Stakeholder Management Influencing and Negotiating

Introduction

A stakeholder is a person, group or organization that has an interest in an organization, because they are affected by its operations or can affect Its operations. Stakeholders have an impact on every organization, public or private sector – some are internal, others are external, but the higher priority stakeholders must be engaged, their expectations understood, and strategies developed, planned and implemented to recognize and address their concerns.  All groups of stakeholders must be recognized and treated equitably, as part of good governance.  Stakeholder management involves both hard and soft skills, with some understanding of human nature, culture and communications added, finished off with the ability to influence and negotiate with integrity.

This IACT Stakeholder Management training course will introduce you to the relevant tools and techniques, as well as a leading standard, that will help you to engage and manage stakeholders effectively and efficiently.

This will include learning the stakeholder management processes, developing an understanding of human behavior and how to influence it, analyzing and planning communication strategies, as well as using the techniques of principled negotiation and influencing without authority, to achieve your goals.  This will be achieved with a mixture of short theory blocks, backed up by many interactive exercises and role plays, to help you practice your newly learned skills in a safe learning environment.

This training course will highlight:

• The first principles of managing stakeholders
• The stakeholder management process and typical plans/documents
• Developing communication strategies and plans for successful engagement
• The key interpersonal skills and an introduction to personality and behavior and their relevance to managing stakeholders.
• The importance of being able to understand the national, regional, corporate and business unit cultures that influence your stakeholders’ behaviors

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This training course will highlight:

• The first principles of managing stakeholders
• The stakeholder management process and typical plans/documents
• Developing communication strategies and plans for successful engagement
• The key interpersonal skills and an introduction to personality and behavior and their relevance to managing stakeholders.
• The importance of being able to understand the national, regional, corporate and business unit cultures that influence your stakeholders’ behaviors

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this training seminar, you will be able to:

Objectives 

By the end of this training seminar, you will be able to

• Define the leadership and managerial skills necessary for increasing organizational productivity
• Apply effective coaching and appraisal techniques
• Employ problem solving tools to overcome organizational obstacles
• Solve conflicts using win-win approaches
• Create plans to manage change leading to continuous improvement
• Develop effective time management action plans
• Describe the critical approaches to Stakeholder Management
• Discuss the main methods of effective influence
• Apply psychological communication theory to project and programme management
• Explain the process flow, the processes and key documents involved in managing stakeholders
• Describe how to analyze the stakeholder environment, identify/prioritize stakeholders and recognize their expectations
• Create and promulgate communications that assist in engaging stakeholders
• Demonstrate an ability to recognize how personality and behaviors give an insight into how to best manage stakeholder aspirations and expectations
• Give examples of different types of culture and the impact it has on your stakeholders’ worldview
• Show how to undertake successful negotiations, using principled negotiation techniques

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

The course enables leaders to practice the development of each of the strategy management steps. They will act as organizational managers in developing each strategic component for an organization of their choosing. The most important strategy tools and frameworks will be discussed and put into practical use during the course.

This training course will combine presentations with instructor-guided interactive discussions between participants relating to their individual workplace. Practical exercises, video material and case studies aiming at stimulating these discussions and providing maximum benefit to the participants will support the training.

This interactive training course includes the following training methodologies as a percentage of the total tuition hours

• 30% Lectures, Concepts, Role Play
• 30% Workshops & Work Presentations, Techniques
• 20% Based on Case Studies & Practical Exercises
• 20% Videos, Software & General Discussions

Pre and Post Test

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

This training course is suitable to a wide range of professionals but will especially benefit

• Executives and managers
• Junior managers and supervisors
• Professional managers and staff, including HR and finance
• Anyone who needs to understand Stakeholders and stakeholder engagement
• People involved in transformation initiatives
• Program, project and PMO personnel

Course Outline

Day 1

• First Principles, Identifying and Defining Stakeholder Audiences
• Overview of stakeholder engagement and management
• The stakeholder engagement process and key documents
• Identifying stakeholders
• Producing the stakeholder register
• Creating and analyzing stakeholder profiles
• Assessing interests, positive and negative
• Analyzing the gap between current stakeholder and required perceptions

·         Selecting a suitable Interpersonal Skills in Stakeholder Management 

DAY 2: 

 Planning Stakeholder Communications and Measuring Effectiveness

Ü Planning stakeholder engagement communications

Ü Identifying and delivering the key messages

Ü Creating stakeholder communications

Ü Planning and managing stakeholder meetings

Ü Dealing with stakeholder objections

Ü Escalating stakeholder issues for resolution by senior management

DAY 3: 

Interpersonal Skills in Stakeholder Management

Ü Empathy and how it can assist in managing stakeholder relationships

Ü Trust – the foundation of on which relationships are built

Ü Influencing, persuading and manipulating – why they are different and the impact they have

Ü Personality factors affecting stakeholder management (including feedback on a personality type questionnaire, to be taken in class)

Ü Behaviors, their relationship to personality and how to read them

Ü Influencing without authority – how to do it

Ü Emotional intelligence, what it involves and benefits

DAY 4

Negotiating for Success  

Ü The negotiating environment and backdrop

Ü Reservation points, zones of potential agreement and best alternatives to a negotiated agreement

Ü Differences between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ negotiation techniques and why they are important

Ü Principled negotiation, hardball tactics and important choices

Ü Negotiation protocols and processes

Ü Negotiation tools and techniques

DAY 5 

How Culture Affects Stakeholder Engagement and Management 

Ü What do we mean by culture?

Ü National culture

Ü Regional culture

Ü Organizational culture

Ü Business unit or division culture

Ü Communicating to different cultures

Ü Negotiating with different cultures

Ü   Review of course/presentation of certificates