Engaging Stakeholders in Projects

It’s hard work convincing a stakeholder who doesn’t want good Procurement. I use my T.E.A.C.H. framework: 1. TALK to the person and not about the Policy. Find out about their role, their pain points and the service they need. 2. EVALUATE options to add value This is the route in. Show them the ways Procurement can help, even if it’s not via a typical full RFP. 3. ADAPT your style Not your principles. If fundamentals, e.g. benchmarking or a contract are missing, explain the risks clearly, Not just to the business but for them as an individual. 4. CREATE long-term objectives. A vision for the future. This is where common ground is more likely and how you can align on future ways of working. 5. HELP them understand the opportunity By leaving a positive impression. Ask them to imagine the value Procurement can add not just to this specific engagement but in future If you’d been engaged earlier. ________ Thoughts? LMK in comments Found this helpful? Please repost ♻️ to help others in your network. Want more actionable tips like this? Join 12,500+ Procurement Pros who get my insights direct to their inbox weekly (free) 👇 https://procurebites.com/

5 ways to link strategy to operations (and not let your execution fall apart) Most organisations plan big. But the execution? That’s where things break down. Here are 5 strategic-operational linkage points that keep your vision connected to results: 1. Fund and track your strategic initiatives Strategy without funding = fantasy. Strategy without tracking = chaos. → Prioritise based on ROI, feasibility, and strategic fit. → Track progress through dashboards and reviews. 2. Tie strategy to ops and finance Initiatives must create visible operational and financial outcomes. → Think cost savings, process improvements, revenue gains. → If it doesn’t become part of BAU, it was just a project, not a strategy. 3. Let strategic targets drive long-term planning Your goals should shape your financial roadmap. Targets such as customer growth or sustainability should guide budgets and investments. → Misalignment here = wasted time and missed impact. 4. Build your driver models Every strategy needs a “cause and effect” system. → Use value trees or SIPOC diagrams to map what drives outcomes. → Decision-making improves when you can connect actions to results. 5. Review. Analyze. Adjust. Strategy is not a one-time plan. → Set regular (monthly/quarterly) review cycles. → Validate assumptions. Take action. Iterate fast. What makes these 5 links so strong? You create a system of execution, learning, and strategic agility. This is how alignment works. A more indepth article on this subject https://lnkd.in/ezXcJGi9 P.S. Please follow me if you like content like this

Change is inevitable. But successful change? That’s a different story. Too many organizations still treat change as a one-time project—a checklist to complete before moving on. But the truth is, change is never really "done." It’s an ongoing process, and the companies that thrive are those that build adaptability into their DNA. Yet, time and time again, I see leaders making the same mistakes: ❌ Announcing change without securing widespread buy-in ❌ Overloading with information but not involving people in the process ❌ Assuming a strategy is enough—when it’s people who make or break transformation So, what’s the real secret to making change stick? 🔹 Lead with empathy—change is emotional before it’s logical 🔹 Over-communicate, then communicate 5x more 🔹 Measure not just adoption, but engagement—are people embracing the change or just tolerating it? In my work helping leaders in global businesses navigate complex transformations, one thing is clear: sustainable change is not about forcing compliance. It’s about fostering commitment. What’s one lesson you’ve learned about leading change effectively? Let’s discuss. 👇 #ChangeManagement #BusinessTransformation #OrganizationalDevelopment #FutureOfWork #futurefitleaders

