirmative of their emotional and logistical struggle, then they are much more inclined to work patiently through the necessary steps toward a 'good-fit' adoption.
Creating Community Advisory Groups
Running an adult men's shelter can be a challenge—especially when that shelter exists in a neighborhood. While our shelter is open 24/7, and men don't have to leave in the morning, many do. They wander the surrounding neighborhoods and sometimes trespass, loiter, or leave trash. Also, there are times when the police remove men from the shelter, and they don't take them anywhere, so then they are wandering the neighborhood with no place to sleep.
Needless to say, the neighbors attribute all of these challenges to our shelter (not an unreasonable attribution). We created a community advisory group (and invited all neighboring properties to join it). This allows us to get regular feedback on what is happening in the surrounding neighborhoods and how we can assist (even when the individuals may not have originated at the shelter). We also created a 'Green Team' that picks up trash once a week on the surrounding properties. Now we're seen as helpful to the neighborhood.
Strategies for Leadership Transition
In 2020, I came on board Watsi.org as the first non-founder Executive Director. Moving from founder-led to new leadership is a critical moment of transition, and even survival, for organizations, and now we had to also lead this during a once-in-a-generation global crisis.
We knew that to succeed during moments of organizational transition, you must get stakeholder management right — how do you rapidly build trust to bring relationships forward, rally people behind a shared vision, and ensure the impact of your organization’s work remains paramount?
To address this challenge, I focused on three key strategies: preparedness, leading with authenticity and empathy, and radical listening.
Our founding team and I worked closely and intentionally to communicate around the transition, ensuring a high level of clarity and continuity. We engaged in deep listening sessions with stakeholders, making them feel not only integral to our vision but also helping to co-create the future of our organization together. These strategies facilitated a smooth transition, fostered stakeholder trust and openness, and ensured that our collective vision and impact remained strong. Through thoughtful planning and communication, we avoided surprises for stakeholders and made sure everyone knew they had a crucial role in shaping our future success.
Engaging Board Members as Active Leaders
The original board of BEST was small, unengaged, and mostly reported to. The new board tripled, and board members became active leaders engaged with operations, power, and specific needs they are in charge of.
Leading workgroups and establishing short-, mid-, and long-term goals. At times, they also take it upon themselves to solve emergencies. The board members expanded the executive team's capacities and the organization's impact.
In other words, the original version of the board worked if the executive and chief operations officer wanted to shine more. The second management (board) works much better for a management team to be powered up with more innovative people and to grow the organization in this way.
While working with a brilliant and large group is not always easy, it certainly is more satisfying and results-wise! Highly recommended!
Centering Access for Geographical Diversity
Our organization serves a large geographic region; one of our largest challenges has been meeting the unique climate-related needs of each stakeholder across the region. For program participants, on top of language, socioeconomics, age, and other demographics that offer a diverse and beautiful landscape, we have learned to center access above all else. Whether coastal, bay, or inland geographies, all have very specific climate challenges. To increase access, we offer our individualized programs in multiple languages; we come to areas that are considered community hubs; we offer stipends, childcare, and food at meetings. For funders, we offer clear and concise outputs and impact. For staff, we lean into transparency and communication.
Adopting an Open-Door Policy
A lot of our early struggles with managing stakeholder expectations came from a simple lack of communication. We had initially envisioned providing them with quarterly financial updates and leaving the day-to-day operations in our hands, but that turned those quarterly meetings into contentious slugfests where we spent more time fielding criticisms and advice than actually reporting numbers. Eventually, we switched to a more open-door policy, where investors are copied on internal communications, listen in on meetings, and have input on big strategic decisions. Simply keeping them informed and listening to them more frequently has done a lot to free us up to focus on running the business.
Reframing the Organizational Narrative
As Tulsa, Oklahoma's expanded learning intermediary, we work with a diverse group of stakeholders, including youth and their families, schools, and youth organizations. A significant challenge we faced was ensuring that these stakeholders fully understood the scope and impact of our work. Many viewed us through a narrow lens, often focused on preventing academic loss and battling chronic absenteeism. While central to our work, we wanted our community to appreciate the broader benefits of investing in expanded learning.
To address this, we realized we needed to reframe our narrative. We began by revisiting our messaging, ensuring that it better communicated our mission and the full value of afterschool programming. We know that young people succeed and our communities thrive when we invest in afterschool programming. It was essential to talk about the benefits of expanded learning beyond academics, such as supporting working families and providing economic opportunities to Tulsa’s youth-serving workforce.
We have diligently highlighted how our work not only addresses academic challenges but also strengthens the entire community. We updated our communication materials to consistently reflect this broader vision and actively sought feedback to refine our story further.
This reframed narrative allowed us to build stronger relationships with stakeholders by aligning our work with their priorities. It fostered a deeper understanding of the comprehensive benefits of afterschool programming, leading to increased support and collaboration across our network.
Introducing Electric Vehicles with Stakeholder Involvement
I faced a challenging situation in my self-drive vehicle rental business when we decided to introduce electric vehicles (EVs) into our fleet. Our investors were excited about the move, seeing it as a step toward future-proofing the business and tapping into a growing market. However, our long-time customers were hesitant, worried about the limited range of EVs and the availability of charging stations. At the same time, our employees were nervous about handling the new technology and the changes it would bring to their daily routines.
To tackle this, I organized a special event where we invited our key customers to test-drive the EVs and experience them firsthand. We also provided detailed information on charging options and even partnered with local charging stations to offer discounts. For our employees, I arranged training sessions that not only familiarized them with the new vehicles but also included a Q&A with experts in the field to address their concerns.
Facilitating Transparent Restructuring Dialogues
There was a time when I faced a real challenge with stakeholder management during a major restructuring of our company. We had different stakeholders pulling in various directions, from investors wanting quick profits to employees worried about job security. Each group had its own concerns and priorities. The toughest part was balancing these diverse interests while trying to push through necessary changes for the company’s long-term health.
I tackled this by setting up a series of transparent, open-dialogue meetings where every group could voice their concerns and suggestions directly. I listened, we adjusted our plans where feasible, and communicated relentlessly about why certain tough decisions had to be made. It wasn't smooth sailing, but this approach helped us to build consensus and move forward with a clearer, more unified vision. It was a pivotal learning experience in my career about the importance of communication in leadership.
