Tag Archives: Emotional Intelligence

Stakeholder Management: Deliberate Relationship Building

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(This article was first published in the Critical Path, the monthly newsletter of PMI Sydney Chapter publish in February 2023)

Stakeholder Management is one of the key pillars of effective project management.  Managing their expectations and keeping them in the know of project progress and status are good practices that work well with committed and already engaged stakeholders.  However, to surpass good project management towards making a real difference by delivering long-impacting projects, you need to go beyond merely managing your stakeholders: you need to deliberately build a purposeful, collaborative, and positive relationship with your stakeholders – particularly the difficult ones.

Melanie McBride in her PMI Global Conference 2012 Paper “A PM, a bully, a ghost, and a micromanager walk into a bar – difficult stakeholders and how to manage them” provided an innovative description of effective stakeholder management: “the purposeful crafting of a collaborative and positive relationship that truly separates the very good project managers from the superb project managers.”  Let me explain the impactful words in this interesting definition:

  • Purposeful: deliberate and planned stakeholder management and relationship building.  Doing it ‘on purpose’, not by chance or as a by-product of other Project Management activities.  Devise a clear plan for relationship building.
  • Crafting: An excellent use of the word ‘crafting’ rather than ‘building’.  It is important to ‘craft’ the relationship with art and innovation.
  • Collaborative: A good relationship is always a two-way relationship built on collaboration – give and take.
  • Positive: Always look for the positive side of things: search for the ‘silver lining’ and promptly address any potential setbacks.

To build such an effective relationship, you should be aware of the characteristics of your stakeholders.  The more ‘difficult’ your stakeholders are, the more effort you need to put in crafting the relationship.  Here are some examples of difficult stakeholders and few suggestions on how to deal with them.

The Bully, that stakeholder who dominates you and others through aggressive force of will.  There aren’t many around, but they derail your project while they are thinking they are doing the right thing.  For bullies, you need to establish a strong ‘first impression’.  Don’t hesitate to confront, explain with confidence, and persuade.  The important thing is to keep the discussion professional and avoid being dragged into “winners vs losers” game.  Look them in the eye (or in the camera if virtual meeting) and be ready to call ‘timeout’ and regain your position if needed.  One way you can deal with a bully is to give them an assignment to produce data to support their argument.  If they are unable to produce supporting data, they are likely to notice the flaw in their argument.

The Ghost, the stakeholder who doesn’t return your calls, emails, or messages and are ambivalent to your project status.  You should aim to limit your project’s dependence on their input and direction.  Agree with them on how far you will run without their direct input, knowledge, or approval.  Ensure that they remain happy and be extremely concise and direct in your communication with them.  One thing you can do is consider whether they can delegate their authority to another, more engaged, stakeholder.

The Visionary, the stakeholder who has the ‘big picture’ of what they want, but they can’t explain it.  You have to be patient with their long talks and twisted tales.  They are usually happy with the project, and they acknowledge how it is important to their future.  Ensure that you drive the discussion into deliverables that will achieve their vision.  It would be good if you can develop early prototypes to review them and discuss them with the visionary stakeholder.  Make sure you are conclusive and explicit about the deliverable and what can and can’t be done – or what is in or out of scope, otherwise you will be dragged into an endless list of amendments and new features.

The Micromanager, the stakeholder who looks for the tiny details and undermines the Project Manager authority.  To satisfy the ‘micromanagement’ desire of your stakeholder, provide consistent, regular, and concise status updates.  Show them “here is how you can help up” in your updates and provide them with actionable items they can work on.  With the current move into ‘virtual’ ways of working where the stakeholder is not physically close to ‘stop by and see how things are going’, a consistent and regular update with actionable items is more important than ever.

The Prisoner, one of the more toxic stakeholders: they don’t want to be on your project, but they are “nominated” (forced) by their managers.  Your main strategy is to see how you can get them off your project – peacefully.  Have a candid discussion with their direct manager and see if they can be assigned somewhere else.  If you are lucky and the prisoner is not disrupting the team dynamics, let them be there.  However, if they are ‘sucking the joy out of the room’ then you need to think seriously about removing them – make them aware that you are going to escalate about them. In conclusion, do your homework: don’t manage your stakeholders in an adhoc manner – have a structured and deliberate plan to deal with them.  A well-crafted email is not enough, you should own and drive the conversation.

Motivate your team – the Enneagram way

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(This article was first published in the Critical Path, the monthly newsletter of PMI Sydney Chapter publish in March 2023)

Projects are delivered by people, and this will continue at least until AI takes over project management.  While the Project Manager should master the tools and processes they are using to manage their project, project delivery will undoubtedly suffer if the Project Manager ignores the human factor of the project team, and the stakeholders influencing the project.  What “makes or breaks” project success is knowing what makes people “tick” and acting accordingly.  In this month’s Beyond Project Management I will introduce one of the many ways to understand and motivate your team: The Enneagram of Personality.

