Evading stakeholder hijacks
- Priya Venkatesan
- Feb 15
- 1 min read
Handling Multi-stakeholder systems is a very common challenge that leaders face today.
There are many instances where they need to influence stakeholders without authority and fall short of the mark.
Stakeholder hijacks on important meetings costs leaders a lot of time & energy due to:
Delays in project approvals/timelines
Frustration
Loss of productivity
What can the leader do to stay above water and evade stakeholder hijacks?
In their book, "The Heart of Change field guide". Dan S. Cohen & John P.Kotter talk about Audience prioritization matrix to get buy-in.
As evident from the above figure, the insights that the leaders could draw on are
The objective is not to convince all stakeholders if they are too many.
All stakeholders are not created equal. Its important to prioritise them based on criticality to success and the effort to change.
A "focus lock" is needed for stakeholders who are critical to the leader's proposal.
Its important to take stakeholders in confidence before making big bang announcements.
It's important to be able to come back to the agenda after a hijack and not get bogged down just because one stakeholder raised an alarm.
Relationships matter in democracy.
In crisis, dictatorships work; whether for the better or worse, history has to be kind to judge. The leader still takes the brick bat.
While the expectation of the leader could be towards 'Maintaining confidence', reality could be otherwise and its ok.
If you are a leader who works in multi-stakeholder environments, what moves the needle for you?
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