Why do so many transformations in organizations fail? Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with a former colleague. He was sharing about the challenges his organization is facing. After years of tremendous growth, the last few quarters have been tough. "Gopal, we’ve tried so many different approaches, but it’s frustrating. People just seem to revert to their old ways within weeks," he said. Organizations often invest heavily in training, hoping to ignite lasting change. But after a few months, they’re back to square one. Why? Perhaps, we often treat the symptoms, not the root cause. Here’s the reality—real, sustainable Transformation requires more than just good intentions. It demands a fundamental shift in routine, discipline, and habits. If you keep doing the same things, you’ll keep getting the same results. This isn’t just a cliché; it’s a truth many organizations face. Real change starts with courageous leadership—leaders who acknowledge that something needs fixing and are committed to the hard work of making it happen. But how do we turn intention into action? Here’s what I’ve learned from working with organizations over the years: 🚶♂️ Understand the Journey: Transformation isn’t a one-time event; it’s a continuous journey. Too often, leadership interventions are seen as isolated events—a training session here, a workshop there. Real change requires an embedded approach where leaders and teams collaborate to build new routines, new disciplines, and, ultimately, new habits. 🌱 Start Small, Think Big: Smaller organizations may find it easier to pivot and build new habits. The challenge is greater for larger organizations with complex hierarchies—but not impossible. Start with small, manageable changes that can scale over time. ✅ Foster Accountability: Change requires discipline, and discipline is built through accountability. Without clear structure and consistent follow-through, even the best intentions can falter. Regular check-ins, open communication, and feedback are crucial to keeping everyone aligned and motivated. 📚 Embed Learning Daily: For Transformation to stick, learning must be part of the daily routine, not just a special event. Leaders need to model this behaviour, showing that they are also committed to growth and change. 🎉 Celebrate Small Wins: Transformation is hard work, and it’s easy to lose momentum if progress feels slow. That’s why it’s crucial to celebrate small wins along the way. Recognize and reward efforts, not just outcomes, to keep morale high. What small step can you take today to start this journey? How can you begin to build the habits and routines that will lead to lasting change in your organization? Remember, Transformation is not a destination but a journey of discovery. Along the way, we face mountains of success and valleys of doubt, each teaching us something new about ourselves. #Leadership #Transformation #OrganizationalChange #GrowthMindset

Do you want to ensure your stakeholders use your data results? Here is how to make sure your results drive action: 1. 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗡𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀: Start by truly understanding what your stakeholders need. Ask them about their goals, challenges, and what decisions they hope to make with your data. Tailor your work to align with their priorities.     2. 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗠𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲: Avoid overwhelming stakeholders with technical jargon and complex statistics. Instead, compress your findings into clear, actionable insights. Use visuals and adjust your language to make your message stick.     3. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁: Explain why your results matter. Show how your analysis or models impact the business and support decision-making. Connect the dots between your data and the stakeholder's objectives.     4. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Don’t just present data, but offer concrete, actionable recommendations. Clearly outline the steps stakeholders can take based on your findings. This bridges the gap between data and business outcomes.     5. 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄-𝗨𝗽: Stay involved after presenting your results. Schedule follow-up meetings to discuss implementation and address any questions or concerns. Continuous engagement ensures your insights are not only understood but also used to drive business decisions.     6. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Consistently deliver accurate and valuable insights. Building a reputation for reliability and expertise makes stakeholders more likely to trust and use your results. By focusing on these strategies, you’ll ensure your results are not just heard but also put into action, driving real impact in your organization. Thoughts? ---------------- ♻️ Share if you find this post useful ➕ Follow for more daily insights on how to grow your career in the data field #dataanalytics #datascience #stakeholdermanagement #datadrivendecisions #careergrowth

Does your role involve responsibilities without requisite authority? How often have you had to influence stakeholders? Influencing skills repeatedly come up in my coaching conversations with clients. Leaders face the challenge of driving change when they don’t have direct control. The struggle can come from a common misconception: You may think Influence is about persuasion when, in reality, it’s more about perception. You focus on crafting the perfect argument, assuming logic will prevail, whereas Influence is more about how the other person experiences your ideas. If they resonate, they will lean in and want to know more. However, even the most innovative idea will face resistance if they feel pushed, dismissed, or threatened. Last year, I coached a CXO struggling with this challenge. He was passionate about a project and wanted it rolled out fast, but stakeholders pushed back, insisting the pace of change would disrupt business and create confusion. Instead of debating, he met with each stakeholder, heard their concerns, and understood their perspectives. Using insights from those conversations, he modified his plan, reframed his ideas in their language, and showed how it solved their pain points rather than disrupting them. Finally, he started small and offered them a pilot version of the project instead of a full rollout. Over time, as they saw the results come in, one by one, they acknowledged the benefits and became active advocates. To get through, begin by making the stakeholders feel heard and understood. Here are three ways you can do that: ▷ Get curious about their resistance. Fear of change? Loss of control? Competing priorities? ▷ Speak their language. People don’t change for your reasons; they will change for theirs. Show them how they win. ▷ Make it safe to say yes. Big changes trigger big resistance. Small wins build momentum. People trust and respect you as they feel heard. When you know how to position ideas effectively, you don’t have to rely on authority and can drive change from any seat at the table. Earlier in the post, I said that you may think Influence is about persuasion when it’s more about perception. Another way to look at this is that Influence is about positioning. The less the stakeholders feel pushed, the more they lean in. What are your strategies for influencing when you have no authority? #InfluencingSkills #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching

