Map each stakeholder’s perspective before you try to align them
Identify the people an initiative affects, state what each one sees, and check your own assumptions about power before you seek agreement.
Pourquoi ça marche
The authors define stakeholder agility as “the ability to identify stakeholders, understand their perspectives, and develop alignment with them.” They break it into two capacities. Stakeholder understanding is the depth at which you can see situations from your stakeholders’ perspective. Power style is your assumptions about power, and the balance between your assertive and accommodative tendencies. Because the definition puts understanding before alignment, the practice starts with the perspectives and only then asks for agreement.
Comment faire
- List everyone the initiative affects, including people outside your reporting line.
- For each person, write what they probably need the initiative to do for them, and what they assume about who decides.
- Write your own assumption about power in the decision, and whether you are likely to press or to defer.
- Talk with one person whose view differs from yours, and state their view in terms they would accept before you state yours.
Données probantes
The definition and the two capacities come from the authors’ June 2006 interview, and the Reams 2007 review lists the same two capacities. The sources read do not test whether mapping stakeholders this way changes how alignment turns out. (anecdotal)
The authors present stakeholder agility as part of a developmental model. This exercise has not been evaluated, and a stakeholder map is a working tool, not a measure of anyone’s agility.
Sources
- Joiner, B., & Josephs, S. (2006, June). Leadership Agility with Bill Joiner and Steve Josephs [interview]. Integral Leadership Review, Fresh Perspective.
- Reams, J. (2007). Book review: Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change, by Bill Joiner & Stephen Josephs. Integral Review, 4.
Erreur fréquente
Mapping stakeholders by who can block you rather than by whose perspective you have not yet understood. The definition puts understanding first and alignment second.
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Plus de pratiques pour Leadership Agility: The Five Levels, Explained
- Balance assertive and accommodative styles in one-on-one conversations
In a one-on-one disagreement, notice whether you are pressing your view or holding back to keep the peace, and practice moving between the two as the situation calls for.
- Share responsibility for objectives and keep the accountability
Hand real ownership of objectives and coordination to your team, and be explicit about the accountability you keep as the formal leader.
- Scan the environment before you choose and scope an initiative
Before committing to a change, look at the conditions around it, write the outcome you want, and narrow the initiative to a scope you can actually shape.
- Write the leader you want to be, then review what you learn
Put in a few sentences the kind of leader you want to be, compare that with one recent situation, and write down what the gap teaches you.
- Alternate between immersion and stepping back to reflect
Work through a stretch of real tasks, then stop to write what happened and what you noticed, and repeat the cycle rather than reviewing only at the end.
- Train attention with a daily practice such as meditation
Pick one short daily attention practice, such as meditation, and carry the attention it trains into meetings and one-on-one conversations.
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- La théorie sujet-objet de Kegan, en pratique
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