57 Map your stakeholder landscapes: understanding your social networks
By now you have completed a topic about how to prepare your audience and those you need to persuade. You also, perhaps, watched some cat videos an activity that some researchers suggest would have been good for your emotional well-being.
You are ready to work on ways that will enhance your good thinking skills by knowing and understanding more about your audience.
Because of the complex environment in which the Army operates we use the term stakeholder landscape when we are investigating the needs, wants and mindset of relevant stakeholders. By using geography terms, it reminds us that we need to keep our minds open and start with the big picture before we start focusing on specific people, teams, and other entities.
We encourage you to keep the ‘people’ in mind when you are exploring your stakeholder landscape. We lump groups, teams and leadership bodies into the catch-all of ‘stakeholder’ and that tends to depersonalise our thinking.
To get you started on this part of the learning journey please read this case study, by Barry Laming, in The Cove. Look for the many characters in the case. Ideally make a note of who, where, and what each stakeholder is wanting to achieve.
This case highlights the complexity of a specific scenario.
Here is a key statement from the case:
‘While interfering with or clashing with ADF missions and personnel is extremely low on their list of priorities, the force that can be brought to bear on ADF missions is potentially catastrophic.’
Barry Laming1
The power of this important insight is that it shows many players in a complex situation. As in battle, you want to have a three dimensional imagery to be able to shift focus and perspective to see things from many angles. The immediate threat to ADF missions and personnel is low as the statement highlights: low and potentially catastrophic.
From this introduction we want you to remember the following five key points:
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Stakeholders are people.
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All stakeholders have a stake in the situation and context.
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The degree and relevance of their stake is related to the perspective of other stakeholders and their stake
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The more complex the context and situation the more significant small things become.
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A landscape metaphor helps the viewer navigate the many views in the stakeholder decision frame.
Here are some definitions for you. We want you to carefully read and consider these definitions as they will help you with the activities and also with your overall understanding the dynamics of a stakeholder landscape:
Individuals or groups who have interest or some other aspect of rights or ownership in the project, and can contribute to, or be impacted by, the outcomes of the project.2
The context, environment, situation and characteristics in which the stakeholders or stakeholder groups operate.3
The change in a person’s attitudes, behaviours or beliefs due to external pressure or forces either real or perceived.4
Informal: The ability to get things done!
Formal: The level of impact within a situation or organisation and ability to direct actions and outcomes. Power comes from multiple factors that can overlap: awareness of information networks within a context, the ability to control and direct information, as well as the impact of informal and formal structural positions. 5, 6
The perception or assumption that a stakeholder’s actions are desirable, proper or appropriate within the given context.7
The degree to which delay is unacceptable to the stakeholder, and the importance of the claim or the relationship to the stakeholder.8
A focus on a concept, activity or situation that may become a focal concentration of attention. Interest groups are that are comprised of groups of individuals or organisations that share and magnify the focal concept.
Why do organisations put so much effort into their stakeholder relations and traditional stakeholder management? Make your way through the list of definitions above and consider why stakeholder understanding is so crucial to you, your teams and the Army generally.9
Which key stakeholders have power and influence? Why?
Why does this stakeholder group affect our organisation on behalf of whom?
What are the desires of key individuals in the stakeholder group?
How does this stakeholder group affect our organisation?
How powerful is this stakeholder group? What gives them this power?
What factors might affect that power in the future?10
Overall, the direct stakeholder team needs to decide why the answers are important and what it is that the organisation intends to do as a result of knowing the answer to these questions.
Clearly the answers to these questions also impact you and you have a part of play, however indirect that may be.
So, why is the stakeholder landscape so important?
Despite your sound reasoning, your logic, your ability to set up conditions where you can have the maximum impact, you need to know:
- who are you setting out to influence (the stakeholder/s)
- what the stakeholders are thinking
- your level and their level of power
- the level of urgency for you and for the stakeholder
- the legitimacy of all involved
- the perceived urgency and the lever of interest of the parties in the overall stakeholder landscape.
In the next lesson we get you to describe where you worked in a situation where you had to carefully understand the stakeholder landscape, or an upcoming situation where you will have to understand what is happening around you.
References
- Laming, B. (2020). Decisive Action Training Environment and the Hybrid Threat of the Trans-national criminal syndicate, retrieved 23 July 2020, from https://cove.army.gov.au/article/decisive-action-training-environment-and-the-hybrid-threat-the-trans-national-criminal
- Bourne, L., & Walker, D. H. (2008). Project relationship management and the Stakeholder Circle™. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.
- Brower, J., & Mahajan, V. (2013). Driven to be good: A stakeholder theory perspective on the drivers of corporate social performance. Journal of business ethics, 117(2), 313-331.
- Cialdini, R. B. (2001). The Science of Persuasion. Scientific American, 284(2), 76-81. www.jstor.org/stable/26059056
- Schultz, P. W., Nolan, J. M., Cialdini, R. B., Goldstein, N. J., & Griskevicius, V. (2007). The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms. Psychological Science, 18(5), 429-434. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01917.
- Krackhardt, D. (1990). Assessing the political landscape: Structure, cognition, and power in organizations. Administrative science quarterly, 342-369.
- Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of Who and What Really Counts. The Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853-886
- Ibid.
- Yoho, J. (1998). The evolution of a better definition of “interest group” and its synonyms. The Social Science Journal, 35(2), 231-243.
- Hubbard, G., Rice, J., & Beamish, P. (2008). Strategic Management. Pearson Education.
| Table 1: Self-Audit | |
| Summary of the Situation and Context | |
| What is your role in the project? | |
| Influence: Describe the influence you have in this project | |
| Power: What power do you have in this project. Informal and Formal | |
| Legitimacy: Describe the legitimacy you have in this context | |
| Urgency: What is the level of urgency for you in this project? | |
| Interest: What is your level of interest in the project? Explain the reason you have this level of interest | |
| Overall summary of your capacity and the level of success you achieved/the likelihood of achieving a suitable level of success. |
