Effective stakeholder management is critical for success of any initiative and smooth delivery of any project. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter what your end product is if you are 'burning' your stakeholders through lack of involvement or shutting them out. Every time you are delivering something new into your organisation or you are running a project, effective stakeholder management is a MUST!

Here are the three fail-safe strategies to put into place when working on projects or working with teams across an organisation to deliver an outcome:

1) Take the time to make sure you are involving the right people. This may sound silly but if you haven't taken the time to note down exactly who you consider your stakeholders to be, you need to put a pen to paper or finger to your keyboard right now and get to it.

Why? Often we forget who we need to involve or who need to know about your initiative. This results in complaints or 'white-anting' your initiative.  Listing out...

The challenges that we face with communication in our day to day lives also applies within our organisations. We now carry our mobile phones around and sometimes laptops in a effort to be paperless. This means that people are often less 'present' to conversations and are continually distracted. The challenges just seem to mount up when looking to create communications that cut's through the noise.

Here are some of the reasons that the communications 'gets lost': 

* Staff don't have time to read all of the emails

* The communication channels aren't effective, being too cluttered and the communication isn't clear

* They don't have the time to 'connect the dots'.

So messages need to be consistently communicated, in a number of ways and in a clear and creative way. Here are some tips to creating communication with cut through:

Consistency: Stay on message. This is critical to any successful change. Consistently messaging and having your Sponsorship model correct is also...

There are a number of principles that underly effective change management. The following principles are easy to outline but harder to put into place consistently depending on the leadership approach and the culture of the organisation in which you work. I said hard but not impossible so bear this in mind. Typically in most customer centric organisations which link strongly the Employees ---> Customer ---->Financial outcomes, these principles are easier to align to.

However as a Change facilitator it is important to state the principles that you are working to, and here are some I would recommend you could align your practices to, to enable the best outcomes for your change strategies:

1. Respect to be shown to all. This is critical. At times where emotions run high with large transformational change, this principle can be forgotten. If all are staff and customers are treated equally and with respect, better outcomes are achieved even if the change has negative impacts....

One of my early posts was about getting back to the fundamentals. 

I really enjoyed reading it again, and I think its a good reminder that when things get hectic it is good to get back to basics.

Read the post here.

So you want to explore a career in change? Do you consider yourself to be a 'people person?' Here are five questions you should reflect on before taking the leap:

1. How resilient are you in the face of adversity? In lots of organisations change is not understood or mature as a function. So it can be a hard slog affecting change, influencing and coaching stakeholders on why you are even in the organisation to begin with. Project Managers may challenge you and your professional guidance may be flat out rejected. So you need to be tough, resilient and measured with your approach. 

2. How empathetic are you? The more you can walk a mile in someone else's shoes the better a change manager you will be. If you are simply wanting to tell people what to do, maybe pursue training or another profession. Having compassion and empathy will ensure you take the right approach when people resist the change.

3. Are you willing to learn about yourself to better understand how to...

Now this may not be a term used world wide, but in Australia a 'whinger' is someone who will complain about something endlessly. In the world of change, a whinger can be your best asset.

Someone who objects to the change provides a number of opportunities to anyone willing to listen:

1) They challenge your 'why'. Sometimes we try to 'sell' a change into the business and sometimes the 'why' isn't hitting the mark. You want your 'why' to engage hearts and minds. You soon know if that isn't the case when there is a 'tough crowd'. Your 'why' just needs to be better.

2) They tell you whether your detailed impact assessment is accurate. If you listen well enough to someone who is objecting to the change you will realise that you may not have assessed all of the impacts accurately. You may even want to engage the most vocal person in the room to better understand those impacts.

3) Often they can also be your biggest advocate. I can't tell you how many times the so called 'trouble...

As humans our default setting is to tell others what to do. It makes us feel good, gives us that 'hit' of significance that we need. When I made the leap from Uni to working in a corporate environment I couldn't wait to share of my 'expertise' (oh it makes me cringe now to think of it). I was young, inexperienced but enthusiastic and form day one I started my 'real world' learning.

Then you continue in your career, and I think it was in my late 20's when I realised that there were better ways to do things. I realised the more I listened, the better the products and projects were that I delivered. So I thought to myself 'wow listening is really key'.

Now I know it goes even further. Now I know that you are better to ask first. Even more over time you begin to realise how important the questions are that you ask. Then of course you need to listen. It is amazing how often we don't ask. We don't ask customers what they need, we don't ask staff how they are feeling or what they need to...

Many people in business don't like to consult. They would prefer to just get on with the job and deliver something. The urge to move forward and just get something done is strong and any consultation is seen as inconvenient and unnecessary. Unfortunately when the product or service is ready to be implemented, it takes twice the time to engage and often results in a solution that doesn't work for the consumer.

We see it time and time again. IT solutions designed with leaders, not the 'doers' and delivered only to find out it doesn't meet the need of customers or staff. Processes mapped on 'best practice' not matching the reality of the business and capability in which to deliver them. Example after example. More money spent on projects to redo what the previous project failed to deliver and the major difference the second time around? Consultation and engagement with those who are responsible for the process takes place to deliver the right solution.

So what is my reply to those who...

Sometimes we can fall into bad habits when working in Change. At times it can be stressful and if these habits creep in your practice it will may compromise your reputation as an effective change manager or as a change leader. 

1. Thinking that people will just do as you tell them.

It makes me laugh when Managers expect their teams to simply do as they say. Many progressive organisations however are showing more emotional intelligence and understanding that people choose who they follow. All people go through an emotional process when any change occurs. A good change leader understands how to support their team through this and engage their people in the change. I won't limit this to just change leaders, as I do hear Change Managers say exactly the same thing. Only in unique organisations where hierarchy is necessary to survive such as in the Police or Military, would the 'people will do as I say' rule exist and apply. 

2. Taking the same approach to change every...

Today is Fathers day in Australia and I thought it was fitting to pay tribute to the things that my father taught me about valuing people at work. My father was a teacher and a Primary School Principal. 

One thing I will say about my dad is that he always enjoyed creating a strong 'business' which in this case was a Primary school, that benefited the community and especially the kids. He valued his teachers, and when I left home and started my career, we spent many an afternoon on the back verandah of my old family home chatting about people challenges and he counselled me on approaches I could take to get better outcomes. I am lucky, my dad is still here and I am grateful for being able to still sit and have a cuppa and a chat about business in general. I will never take that for granted. 

Here is some of the wisdom that he would impart:

The 'customer' matters the most - always. In my fathers case these were the kids in his school. He was able to make the 'system' work...