[MUSIC] A Stakeholder is an individual or group that has a vested interest in an organization's performance. So if we pause for a minute and think about your own organization or an organization with which your familiar with. And start to identify who the key stakeholders might be. Very quickly you're going to come up with a list of North of 20, very, very quickly. And you're then be able to categorize stakeholders into Internal Stakeholders, so those within the organization, and external stakeholders are those who'd be primarily outside of the organization. And then you'll come across some stakeholders who might be both internal and external stakeholders. We need to start to think about how an organization manages effectively relationships with its key stakeholders. You'll have gathered already then, from the list that you'll have built up, that there are lots of people to think about. All of whom are going to have their own priorities, their own expectations, their own agenda. From that, very quickly, you'll see at any given point in time some stakeholders who may have common agendas, common priorities. You may, and probably will, find stakeholders who've got diametrically opposite agendas and expectations. Somehow to be effective, an organization needs to build a series of collaborative and sustainable relationships with all its key stakeholders. So a number of things need to happen. One framework that you might want to look at was forwarded by Mendelow and Mendelow put forward a stakeholder grid. And on this grid you plot each of the stakeholders according to their relative importance and relative influence at that moment in time. And by using this framework you can categorize stakeholders by virtue of their relative importance and relative influence. It is a little bit subjective, but nevertheless, it gives you a framework from which to build. It's impossible to deal with all of the stakeholders full-time, all of the time. It just is not possible. So, therefore, an element of prioritization becomes critical in order to survive longer term. 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. If you don't achieve them something which gives them the balance and their wish to enter into that agreement, arrangement or project, you don't do it. >> Right. >> And if you don't do it, you haven't achieved anything. So there's no point. In other words, at the end of the day, what are you trying to achieve? Something which everybody feels comfortable with. That also means by definition is it doesn't necessarily suit one party only. In fact, by definition, to do a deal it must suit all the stakeholders. >> So Graham has highlighted a number of really important points in terms of stakeholders and stakeholder management. Point number one, we need to be aware of who those stakeholders are. Why? Because if we don't do that, then there is a risk that very early on we realize we've missed somebody out. And that may or may not have very serious consequences for what then happens as a result. Graham also highlighted with us the importance of building collaborative relationships with these key stakeholders to understand how this interrelationship is going to work. And very, very important point Graham has shared with us just now, that is satisfying one stakeholder, so meeting their expectations and priorities cannot be done and shouldn't be done in isolation. So the end result of whatever it is that's being done through stakeholder engagement necessarily is going to impact to a greater or lesser degree on other stakeholders as well. So, whilst you might be prioritizing one or maybe more stakeholders at this moment in time, it is imperative that you keep your other stakeholders engaged, even if you're not able to meet their priorities on this occasion. So in other words, underpinning that is going to be communicating to everybody right the way through and keeping them involved in each stage of the process, even if they're not the priority stakeholder at that moment in time. Would that be a fair summary, Graham? >> It is, it's correct. Because at the end of the day you've also got to make a decision. >> Yeah. >> Remember we said the key is you've identified what you're going to do, and you have to make a decision. Decision making is the hardest thing that I've come across. And when you've got a series of stakeholders, it is even tougher. If I'm on my own, that's easy. I can decide whether to buy a Mars bar or not. But if I have to make a decision with 20 other people with me, as to whether it's a Mars bar or a Topic or a bar of Cadbury's chocolate or Lindt chocolate and everybody has a different preference, then you've suddenly got a decision to make. What you've gotta do is make a decision, so how do you do it? Well I've said, you need to keep everybody engaged and you have to make sure everybody feels comfortable with it even though it's not their ideal. If you've got it right, people recognize that it hasn't got everything that they want, but they also understand that if you don't do it that way, others won't join with you. The other stakeholders won't be with you. And they don't have a deal at all. Compromise is important, not just for compromise's sake because why compromise if you don't have to? But the art of dealing with decision making with a series of stakeholders to make sure that they all feel that they've got something out of it. That to me is a very tough thing to do, but absolutely critical. These wide deals being done really are very difficult things to do. People think it's easy, it's not. You've got all those skills to bring together, to get a decision which everybody buys into. Failure to do that means you have no outcome. No outcome means you haven't achieved your objective. >> So, we're learning that stakeholder relationships and stakeholder management actually is quite an art form. Because in the end, as Graham has shared with us, a decision needs to be made. And that decision maybe on behalf of one or two or a small proportion of your key stakeholders. And that may or may not satisfy some of your other stakeholders on that occasion. It maybe, as Graham has shared with us, that you look for a balance between making a decision for some stakeholders and an element of compromise for your other stakeholders. So nobody, and exactly the way as Graham shared with us, nobody and no stakeholder is feeling isolated, because at that point you really do get to a potentially dangerous situation. So this whole philosophy of stakeholder engagement means plural, all your stakeholders, while you're demonstrating a level of stakeholder prioritization. So which stakeholders at that moment in time are key to keep satisfied and keep engaged. and which of the others you might want to compromise with and how, throughout whatever process that you're looking to go through in terms of stakeholder management. Do you reach that in decision? Was maintaining that absolute requirement of a stakeholder collaboration. Graham, thank you very much for sharing these experiences with us. >> My pleasure. [MUSIC]
