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Restarting Stakeholder Engagement: 8 Questions Leaders Must Ask

As we look ahead to redesigning the post-pandemic workplace and re-establishing business relationships, stakeholder engagement will once again be one of the more critical aspects of leadership. After all, many of your stakeholders — anyone from your frontline employees to suppliers to business partners — have been working remotely for the past 15 months. And many companies have found that engagement has taken a back seat to “just get the work done.”

As you seek input to re-engage with employees and customers, there are many advantages to identifying and getting to know your primary stakeholders. There are also distinct disadvantages if leaders do not engage with them. After all, any failure to understand their needs can lead to blind spots for managers and executives. Those blind spots often lead to disastrous outcomes, such as low employee morale, lost opportunities, or a disappointing bottom line.

Fortunately, as we work toward restarting stakeholder engagement, we can use research-based strategies to notice such blind spots —and overcome them. But first, leaders must identify their key influencers

Identifying Your Key Influencers

You might be inclined to begin restarting stakeholder engagement with all your stakeholders immediately. It might be tempting to address the concerns of all of them, all at once. Resist those temptations.

As many leaders have already learned, it is much more practical to focus on the most important relationships. For most leaders, especially those that have also been working remotely, this means sitting down with your leadership team. Your goal: To generate a list of stakeholders that most impact your organization. These are your key influencers.

Perhaps you don’t know who your key influencers are at the moment? As you work to identify the stakeholders you should engage with first, consider these three things:

Impact

Key stakeholders significantly impact your company’s growth. Or perhaps they greatly influence the thinking of co-workers, entire teams, or consumer groups (like you’ll see in the example below). The long-term success of your company hinges, in large part, on a successful continued relationship with these high-impact individuals. By default, they are considered key influencers.

Past Performance

Based on past performance or future business potential, your company cannot easily replace some stakeholders. Chances are, your leadership team already counts on these people, teams, or companies in many vital areas of the company. Collecting input from them might mean the difference between a continuing relationship — or not.

Mutually Beneficial Relationships

Typically with key influencers, the relationship between the company and the stakeholder is mutually beneficial. You can clearly identify the value the stakeholder brings to the company and vice versa. Your organization’s goals and desired results align well with their goals. As these influencers meet those goals, so does your company.

Restarting Stakeholder Engagement: A Case Study

I recently sat down with a coaching client, Bill — a healthcare entrepreneur leader looking to re-engage with key stakeholders. After a year had passed since they communicated about a launch initiative vital to his company’s success, Bill and his leadership team wanted to encourage the widespread adoption of their innovative medical equipment.

Throughout the pandemic, the initiative had failed to gain sufficient traction. Bill suspected that it might be due to the higher cost of their medical equipment. His first instinct was to do one-on-one outreach to key influencers in this business sector, especially those advocates in patient groups. Bill approached me after preparing a list of more than 40 key influencers. As you can imagine, he was having difficulty developing a strategy that would allow him to address each of them. Time wasn’t on Bill’s side. Because he needed to present his findings and results in an upcoming meeting with investors, he felt immense pressure.

When I checked Bill’s list, I noticed a wide variety of potential influencers, including many who did not have key decision-making roles and therefore had no direct impact. There were also people on the list whose past performance could not be readily determined and who Bill couldn’t definitively place in the “mutually beneficial” column. Ultimately, we pared his list down to eight key leaders who demonstrated all three attributes above. Because they had many similar concerns and priorities, Bill was much better able to engage each of them in a meaningful way.

For Each Key Influencer: Ask 8 Questions

Now that you have your key influencers identified, and regardless of the urgency, you might feel to begin re-engagement immediately, do a pre-engagement check. Otherwise, you might fall into the dangerous judgment error known as the false consensus effect. This refers to assuming other people are more similar to you and more inclined to do what you want them to do than is really the case. To avoid false consensus, ask these eight questions:

What are their feelings, values, goals, and incentives around this issue?

Bill’s key influencers — the eight leaders of patient groups — were willing to try a better product. However, they were wary of endorsing more expensive equipment. Or at least without being able to justify the higher price point to their respective patient groups.

What is their back-story around this issue?

Bill’s key influencers wanted to find the best equipment to endorse to their patient groups. Yet, they were cautious due to several substandard products they have tried in the past.

