Speaker 1: Today, we're going to talk about stakeholder engagement, some of the key considerations you need to think about as you move forward with engaging your stakeholders and what you need to do in order to make it successful. My name is Anthony Taylor. I'm the Managing Partner at SME Strategy. We facilitate strategic planning sessions and we help teams move their strategic planning processes forward through stakeholder engagement and implementation support. And today, I want to talk to you about stakeholder engagement in five slides. So the first step in successful stakeholder engagement is identifying your stakeholders. Identify the different groups of people that are interested in what you're doing, that hold a stake in what you're doing, or who might be affected by any of the projects or programs that you're moving forward. So first, who are they? You might want to identify them in different subgroups. There might be, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20 different subgroups, but the first step is really identifying who they are. The next step is identifying and prioritizing those stakeholder groups in terms of influence or interest. So some groups might have high interest. Some groups might have low interest. Some groups might have high influence or power. Some groups might have low influence or power. If you don't have the opportunity to engage with all of your stakeholders, I highly recommend that you balance the ones with the most power and the most interest, and you use a stakeholder register in order to do that. So number one, identify your stakeholders and classify them by influence and interest. Number two, start having stakeholder engagement sessions so that you can listen to them. You know, it's more important that you listen to them than they listen to you, okay? The reason is they'll feel heard, and they'll feel like any decision that you've made, ideally, would have been made with their input. If they never get an opportunity to share any input, then they're going to feel slighted that they just didn't even have the opportunity to share. It's also an opportunity, once you listen to them, to be able to address their concerns and needs specifically within your plans, okay? It's also going to help develop the buy-in for the direction of your organization or for your plan. And often, we've led a lot of these stakeholder engagement sessions, you're going to hear things from them that you might not have even thought of, or that they're going to present in a way that will shift your thinking in terms of how to get them to be bought in successfully, okay? So they might have different perspectives, they might have different needs, they might have different wants that you assumed one thing, but when you actually heard it in their language, you're able to really narrow down and deliver what they need. So listening to them is the first step in engaging with them successfully. The next part, as I mentioned, is use their perspective, incorporate their ideas, let them know that their feedback is appreciated and valued, and actually take their insights into consideration. If you don't use their perspectives, again, their perspectives are only perspectives, it's important that you close the loop on the communication they gave you. The worst thing that you can do is take their perspectives and don't provide some communication as a follow-up to close the loop. You know, when taking their perspectives, whether it's questions, statements, or feedback, really be committed to create lasting buy-in and engagement through the process. So how do you win with stakeholder engagement? Number one, identify your stakeholders. Who are they? What do they do? What do they care about? Do they have high influence? Do they have low influence? They have high interest or low interest. Prioritize your stakeholder groups like that, and you'll be more effective in segmenting them and being able to work with them successfully. Number two, listen to them, hear what they have to say, hear it in their own words, and make sure you understand their concerns before you make your plan so that you can be more successful. And third, use their perspectives, communicate back with them, make sure that they feel heard, make sure that they have buy-in, and make sure that they understand where you are coming from, and make sure they understand that you know where they're coming from. Even if you don't utilize all of their perspectives, being able to close the loop in terms of the communication, being able to close the loop with whatever they've said, will help get them on board and bought in to what you're doing. And if you're still not sure how to move forward, or you think that it's more complex getting them engaged, or a lot of people just like having us as a third party to help ask those tough questions, and you can participate instead of having to lead, reach out to us for a complimentary consultation. There's a link in the bio. We'd be happy to share some perspectives, create some sample agendas for you, and really work with you so that your stakeholders feel heard, you have change moving forward successfully, and ultimately your progress moves forward on your plan. Once again, my name is Anthony Taylor. This has been a video by SME Strategy. If you enjoyed it, be sure to like and subscribe. Put some comments down below if you've had any successes or even failures with strategic planning and stakeholder engagement, and we'd be happy to engage in a conversation.