Getting Stakeholder buy-in a.k.a. WIIFM

Sidonia Michoux

Emeryst Ltd

Business Consultant, Cost Reduction Consultant

Affecting Change within organisations can be a difficult task, but it is not impossible. Stephen Covey wrote in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that if you just listen to your stakeholders and give them the space to express themselves, their fears and their concerns and know they have been understood, then you have won the battle. However, we have also seen (and was guilty of) examples where the timeline to deliver a project was tight, the deliverables (to our minds) were too obvious to ignore and if the project takes off then we will all live happily ever after...cue Disney movie ending. However, the stakeholders did not see this logical path and they did not accept the programme. Actually some have kicked up such a fuss, that management decided to drop the programme that would have helped the organisation deliver on operational efficiencies, reducing suppliers, reducing costs etc. Why then did these projects fail to deliver all it promised and why were there still grublings from people even after the programmes were implemented? I have 2 answers : 1) People do not feel that they were understood (7 Habits) and 2) The programme leaders did not do the WIIFM (What's in it for me) sell to all the stakeholders. Of course people know that they will have to do what management say, but if they are not fully convinced and you have not explained how their lives are going to be better, then you will have continued grumbling, during and after implementation of a programme. If the grumbling continues, then management may even stop the change programme as the ear-ache they are getting from their people is too much.

Consultancy have a bad reputation within most organisations. People see consultants as those "know it alls" who come in and break things and then leave the place in a worse mess than it was in and having taken millions of dollars from the company. Consultants can help an Organisation's Transformation or Change Management Team to identify and design certain strategic changes. The additional resource power can help organisations deliver these programmes quicker and the specialist resource can also be used by Programme Managers eliminate the learning curve their own people will have to go through. Additionally, as Consultants want to have repeat business from their customers, they are more likely to go the extra mile and be more focussed on delivering lasting benefits to their customers than in-house resources.

Emeryst prides itself of having repeat business from our customers, but also having learned the valuable lessons in stakeholder management, we specialise in building long lasting and mutually beneficial relationships.

Consultancy services.
Cost Savings
Relationship Management
Supplier Mannagement
Stakeholder Management

Sidonia Michoux

Emeryst Ltd

Business Consultant, Cost Reduction Consultant

We are a Global Procurement, Supply Chain and Business Consultancy specialising in Supplier Vetting and Management, Business Analytics, Business Interpretation and Translations, Contracts Management,…