Stakeholder engagement is becoming more important than ever

It’s so refreshing to hear someone refer to stakeholder engagement as opposed to stakeholder management. We don’t ‘manage’ people, process them, or manipulate them to get the right response. We lead, direct, motivate, enlighten, coach and we learn with people.

If we take the common definition of ‘stakeholder’ as any individual or group that has an interest in or some influence over a project or its outcome, then it is going to include people over whom we have no direct authority.

The interaction between stakeholders plays an important role in any project, but this is amplified in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). In PPPs, governments need to do more than just communicate with stakeholders. In many countries citizens expect active involvement in projects and to have an active say in the process. Governments need to strive toward maximum accountability and transparency by organizing occasions for critical reflection to enlarge public support.

Stakeholder engagement is becoming more important than ever, as businesses are under close scrutiny by the media and regulators, and opposition is easily aroused and coordinated via social media. Note the converse, however: stakeholders can be eager promoters of infrastructure projects, and governments should look to generate and take advantage of such momentum.

Throughout the project’s life cycle, this relationship will involve several types of audiences, channels, and practical actions for both the establishment and maintenance of relationships. Early in the process, in the Identification Phase of the project, the audiences, communication channels, and actions to be considered are relatively few. As the process moves forward through the Structuring and Tender Phases, the number of stakeholders increases and the need to use a greater number of channels, actions, and information in order to assist these stakeholders increases as well.

During the Screening Phase, but not only then, successful PPP projects should make a specific effort to communicate the results of the various steps of the PPP process, as well as the decisions made during the phase, to the general public and to those specific groups with a particular interest in the project. This communication strategy can promote engagement and soften eventual opposition to the project.

A communication plan should be designed at an early stage of the screening exercise, and should be implemented by a dedicated and experienced team. The communication plan should include the following information.

• The identification of all the interest groups to which communication should be directed.
• An explanation of the main concepts to be communicated, drawing from the basic elements of the project such is its outcomes, the need it tries to meet, and the people it tries to serve.
• The identification of the media used to reach the groups identified.
• The main characteristics of the communication pieces, preferably specific to each group identified.
• The identification of the people inside the project team who should be considered as the prime source of information for the general public.
• The description of a basic strategy for maintaining good relationships with the press.

The successful implementation of the communication plan can immensely reduce the political risks which large infrastructure projects are subject to, and thus attract the overall stakeholder support necessary for an effective procurement later on in the PPP process.

Effective stakeholder engagement can make or break a project. Patrick Mayfield’s white paper ‘Effective Stakeholder Engagement for better projects’ articulates this well and reflects on the importance of relationships in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.

‘High performers lean into relationships with people. For them, stakeholder engagement is not merely a marginal, cosmetic, ‘touchy-feely’ add-on to the more reliable and respectable parts of their professional kit bag of competences. For them, it is where they stand or fall in their effectiveness, in their ability to make change happen as a project through their relationships with key people around them. They see their social skills as key. Their reaction to the enormity of engaging with lots of people is to lead, mobilize and coordinate the engagement effort first through a close group of stakeholders. They realize that unless other key players come on board, it just won’t scale. Even as high-performers, they move beyond the false idea of the individual hero project manager. They influence and lobby to get help. The high performer understands that a project is so much more than a finite set of tasks and processes, but is a social enterprise of a temporary organization that won’t work or scale without the involvement and alignment of others and their efforts. As such, it must adapt and adjust as new information comes to light.

Project, programme and portfolio sponsors, managers and team members need to understand the mechanisms by which people relate to, and interact with, other people. Simple models such as the ones referenced in the Praxis Framework are a useful starting point for each individual as they build their own interpersonal skill-set.

The seven interpersonal skills covered by Praxis can be loosely arranged into those that are primarily team oriented and those that are primarily stakeholder oriented.

A manager needs to lead and motivate their management team and delivery teams. This will be through visionary leadership (ensuring people are committed to the objectives of the work) and managerial leadership (delegating work and developing teamwork).

The manager must also lead the stakeholder community, who do not collectively form a team and to whom delegation is rarely appropriate. When dealing with stakeholders, influencing and negotiation are more relevant. If the stakeholders are particularly senior or vital to the achievement of objectives, the project, programme or portfolio manager will inevitably call upon the support of the sponsor.

Whether delegating work to a team or influencing stakeholders, conflict will inevitably arise in some form. The manager will need to have conflict management skills no matter how well honed their other interpersonal skills may be.

Naturally, at the heart of all human interactions is communication.

If a manager can apply these skills with professionalism and within an ethical framework, they will engender trust and respect.

Whether through a PPP or traditional procurement process, the fundamental principles of interpersonal skills, and their impact on effective stakeholder engagement, do not vary across the range of projects, programmes or portfolios. However, the context and organisational structures do change and this leads to different challenges and different emphases in their application.