• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • About Us
    • Who We Are
    • Our Team
    • Our Mosaic Art
  • Services
    • Stakeholder Leadership
      • 2021 Stakeholder Leadership Accelerator
    • Organizational Alignment
      • Strategic Alignment
      • Cultural Alignment
      • Post M&A Alignment
    • Professional Coaching
      • Executive Coaching
      • Leadership Coaching
      • Transition Coaching
    • Training & Development
      • Stakeholder Leadership Accelerator Program
      • MC: Productivity and Accomplishment Course
      • Advanced Leader Development
      • Sales Leader Development
      • Performance Leader Workshops
      • Transformative Sales Course
  • Online Courses
    • Leadership
    • Accountability
    • Culture of Trust
  • Resources
    • Leadership Impact Podcast
    • Blog
    • Media Hub
    • Books
  • Contact Us

email

How to (Actually) Get Heard by Your Stakeholders

October 2, 2020

How to (Actually) Get Heard by Your Stakeholders

Kari Granger
Principle & CEO

I once worked with a chief operations officer—we’ll call him Nicolas—who was asked by his CEO to present an update to the board. Nicolas prepared beautiful charts and airtight talking points to walk the directors of this private equity owned company through its day-to-day operations.

But, it didn’t go to plan. After the meeting, the CEO reported back to that the directors were dissatisfied with his presentation. They did not feel confident in the operations management of the company and left the meeting with more questions than answers.

Nicolas was dismayed, but more than that, he was perplexed. What could he have done differently? He had meticulously walked them through every aspect of the day-to-day function of the business. And, he demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of the enterprise. He thought they’d be thrilled.

Where did he go wrong?

Leading with Their Cares

Here’s a principle of effective communication that draws deeply on human nature: If you want someone to hear what you have to say, get to what matters to you by way of what matters to them. Or, as I often coach my clients, to really get through to someone, lead with their fundamental care.

When you lead with the other person’s fundamental care, you activate their listening on a deeper level. You prime them with the context necessary to open up and take in the information you’re trying to convey in a meaningful way. Without taking that step, they may hear what you’re saying, but likely, they’re not listening. And if they aren’t listening, you aren’t communicating.

Where Nicolas Went Wrong

As COO, Nicolas’s domain was the operational function of the business, the internal affairs. So that’s what he presented on–how things were going in his narrowly defined domain, the metrics pertaining to internal operations.  After all, that’s what the CEO had called him in to present on in the first place. What else was he supposed to talk about?

The issue was–he was so focused on these internal metrics that he completely forgot to lead with the directors’ cares. As a private equity board, and their fundamental care was about seeing a return on that investment. Meaning, efficient operations is interesting to the private equity board inasmuch as it speaks to the board’s investment strategy.

The questions ringing in their ears are:

  • How will this company be better positioned in the marketplace?
  • What competitive advantage are we leveraging to gain market share?
  • What is the biggest threat to our success? What will delay our exit?

As COO, he wasn’t thinking about all of that. He was just trying to do a “good job” on the operations—and to show the board as much.  He figured the board’s own questions were better left to the CEO, who was focused on long-term goals and broad company outlook. That might have been true on paper, in terms of what was in their job descriptions. But, the result was that he was not effective in communicating with a key stakeholder.

If Nicolas knew to lead with the directors’ fundamental cares, he might have gone about his preparation differently. He may have grounded himself in the board’s investment strategy. He may have sought to understand more about the directors who were present: Who are they? What other companies are in their portfolio? How does his company fit into all of it? What are they trying to achieve as an investment company? What do they want to know from the COO? And, ultimately, Nicolas may have shaped his presentation around these findings. Then, his updates about the nitty-gritty operations of the business could have landed in a totally different way.

Stakeholder Leadership™

We’ve entered an age in which leaders are expected to navigate  various stakeholder interests as a foundational competency. As such, the job of a leader is to speak to the cares of all stakeholders. This includes directors and investors, but it goes way beyond that: employees, suppliers, local communities and governments, to name a few. Engaging these stakeholders can only happen in conversation. And as we’ve seen, these conversations will only be effective when that stakeholder feels as though what matters to them is front and center. The minor shift of leading with these fundamental cares, can have an immediate and outsized impact on the quality of these critical interactions.

Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Join our mailing list
Get transformative insights delivered straight to your inbox
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Footer

  • About Us
  • Who We Are
  • Our Team
  • Our Mosaic Art
  • Services
  • Organizational Alignment
  • Professional Coaching
  • Training & Development
  • Stakeholder Leadership
  • Resources
  • Leadership Impact Podcast
  • Blog
  • Media Hub
  • Books
  • Online Courses
  • Leadership
  • Accountability
  • Culture of Trust
Contact Us

email

facebooktwitterlinkedininstagramyoutube

© Copyright 2019 • All rights reserved. Privacy Policy. Terms & Conditions. Developed by TinyFrog

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Granger Network
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.