5.7
STAKEHOLDERGROUPS: UNDERSTANDING AND
MAPPING STAKEHOLDER SYSTEMS
Inspired by Stephen Heiman, Diane Sanchez, Tad Tuleja, Robert Miller, and John Kotter.Increasingly, projects and change initiatives in organizations have multiple stakeholders, and
rarely do changes or recommendations have an impact on only a single interest group. Thus,
to have your ideas accepted and implemented, it’s crucial to determine who these stakeholder
groups are and what role each plays in the change process. This tool will help you identify,
organize, and map the different stakeholder groups and their different perspectives.
FIVE TYPICAL STAKEHOLDER GROUPS
- Contact or working stakeholder(s):
The people who represent sponsor-stakeholders; they may work directly with
you on a project team.
The contact stakeholder may be an individual or a group, a task force or a committee.
Often they represent other stakeholder groups. These stakeholders are project-oriented,
busy people who usually wish to minimize their time and energy spent on the project.
A contact stakeholder’s typical question is: “How can we successfully finish this project on
time and within budget, and get acceptance for implementation?”Contrast this question
with those of the remaining stakeholder types. - Sponsor, financial funder, or decision stakeholder(s):
The individual or group that has the authority to approve the project.
Often senior managers or management committees, these stakeholders approve the
budget and free up resources for implementation. Their basic question is: “Is this pro-
posal organizationally and financially sound?”Their perspective often takes in more than
any one particular project. They are concerned about your project’s impact on the orga-
nization. Beware of the rampant myth about this group, that if you get the top-level
stakeholder’s approval, the project is a shoo-in. Not true! Their commitment is cer-
tainly necessary, but alone it’s often not sufficient. - End-user stakeholder(s):
The group of stakeholders who will actually implement the changes and
make them work on the job.
Their basic question is: “Will this really work under my practical conditions and will it make
my job easier?”Note how different this question is from that of the sponsor stakehold-
er. Often, leaders tend to be more comfortable working with one or two particular
stakeholder groups and not with others. This can be costly. To succeed today, leaders
need to work equally well with the full range of often diverse stakeholder groups. - Indirect stakeholder(s):
They are able to say, “No, your proposal does not fit our organizational pol-
icy or requirements.”
The least obvious stakeholders, these are people who cannot directly approve your pro-
posal, but who can say “no” or can hold up your project. The basic question of indi-
rect stakeholders is: “Does this proposal meet the standards and policies we control?”
156 SECTION 5 TOOLS FORLEADINGCHANGE