Taken at face value, the Enneagram is made up of nine numbers representing different personalities interconnected and woven together through human psychology, and traditional knowledge of human nature.  While the Enneagram is basically a useful tool to help individuals manage their emotions and interpret the world around them, many businesses are using it in team building and conflict resolution.  By the same token, when you know more about yourself and the people around you, you will know the ‘hot buttons’ of every personality.  Exploiting this knowledge you will increase the collaboration among the project team and the influential stakeholder, and consequently, this will increase the chances of delivering successful projects.

Caveat: I am not promoting this classification as the only way to understand yourself and the team. This is one of many other ways that can help you manoeuvre the complex landscape of human behaviours and interactions and give you some ideas that could help you in building effective relationships.  I acknowledge that not everyone agrees that this classification works.  The purpose of this article is to enrich your toolbox and give you more options and ideas to consider.  It’s up to as a Project Manager to identify and use the right tool for the right situation.

Enneagram Personalities

Type 1: The Reformer.  Also known as the Improver and the Perfectionist.  They strive to make things right or better.  They often struggle with their condemning inner voice to do better.  They need to be accurate and orderly, and they fear being incorrect or blamed.  The Reformers are motivated by being right and fair, and their focus on excellence.  Imagine their feeling about Agile principles of ‘fail fast, fail often’, or ‘MVP – just enough’. 

Type 2: The Helper.  Also known as the Giver and the Befriender.  They need to be loved and truly cared for.  They also need to be wanted, needed, and appreciated.  They fear they will be rejected for being their authentic self.  The Helper is motivated by verbal affirmation and acknowledgement.  Tell them “thank you” more often and see how they get excited and spread their positive impact across the whole project.

Type 3: The Achiever.  Also known as the Performer and the Motivator.  They need to be valued and accepted.  They adapt to the scenario to achieve success because they fear to be considered unworthy due to failure.  The Achiever is motivated when they are affirmed in their actions and the impressions they make on others.  If you don’t have an Achiever in your project, strive to get one.

Type 4: The Individualist.  Also known as the Romantic and the Artist.  Their life strategy is “I must be understood as uniquely as I am”.  They like to create different and “beautiful” things – ideas or tangibles.  They are motivated when you recognise their uniqueness and authenticity.  With the right guidance, they can help you create better project objectives or resolve your project issues in a creative way.

Type 5: The Investigator.  Also known as the Observer and the Theorist.  They like to be always knowledgeable and equipped with evidence and data.  They are motivated by being independent and undisturbed.  They hate change and get irritated by the break in routine.  With Agile’s embrace of uncertainty and continuous change, the Investigators suffer.  Nevertheless, you can rely on them in your project for validation and evidence-based arguments if and when you need it.

Type 6: The Loyalist.  Also known as the Sceptic and the Guardian.  They focus on being safe and secure all the time, and they rely on a strong support system to keep them safe.  You will lose them if they feel any mistrust or security threat.  They are motivated by reassurances of safety and job security.  Their focus on safety and security makes them good at developing contingency plans and workarounds for risks and issues.  Therefore, if you can assure them of their role on the project, they will help you in resolving the problems of the project.

Type 7: The Enthusiast.  Also known as the Optimist and the Epicurean.  They like to have fun and new experiences while working.  They find silver lining in every challenge and keep options open.  They are motivated with consistent excitement and continuous engagement and stimulation.  The combined wisdom of the Loyalist and the Enthusiast (types 6 and 7) is a blessing for any project.  If you have these types of personalities, ensure they collaborate and your project will reap the results.

Type 8: The Challenger.  Also known as the Protector and Advocate.  They never like to be controlled by anyone.  If you micromanage them, you lose them.  They are motivated by letting them dominate their own environment, and giving them the responsibility to ensure that everyone in their environment is protected.  For Challengers on your project, clarify what and when you want things, and leave it to them to deliver – they will.

Type 9: The Peacemaker.  Also known as the Mediator and the Reconciler.  They strive to maintain peace and calm and create harmony in their environment.  They focus on peace-making so that they might miss their main role.  They are motivated by solving people’s problems and managing conflict.  They bring harmony and serenity to your challenging project.

These are the general characteristics of the Enneagram Personalities.  People usually have a dominant type and few characteristics from other types.  Also, people change over time from one type to the other.  It would be useful to observe your project team and the influential stakeholders to understand the dominant type of each person.  With the right understanding of the needs, fears, and motivations of everyone in your project, you can decide when and how to press their “hot buttons” to align everyone towards the project purpose and objectives.

References

What’s your Enneatype? By Liz Carver and Josh Green (Link).

Taking care of Business with the Enneagram by R. Karl Hebenstreit (Link)

The Complete Guide to the ENNEAGRAM by Sierra Mackenzie  (Link)