Most Projects Fail to Deliver Full Value… Because Stakeholder Management Is an Afterthought. ~ Conflicting priorities stall critical decisions. ~ Misaligned expectations derail project timelines. ~ Key sponsors disengage, leaving teams without support. And yet, when these challenges arise, most teams focus on “more updates” or “more stakeholder meetings.” But the real issue isn’t the frequency of communication – It’s ineffective stakeholder management. Here’s what I consistently see in projects: → Too Many Decision-Makers – Multiple stakeholders with conflicting goals slow down consensus and project momentum. → Competing Priorities – What’s urgent for one stakeholder may be irrelevant for another, creating constant friction. → Limited Resources – Tight budgets and stretched teams make balancing stakeholder demands increasingly difficult. These challenges lead to delays, frustration, and loss of stakeholder trust. What’s the solution? A structured and strategic stakeholder management approach, not just ad hoc engagement. Here’s how I help organisations elevate their stakeholder management: 1. Clarify Expectations Early → Align all stakeholders on shared goals, roles, and success metrics upfront. 2. Strategic Stakeholder Mapping → Using tools like the Power-Interest Matrix to categorise stakeholders and tailor engagement accordingly. 3. Targeted Communication Strategies → Communicating the right information, to the right people, at the right time. 4. Action-Oriented Engagement Plans → Prioritising critical stakeholders and focusing efforts where they create the most impact. When organisations manage stakeholders effectively, the outcomes speak for themselves: → Faster decision-making: Streamlined discussions and fewer bottlenecks.  → Stronger stakeholder alignment: Reduced conflicts and enhanced project cohesion.  → Higher project success rates: Deliverables that meet or exceed expectations.  → Improved stakeholder relationships: Greater trust and long-term collaboration. Stakeholder management isn’t a soft skill – it’s a business-critical strategy. Are competing priorities slowing your projects down? Let’s address it. Drop me a message and let’s explore how structured stakeholder engagement can drive project success and stakeholder buy-in. —- 📌 Want to become the best LEADERSHIP version of yourself in the next 30 days? 🧑💻Book 1:1 Growth Strategy call with me: https://lnkd.in/gVjPzbcU #Leadership #Strategy #Projects #Success #Growth