What is their identity and sense of self as tied to the issue?

The leaders of the patient groups take their responsibilities very seriously. For example, they tirelessly keep up to date with the latest research and equipment available.

How are they the hero in this story?

Bill’s key influencers are on the frontlines when pushing for a better quality of life for their patients. Most of them have been directly or indirectly affected by the medical condition the equipment seeks to address. They want to be part of the solution.

Why should they want to listen to your message and then become advocates?

The leaders of the patient groups will benefit from hearing Bill’s take on the product’s efficiency. As the head of his organization, his message comes with a high degree of credibility. The key influencers can share Bill’s message with confidence.

What might prevent them from listening to your message and taking action?

If Bill confirms that the medical equipment’s higher cost is the main point of contention, he needs to address this issue. Otherwise, the key influencers may not listen to anything else he has to say.

How can you remove any obstacles so they are more apt to listen and act?

Bill decided that he will immediately address the price issue in his meeting with the key influencers. He planned to discuss in detail how his organization’s innovative medical equipment was the best choice in terms of quality and warranty.

Who do you know that can give you helpful feedback on the answers received?

I connected Bill with Jolinda, for over a decade the leader of a well-organized patient group. Her group represented the interests of patients with different medical conditions not relevant to the equipment made by Bill. Still, after reviewing the answers to the previous assessment questions, she was willing to share her perspective as a key influencer. Your job: Find your “Jolinda.” Or two. Or three.

Re-engagement: One Stakeholder at a Time

Your organization’s relationship with your stakeholders will change over time. You will face different issues at varying difficulty levels. Regardless, you must learn how to identify your key influencers and perform a pre-assessment check before engaging with them. By doing so, you will be able to commence restarting stakeholder engagement successfully.

 

Employee Advocacy = Engaged Employees

A great work environment with happy employees is the start for creating sincere and enduring employee advocates. When people experience a wonderful culture in action and believe in the reputation of their company, they become your most effective spokespeople.

Why Does it Matter?

There is a lot of research out there that supports the direct correlation between employee satisfaction and its impact on customer satisfaction.  When employees are engaged advocates, they will go the extra mile for the customer, seeking out alternate and better ways to deliver service that amazes and delights. These employees don’t mind spending extra time with a customer to ensure their complete satisfaction, has been met, and are more likely to set achievable expectations for customer service delivery and timing.

Additionally, employee advocacy humanizes your brand. It puts a face to the brick and mortar of your business and allows people outside the company to better identify with your people-driven mission. It’s like word-of-mouth advertising… a very powerful weapon in the war for customer satisfaction and their dollars.

What’s in it for Employees?

Empowerment allows employees to become stakeholders by having them take part in decision-making processes. This empowerment enables them to take responsibility for their role and manage their behaviors and outcomes.  A culture of trust allows people to do their job, autonomously. Employees want to create their own successes, and with that find greater satisfaction in themselves and with the culture around them.

Feedback is a powerful tool in the workplace. It enables people to see how they contribute to the bigger picture of the organization. It’s important for each employee to see how her specific role impacts the organization. Show employees, directly, how their work is improving customer retention, profitability, or the metric that is most closely related to their position. This will motivate them in their jobs, in attainable goals, and increase their engagement.

Skills and knowledge training provides the growth and expansion employees need to keep improving and advancing in their careers. Challenge them to find learning opportunities that can be applied to their jobs and allow them to put this new-found knowledge to work. The empowerment and satisfaction they can reap from this experience will encourage them to look forward to future learnings to continue growing their skills and knowledge.

Collaboration across an organization opens the door to team spirit and engages people at a more root level because they believe every employee is approachable for conversation. Being able to collaborate on projects with colleagues will increase employee engagement, and make the projects more satisfying and effective allowing employees to ideate, give peers feedback and bring solutions to the forefront. In other words, to take ownership.

Why You Need Advocates

Employees who are advocates for their organization cast a wider net not only inside the organization but externally, as well. They reach a larger audience and position themselves as the voice of the organization. They will increase your brand engagement with potential new customers and employees, which from a monetary value, can save companies dollars in advertising and marketing promotions. As engaged employees, advocates are tremendous agents and defenders of your company’s reputation, again positioning themselves as a voice for their employer. Further, research has shown that employee advocates can increase the stock value of organizations by over two and a half times versus organizations that do not support employee advocacy and engagement.

