Today we're going to be discussing these issues,
specifically with Graham Chase who's Chairman of Chase & Partners.
And we're going to explore with Graham, how he identifies his key stakeholders?
And how then he looks to built collaborative relationships with
these key stakeholders?
So Graham, in your various areas of work, how do you identify, first of all,
who your key stakeholders are?
And then how do you prioritize how you deal with each of those?
>> Well a stakeholder's anybody who has
a vested interest in the activity that you're going to undertake.
And the key thing is to remember that it isn't necessary the obvious parties.
They can be a whole range of stakeholders
further down the line that have to be considered and that of
course is are going to be project specific or specific to that particular activity.
You have to do your research.
But so what I do find is miss somebody out,
either intentionally or unintentionally, it normally comes back to bite you.
And it's best to engage stakeholders from the beginning as widely as you can.
And at least start on, on the, the journey.
Chairman Mao said there, every long journey begins with but a single step.
And you don't necessarily know how the end of the journey is going to start off.
But if you take the right step, then as you go down that path
you will find that the right things come back at you.
So always with stakeholders, remember that there maybe some in the background that
you don't know about, but as you go down your path you'll come across them.
Then engage them.
>> Mm-hm. >> So dealing with
stakeholders is all about engagement.
And it's how you engage with them, I think the second part of your
question is the difficult thing.
It's very difficult if you're given a project, or a task,
or you're running a company to be totally independent. In fact,
you're normally, as a stakeholder, required not to be independent, but promote or
advocate the best position without misleading or
being untrustworthy of your position.
Advocacy is entirely appropriate and proper.
Means you're looking after your side of the story.
But if you're dealing with stakeholders, of course every stakeholder may have
a totally different requirement or need, or their involvement is different, and
what they're trying to get out of it is different.
That independence is therefore difficult to achieve, but
the one thing that's guided me is as a transaction based individual,
someone who works for the market.
Is to remember this, there's no deal or
end result happens which only ever suits one party.
It may not be the best position for that one party.
But if you don't understand what your other stakeholders want.