Do We Understand Our Relationships With Partners & Stakeholders from Their Perspectives?

 

 

I had been involved in a piece of Team Development that related to forming partnerships new stakeholders. It still feels relevant because 
whereas the context changes, the themes remain reasonably consistent:

“How do we influence new and existing stakeholders to help them to grow and develop into the changes we are advocating?”

 

J.K. Rowling seemed to have come across the perfect solution in her “Harry Potter” series: Hogwarts had at its disposal a sorting hat. It put the right people in the right “house:” put the hat on, it spoke, and you were allocated, then on to the next person and so on….

Unfortunately, no such thing exists in our world of getting things done and we are often left to ourselves to try to establish who the supporters of change both internal and external might be. 

It was this way for the team I’d been engaged to work with. I introduced them to  the following quadrant with a view to helping them to understand how we might engage with and develop people as we work with them. It’s a journey and, like all journeys, it works better if know where you’ve started from. Admittedly, knowing where you’re going helps too, but that’s for another time!

 

I’ve applied this in several contests since then and the feedback has been positive:

·         It has helped clarify role and purpose.

·         It has given a deeper and more productive meaning to networks.

·         It has helped to establish clarity.

·         It has informed our actions.

·         It has helped us to achieve “good outputs.”

Of course, the model is pretty sterile without conversations, ones that perhaps ask the following related to each quadrant:

Bottom Right

• What is expected of them by:
• Change agents?
• Their existing team/organisation?
• What are the boundaries and limitations of their inputs/decision making?

Bottom Left

• What do we expect of them, what can we contribute?
• Change agents?
• Their existing team/organisation?
• What are the boundaries and limitations of their inputs/decision making?
• What actions can we take to develop them, increasing their contribution to:
• Their team(s)/organisation.
• The project/intervention.
• Their professional development.
• Their personal development.
• Their capacity to inform other decision makers.

Top Left

Clarity rules here!

• How can we support and develop them within and throughout the process?
• What values, attitudes, behaviours and beliefs do they bring to the process?
• What values, attitudes, behaviours and beliefs might we develop and grow to enable them within the process?
• Where are the areas of potential growth through reciprocity?

Top Right

How might we develop their interest, engagement and commitment/support?:

• What are the strong messages?
• What benefits might grow for the organisation?
• Reputational
• Developmental
• Cultural
• Environmental
• Financial

The shifting and flexible role of the Coach, Mentor, Facilitator has much to offer here in underpinning the meaning we attach to the specific development, the people involved and our engagement on processes that create high value outputs for those involved.

Trust. What Do You See, the Doughnut or The Hole?

If we ask the question

 "What must a team have to perform well?"

 I'm going to suggest that "Trust" will appear fairly high up the list.

We need also to incorporate "Optimism"-that the Team's purpose is a good one and that it honours

Our individual values
Team Values
Organisational Values

And we need to know that we're doing the right things for the right reasons.

Unfortunately, trust and optimism are easily manipulated to serve individual needs and ambitions. There are after all ample opportunities for some to pay lip service only to the idea of serving core values. Some organisations have set out to define what it is they mean by trust and integrity and their importance in shaping the expectations and experiences of their partners and stakeholders.

However, the building and maintenance of high quality internal trust is much harder than presenting positive external messages. The impact of hidden untrustworthiness on teams is destructive and will progressively annihilate purposeful alignments made by other team members. The manipulation or abandonment of trust reduces the chances of group success. The focus shifts to looking for what's not working rather than what is and members are vulnerable to becoming risk averse rather than risk aware as there is a reduction in their faith in others to support them when the going gets tough. Teams form within teams, individuals consider "What's in this for me?" rather than "How does this serve our group?" When this is the emergent case, expect the group/team purpose, to lose energy and to toxify: it's a great way of developing an 

"Optimism Free Zone"

(Oh yes, I'd love to work in one of those!)

Maybe you could propose to teams that they might want to consider something along the lines of:

"It is agreed that trust and integrity are essential components of a healthy, well-functioning team. How do we honour our commitment to trust? How will we talk about it and how will we challenge ourselves and each other when we feel trust has been compromised?"

Expect some interesting and thought provoking responses!