Effectively managing stakeholder issues is essential to achieving project success, as unresolved challenges can undermine trust, disrupt progress, and jeopardize outcomes. Addressing communication gaps, conflicting interests, and engagement barriers ensures more substantial alignment and sustained stakeholder support throughout the project lifecycle. In this post, we speak to experts about practical strategies to overcome common stakeholder challenges.
Joining Jambo for this blog are Dayna Morgan and Dione McGuinness from BRITT RADIUS, a company specializing in land access and stakeholder engagement.
We got to ask them some questions about how best to handle stakeholder issues that arise during stakeholder engagement efforts, and why it's crucial to take them seriously. Between Dayna and Dione, they have decades of industry experience, which gives their organization a powerful perspective on the complexities of stakeholder engagement.
What are stakeholder issues?
Stakeholder issues are conflicts, risks, and communication gaps that arise when individuals or groups with an interest in a project have misaligned expectations, competing priorities, or, in some cases, a complete lack of engagement. These issues often manifest as scope creep, resistance to change, budgetary overruns, or declining trust.
Are stakeholder issues common?
"From experience, I will say stakeholder Issues are definitely common, ranging from very minor to very extreme. To better understand potential issues, it's essential to consider your stakeholders' perspectives. For example, technical teams tend to focus more on technical risks (e.g., safety risks) and often forget to consider stakeholders' perspectives. They end up assuming that issues are non-issues when they're actually significant to their stakeholders. You have to meet your stakeholders where they're at—how they're feeling". - Dayna Morgan
Issues are complex, and so stakeholder engagement must also be about showing that you're listening, considering different perspectives, and making sure people feel understood.
What can happen when a stakeholder issue isn't managed?
When issues aren't managed, they can escalate.
"People can escalate issues in different ways. When people feel an organization is ignoring them, they'll find someone who will listen, and suddenly something that could have been dealt with will grow and grow if left unmanaged. For example, someone might take an issue to social media, and suddenly it grows into a movement with a large following."- Dione McGuiness
"Even small issues can escalate if the company fails to address them, and this happens when stakeholders feel their concerns are ignored, leading to significant frustration. Then this frustration magnifies the issue."- Dayna Morgan
On the other hand, addressing issues early can actually build advocates.
Why is it important to understand your stakeholders when it comes to issues management?
"When you understand your stakeholders' values and interests and align your project with them, you can better understand their concerns. You also understand which topics to be cautious about and can work with your team and stakeholders to consider possible alternatives. This fuller understanding allows you to build in the appropriate resources. For example, if you've done your early assessment in an area and know it will add a year or two to your project schedule to listen to and address concerns fully, you can plan accordingly."
"There's a real financial benefit to engaging early. Being prepared allows you to avoid surprises, which is crucial because they lead to extra time and money and can strain relationships."
What's the importance of dealing with issues to help maintain stakeholder relationships?
"Thorough engagement supports relationship development, and that's a significant form of currency. Having the right key messaging and positioning before you enter a community helps build relationships early and ensures people are on the same page. Established relationships help you to navigate issues, too. If you have established relationships, stakeholders are more likely to pick up the phone and contact you when they have an issue. Without a relationship, you've missed that opportunity, and they'll take that issue elsewhere." - Dayna Morgan
It's also important to remember that trust can go a long way—building relationships is really building trust. When you have that relationship established early on, and you've earned that trust, if things don't go according to plan, you won't get as adverse a reaction as you would without that trust and relationship.
Why is stakeholder engagement so critical when it comes to issues management?
When it comes to stakeholder engagement, you need to start with the end in mind. Early understanding of potential risks is key to your project's success! To start, you need a strong strategic engagement framework to identify your stakeholders, understand what's important to them, and anticipate potential issues.
That strategic plan is necessary to effectively plan for the resources required to support your project development. If you don't complete this assessment early enough and an issue arises, you could find yourself without the properly allocated funds or without enough people in place to address it effectively.
"Disruption is the new normal. In an era of political, social and economic evolution, industries are re-evaluating how they do business. Access to land is becoming more challenging as stakeholders are more empowered and aware, expecting more from the companies they interact with." – BRITT RADIUS
Best practices for managing stakeholder issues
- Always begin with the end in mind.
- Have an established framework for understanding, with the proper tools and processes in place.
- Document everything, not just formal conversations—this is where using stakeholder relationship management software like Jambo is such a great idea, as it helps you manage a whole bunch of data and ensures you and your team have a dedicated process in place to provide a timely response to issues.
- Take the time to understand community values thoroughly.
- Always be respectful, especially when disagreeing.
- Listen to understand, not to respond. Make sure you're not trying to correct or educate people when they don't want to be corrected or educated; instead, take a timeout and listen to understand where they're coming from.
- Develop relationships early on, so that when issues arise, you have that currency.
How can BRITT RADIUS help organizations with their stakeholder engagement?
"We can be the boots on the ground or the tactical mind in the background. Rely on us to manage your engagement activities or incorporate our leaders to train and develop capacity within your own team." - Dayna Morgan
We can help in many ways! We have a diverse team with an extensive skill set, and our goal is to support teams and to help them with whatever burden they're experiencing. Whether it's with:
- Stakeholder engagement
- Public forums and open houses
- Participant involvement programs
- Indigenous engagement
- C3 management (consultation, commitments and compliance)
- Strategic communications
- Facilitation
- Training
We can help organizations with their upfront strategy—we have extensive experience in pre-engagement and pre-planning. We can also provide advisory services and documentation to ensure compliance and fulfill commitments.
How Jambo Stakeholder Relationship Management software resolves stakeholder issues
It's huge to have a reliable and easy-to-use stakeholder management tool like Jambo to manage all the data that goes into stakeholder engagement. In our line of work, we appreciate software like this that's responsive, user-friendly, and effective.
Jambo ensures a more consistent approach internally. There's nothing worse than recording something that requires follow-up, and it doesn't happen. So, having a tool like Jambo with mechanisms to ensure follow-up is excellent and increases the chances of success.
The Jambo team has similar ideals and values to the BRITT RADIUS team. We see how willing they are to work with stakeholders in the same way we work with ours, and that willingness to listen, modify, and adapt to try and get ahead of those concerns and opportunities sets them apart. It's the same drive as our team, and it makes for a great partnership!
