How to maintain a good communication strategy with your stakeholders?

Are you starting a project, and you need to make alliances? Do not worry! Today, we will guide you on everything you need to know how to communicate with your stakeholders. Without giving you any spoilers, we will tell you How to maintain a good communication strategy with your stakeholders. Then, we will also talk about how to deal with those who are difficult …

Are you ready? Let us begin!

Communication strategy with your stakeholders

If you are at the head of a project, you should already know that maintaining a good relationship with your stakeholders is key to enhancing the impact of your project. In this way, although you already have a stakeholder map, you must establish good communication with your stakeholders. We will explain what you should take into account below:

1. You must bear in mind the WHAT: in your communication strategy with your stakeholders, you must be clear about what issue should be addressed and what tone of communication to use (formal or informal).
2. Don’t forget the WHY: ask yourself why is this topic being addressed with this group? Remember that each stakeholder has a different power and interest regarding your project.
3. Plan WHO: you must be clear about who is responsible for communicating with stakeholders. It can be the communications manager or the public relations assistant. Remember that your organization chart and the respective roles within your organization must be present in your work team.
4. Think of the HOW: the content is important, but also the form. In this way, you should evaluate how you will send the message, such as by letter or email. You should also consider how stakeholders can respond. This involves forms or phone calls
5. Plan the WHEN: you must establish an explicit schedule for communication with your stakeholders. This can be daily, weekly, biweekly, among other frequencies.

How to deal with difficult stakeholders?

It happens that throughout the process of creating a stakeholder map (and in everything that follows), there will be organizations or people challenging to deal with …

The next question is, what do you do when it comes to communicating with difficult stakeholders? No matter how stubborn they may seem, there are always ways to earn their trust. We’ll tell you shortly:

Accept their authority, don’t fight it

We tell you that when dealing with your project’s stakeholders, there are times when there is disagreement. On these occasions, you must accept the position of authority and the hierarchical structure of your stakeholder.

If you follow this advice, your stakeholders will probably change their attitude and be more open to dialogue with your team.

Be discreet and honest

Throughout this process of communication with stakeholders, there will be valid reasons for the conflict. When these occur in the project, you can’t just “hide them under the rug.”

Remember that nobody likes to hear that they are wrong. Therefore, you must find a way to say it in other words. One tip to avoid generating discomfort in the stakeholder is not to talk about what is right or wrong, but about the project’s needs and how it is affected by such issues.

Tailor your communication

Not all stakeholders are the same. For this reason, you need to know your stakeholders well so that you are clear about how you should communicate with each one. In this regard, the question is recurring: do you prefer text messages, email, phone calls, or face-to-face meetings?

To grow your network of stakeholders, you must try to make them feel good. This is not necessarily achieved with flattery (although it can work), but, to a greater extent, good relationships are based on good work. That is where the heart of your stakeholders is, and this is how you will make them happy.

We are now at the end … We hope that this article has taught you how to make a stakeholder map and, also, we hope you can take advantage of our advice in the post-stakeholder mapping stage, which implies the communication strategy that you decide to apply for each group of stakeholders. Interest.

Conclusion

Before you go, we want to recommend some project management courses that will illuminate your path when executing a project:

Trust building: strengthening relationships

Agile project management

SCRUM: managing work teams