Creating Advocacy

Focus on your culture to understand how employees view the company. To truly understand how successful an advocacy program will work, you first need to understand what people are thinking. If you guess you may guess wrong and that could produce a myriad of consequences. Leadership needs to have the courage to ask, “What do you like and dislike about working here?” This information is gold to the wise employer. With this in hand, set out to better understand what your employees are seeing and that may even include how they view the leadership within the organization. Be prepared to leave your ego at the door, as the feedback may be a wake-up call for management, but if the goal is to create a better workplace, recognition of what works and what is failing miserably must be addressed.

Communication is key here. Employees are inspired by leadership that is open and authentic with communications. Strong leadership that has a clear idea of the company’s direction will be viewed much more favorably than a waffling leader that is out of touch with the company’s mission. When communications flow back and forth between leadership and the employee population, the likelihood of misunderstandings and mistakes lessens.

Measure the results. Whenever possible, track the metrics that will gauge the outcomes of employee advocacy. For example, if increased customer retention is the goal, design a program to determine what a successful outcome will be. Communicate this goal to your employees, then provide them with the resources and opportunities to explore and expand on their knowledge and skills in support of the goal. By tracking the data, you can adjust how you communicate and incentivize your employee advocacy initiatives for future goals.

Trust and Opportunity

Organizations need to believe in their employees and want to help them to promote the organization, but first they need to give them good reasons. Pressuring them rather than encouraging them will not work. Advocacy needs to flow naturally for it to be believable. Leadership can, however, empower employees with knowledge and tools to promote the benefits. With a minimal amount of direction, companies can offer opportunities for employees to exercise their bragging rights in a public, social way. I know of companies that had business cards printed for each employee so if that person was interacting in a social setting and felt the opportunity was right, they could hand their business card to potential new customers and even use it as a referral card for job seekers.

Of course, having a set of “Do’s and Don’ts” is helpful so employees understand what would fall outside the parameters of advocacy. No organization can tolerate proprietary information being shared with people outside the company, so establishing parameters that address items such as this, is important.

The Dividends

Essentially, the value of having employees who act as brand advocates offers a value next to priceless. What better way to market your organization, espouse the features of your products and spread the word in a social manner that is much less expensive than traditional marketing and advertising.

To me, employee advocacy is when employees look forward to pitching the benefits of their organization and do it because they’re excited and energized, not because they’re specifically prompted by management. What sets these advocates apart from other employees is they’re engaged with their employer and find their workplace environment a satisfying atmosphere where communication and opportunity to grow and collaborate occur with consistency.

And most importantly, organizations need to give employees a reason to advocate for the company. An engaged employee advocate is the best bet you have for increasing customer satisfaction, and to experience business prosperity in an organic manner that is natural and unprompted. And the best aspect is, it’s one of the best methods for retaining valuable talent and attracting more of the same.

Photo Credit: martinlouis2212 Flickr via Compfight cc

Who's On Your List? Advice For Rising Stars From Yum! CEO

Written by Bob Burg

In his excellent book, Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen,” iconic Yum! Brands Chairman and CEO, David Novak explains the importance of getting inside the heads of those we wish to influence. In other words, it’s not enough for us to want or desire a goal — we must know what motivates and drives the people we wish to take along with us.

It starts with genuine interest and caring about their needs, wants, goals and desires. But even that is not enough! Why? Because the following error can render our ideas nearly useless. According to Mr. Novak:

“One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is not thinking through all the people they have to lead to get where they want to go.”

He recommends that we ask ourselves who we need to affect, influence or take with us in order to be successful. As a former marketing executive, he compares this to a marketer trying to identify potential customers. And he believes that this list is absolutely essential.

When suggesting likely candidates, he casts a broad net: “your boss, your coworkers, people on your team, people from other departments whose help you’ll need — even people from outside your organization, such as shareholders, vendors, customers or business partners.”

Implications for Intrapreneurs

What does this mean for those among us who operate as “intrapreneurs” — those who work in an entrepreneurial way as employees of larger organizations? If you’re determined to make things happen as a leader (whether you have a formal title or not), but you don’t take Mr. Novak’s advice to heart, be prepared for a sudden halt in your progress.

