Dear Negative Stakeholder

Dear Neg­a­tive Stakeholder,

How are you?  It’s been way too long since we last chat­ted!  I know that you are prob­a­bly not happy that I am call­ing you “neg­a­tive.”  “What’s up with that?,” you are thinking.

I am a very pos­i­tive per­son, you might even think.  “I used to be a cheer­leader!” you may say.  “Or, I love the Dal­las Cow­boy cheer­lead­ers!” you may also counter.

If you are my husband.

So what’s up with that, Kiran? you are think­ing right now.  You don’t even know me and you are send­ing me this let­ter, all up in my face and throw­ing around words like “negative.”

Well here is the thing.  “Neg­a­tive” stake­hold­ers are not always bad.  As a mat­ter of fact, they can be quite, quite impor­tant for the suc­cess of any project.  As long as you can iden­tify them and under­stand the con­cerns that may be moti­vat­ing their um.  hmmm.  Lack of support.

And neg­a­tive stake­hold­ers can be good peo­ple.  Qual­ity indi­vid­u­als.  For exam­ple, there were plans to open up a hos­pi­tal near my house.  I was ok with this, as I am kind of acci­dent prone and thought this could work out in my favor.

But some peo­ple were NOT ok with it.  They did not want this hos­pi­tal any­where near our lit­tle town, thank you very much.  They pick­eted, sent let­ters of protest and went to town meet­ings to raise their concerns.

They were nice peo­ple.  Pos­i­tive peo­ple, actu­ally.  But they were “neg­a­tive stake­hold­ers” in this par­tic­u­lar situation.

So now, I just have to try to be a lit­tle less acci­dent prone because its twenty min­utes to the clos­est hospital.

Here are some other exam­ples of other neg­a­tive stake­hold­ers you keep com­pany with.

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Exam­ple 1:

Project:

Beef Indus­try — Eat More Meat Cam­paign.  Mar­ket­ing rehaul designed to edu­cate peo­ple on how red meat is just mis­un­der­stood.  So eat more meat.  Moo.

Neg­a­tive Stakeholder:

PETA

Exam­ple 2:

Project:

MTV launches new sea­son of Tila Tequila. Goal is to increase view­er­ship to the chan­nel by 10%.  An expen­sive adver­tis­ing project has been put into place to drive viewership.

Neg­a­tive Stakeholder:

Any­one with taste

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So the point is that great peo­ple, WONDERFUL peo­ple, can be neg­a­tive stake­hold­ers.  So don’t be offended.

When I start a project or kick­off an imple­men­ta­tion, it is really impor­tant to me that I know who you are. There may be twenty smil­ing faces in the kick­off meet­ing, but I can usu­ally fig­ure out who you are within the first hour or so.  Some­thing about your smile.  And per­haps the type of ques­tions you ask.

Like when you ask me how long before I leave.

There are rea­sons you may ques­tion the project.  Per­haps it is con­cern that a new ana­lyt­ics solu­tion can­not be trusted, because you just got com­fort­able learn­ing the last one, and why do I have to go and rain on your parade now?

You may feel that there is a pos­si­bil­ity that some of the auto­mated report­ing will some­how replace some of your co-workers.  I know that some­times this is a con­cern, but let me tell you, ana­lyt­ics does not replace peo­ple.  It empow­ers them.

You may be annoyed because this new project is going to cause you a lot more work.  You are already stretched thin with some recent lay­offs that occurred and replace­ment head­count has not been added.

I don’t know what your story is just yet, but I am going to find out.  You may have a lot of great points to con­sider for the suc­cess of this project.  It could be that I can actu­ally turn this around and make you a “pos­i­tive” stakeholder.

Or it could be that you will con­tinue to be a thorn in my side be a real joy to work with as you find ways to under­mine every­thing I do to push this project for­ward bring for­ward a new and fresh perspective.

Ulti­mately, I want this project to suc­ceed.  I want your com­pany to suc­ceed.  I want YOU to succeed.

Even though you may not have the same agenda for me.

Thanks for keep­ing me on my toes.  It helps my calves look nicer in heels.

Sin­cerely,

Kiran