Lou Gerstner walked into IBM in 1993 expecting a strategy problem. What he found was worse. Here's what leaders need to learn: Every division had a strategy. Every executive had a vision. Every team was chasing a different goal. Engineering was building for one future. Sales was selling into another. Marketing had its own roadmap entirely. At his first exec meeting, each leader presented different success metrics: Revenue. Market share. Innovation. NPS. Same company, completely different definitions of winning. Gerstner didn’t write a new strategy. He did something more powerful: He mandated one framework for priorities. Same metrics. Same language. Same scorecard. Within 6 months, misalignment became visible. Within a year, IBM started moving as one. I saw the same pattern play out in a Fortune 500 basement. The quarterly review was nearly over when the Head of Ops paused: “I need to be honest. I don’t even know what our top 3 priorities are right now.” Silence. Then heads nodded. The CMO had been focused on brand. Sales thought revenue was the priority. The CTO was deep in infrastructure rebuild. The CFO was chasing cost control. 9 executives. 27 different priorities. 3 overlaps. That’s not a team. That’s a collection of soloists. Strategy isn’t the problem. Alignment is. Everyone knows the strategy. But what are they actually optimizing for this week? I’ve seen it again and again: • Monday: “Retention is everything” • Friday: Sales signs three bad-fit clients to hit quota • Product starts chasing new features • Success never gets the memo 5 days. Alignment gone. So how do you fix it? 1. Make priorities visible weekly Every Monday: top 3 org-wide priorities, posted publicly. No guessing. No side quests. 2. Create explicit handoffs Marketing, sales, product, and success - define the exact criteria for every handoff. Spotify did this. Discovered 40% of handoffs had misaligned expectations. 3. Run weekly alignment checks One question: What are you optimizing for this week? If it doesn’t match the org’s top 3, you catch drift instantly. 4. One source of truth No more 50 dashboards. Microsoft did this with their Customer Success Score. Every division had to contribute to the same North Star. Alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It deteriorates by default. Great companies don’t assume alignment. They build it systematically. That Fortune 500 team? 6 months later, they went from 27 priorities to 3. Revenue grew 18%. Engagement jumped 43% → 71%. All because they stopped guessing. Want more research-backed frameworks like this? Join 11,000+ execs who get our newsletter every week: 👉 https://lnkd.in/en9vxeNk

How do you connect with your stakeholders when it comes to sustainability? Engaging effectively with key stakeholders can feel like a balancing act, but it’s essential if your business wants to drive meaningful sustainability outcomes. The secret? Speak their language and align with their priorities. Let me tell you a story. At Microsoft, before any meeting about sustainability, the team takes a step back and asks: What are the organizational priorities of the person or group we’re meeting with?  How can we align our sustainability goals with what they’re already working on? It’s a simple but powerful approach that ensures the conversation flows smoothly, and both sides walk away with a clear sense of how sustainability can fit into existing business goals. This approach is grounded in understanding what motivates each stakeholder. Whether they’re in finance, marketing, or operations, knowing their priorities helps you frame sustainability in a way that resonates with them. For instance, finance teams are often driven by numbers—so when you talk about sustainability, you could focus on how reducing carbon emissions can lead to cost savings or mitigate long-term financial risks. According to CDP, companies that address climate change could unlock $2.1 trillion in business opportunities over the next decade. But it’s not just about talking numbers. Engaging with stakeholders also means understanding the unique skills they bring to the table and how they’re incentivized. At Unilever, they’ve taken this to heart by integrating sustainability into the key performance indicators of every department, from supply chain to marketing. This way, sustainability becomes part of their everyday work, not just an add-on. Effective stakeholder engagement is about creating a win-win scenario. When you take the time to understand what your stakeholders care about and align your sustainability goals with their objectives, it’s much easier to find common ground and drive real progress. So, how are you planning to engage your stakeholders in your sustainability journey?

Sustainability strategies don’t succeed behind closed doors. One of the biggest challenges I see in Sustainability and ESG implementation? Treating it like an internal checklist. But in reality, Sustainability and ESG only works when it's built with stakeholders, and not just for them or because of them. ✅ Investors want clarity. ✅ Employees want authenticity. ✅ Regulators want transparency. ✅ Customers want values that match their own. The most effective Sustainability and ESG strategies are co-created through meaningful, two-way engagement, long before a report is published. Here’s what I’ve seen work: 👥 Engage stakeholders early – Don’t wait for feedback. Bring people into the process from the start. 🚶🏻♀️ Walk the talk – Sustainability can’t live on paper. When teams see values in action, engagement deepens. 📊 Report what truly matters – Relevance builds trust. Focus your disclosures where it counts. Stakeholder engagement is more than just a checkbox, it’s a relationship. And in times of uncertainty, those relationships are what carry your strategy forward. Ready to make your Sustainability and ESG strategy more collaborative, credible, and effective? 🔗 Learn how my advisory services can support your stakeholder-driven ESG goals: https://lnkd.in/e9CWD9Vd 🔗 Stay in the loop with Sustainability best practices-subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.fulyakocak.com Real impact starts when people feel part of the process. #StakeholderEngagement  #ESGLeadership  #SustainabilityStrategy