His advice reminds me of a leadership failure or two from my past. In those situations, I’m fairly sure I persuaded those I targeted. However, my list was too short. I left out key “needed people,” and never even tried to obtain their buy-in. This wasn’t intentional; it was more a matter of not thinking things through and considering all the people whose commitment I would need. And inevitably I paid the price.

Network Relations: Connecting The Dots

Those were painful lessons, but I needed to experience them in order to grow. Or perhaps I could have avoided the pain, if Mr. Novak’s book had been available at the time. I’m not sure I would have understood without my first-hand experience as a reference point. But if there’s one thing better than learning from our own painful experience, it’s learning from someone else’s wisdom (which, most likely, was based on their own painful experience).

So, in that spirit, I encourage anyone who is on a path to intrapreneurial success to be sure and dot the I’s and cross the T’s — not just in terms of selling your vision, but in selling it to everyone who needs to be sold.

BobBurgHRHeadshotLearn More! Listen now to Bob’s 1-on-1 chat with David Novak, “Taking People With You,” where he shares numerous hard-hitting, valuable ideas from his book.

(Author Profile: Corporate speaker, Bob Burg, is coauthor of the International bestseller, “The Go-Giver.” His newest book, “Adversaries Into Allies” is scheduled for a late October release. Bob was a featured guest on #TChat events in early September, where he helped our community focus on ways that intrapreneurs can create business value within organizations. To learn more about Bob and connect with him on Social Media, visit www.burg.com.)

Image Credit: Pixabay

Who’s On Your List? Advice For Rising Stars From Yum! CEO

Written by Bob Burg

In his excellent book, Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen,” iconic Yum! Brands Chairman and CEO, David Novak explains the importance of getting inside the heads of those we wish to influence. In other words, it’s not enough for us to want or desire a goal — we must know what motivates and drives the people we wish to take along with us.

It starts with genuine interest and caring about their needs, wants, goals and desires. But even that is not enough! Why? Because the following error can render our ideas nearly useless. According to Mr. Novak:

“One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is not thinking through all the people they have to lead to get where they want to go.”

He recommends that we ask ourselves who we need to affect, influence or take with us in order to be successful. As a former marketing executive, he compares this to a marketer trying to identify potential customers. And he believes that this list is absolutely essential.

When suggesting likely candidates, he casts a broad net: “your boss, your coworkers, people on your team, people from other departments whose help you’ll need — even people from outside your organization, such as shareholders, vendors, customers or business partners.”

Implications for Intrapreneurs

What does this mean for those among us who operate as “intrapreneurs” — those who work in an entrepreneurial way as employees of larger organizations? If you’re determined to make things happen as a leader (whether you have a formal title or not), but you don’t take Mr. Novak’s advice to heart, be prepared for a sudden halt in your progress.

His advice reminds me of a leadership failure or two from my past. In those situations, I’m fairly sure I persuaded those I targeted. However, my list was too short. I left out key “needed people,” and never even tried to obtain their buy-in. This wasn’t intentional; it was more a matter of not thinking things through and considering all the people whose commitment I would need. And inevitably I paid the price.

Network Relations: Connecting The Dots

Those were painful lessons, but I needed to experience them in order to grow. Or perhaps I could have avoided the pain, if Mr. Novak’s book had been available at the time. I’m not sure I would have understood without my first-hand experience as a reference point. But if there’s one thing better than learning from our own painful experience, it’s learning from someone else’s wisdom (which, most likely, was based on their own painful experience).

So, in that spirit, I encourage anyone who is on a path to intrapreneurial success to be sure and dot the I’s and cross the T’s — not just in terms of selling your vision, but in selling it to everyone who needs to be sold.

BobBurgHRHeadshotLearn More! Listen now to Bob’s 1-on-1 chat with David Novak, “Taking People With You,” where he shares numerous hard-hitting, valuable ideas from his book.

(Author Profile: Corporate speaker, Bob Burg, is coauthor of the International bestseller, “The Go-Giver.” His newest book, “Adversaries Into Allies” is scheduled for a late October release. Bob was a featured guest on #TChat events in early September, where he helped our community focus on ways that intrapreneurs can create business value within organizations. To learn more about Bob and connect with him on Social Media, visit www.burg.com.)

Image Credit: Pixabay