Stakeholder understanding
Across the Swamp
It is the roots from all the trees that have died
out here, that’s how you can walk
safely over the soft places.
Roots like these keep their firmness, it’s possible
they’ve lain here centuries.
And there is still some dark remains
of them under the moss.
They are still in the world and hold
you up so you can make it over.
Olav Hauge
Stakeholder understanding involves identifying the key stakeholders and understanding what they have at stake for our initiatives
“The ability to broaden attention and the ability to narrow attention are both key contributors to creativity. Neuroscience studies suggest that creative people have greater connections between two areas of the brain that are typically at odds: the brain network of regions associated with focus and attentional control, and the brain network of regions associated with imagination and spontaneity. Indeed, the entire creative process—not just the moments of deep insight— involves states of euphoria and inspiration as well as states of calm, rational focus. Creative people aren’t characterized by any one of these states alone; they are characterized by their adaptability and their ability to mix seemingly incompatible states of being depending on the task, whether it’s open attention with a focused drive, mindfulness with daydreaming, intuition with rationality, intense rebelliousness with respect for tradition, etc. In other words, creative people have messy minds.”
stakeholder mapping provides us with the capacity for Stakeholder understanding.
The agility with which leaders can carry out tasks associated with stakeholder understanding depends on their stakeholder mapping. That is the quality of attention brought to understanding the viewpoints and objectives of those who have a stake in their initiatives, especially when they differ from their own. This capacity comes from becoming aware of the interplay between tasks and sentient systems. As leaders develop, they begin to better understand the dynamic and take steps to empower members and ensure development.
Awareness of way we interact with the environment while preserving integrity, aids in deepening stakeholder understanding.
Most organisational members resist efforts to expand operations and/or make them more efficient because of the threat posed to members’ identities as skilled personnel and their sense of autonomy and place. Thus understanding the conditions that deny, sustain, or enhance autonomy is key to any system's sustenance. And that, in turn, depends on defining boundaries (optimal permeability) in a way that allows exchange with the environment while preserving its integrity. Members’ well-being and engagement, and the organisation's efficiency and effectiveness depends on this.
Working with tensions between task accomplishment and emotional satisfaction, enables us to understand the interplay between task and sentient systems.
Complex systems, such as large organisations, have multiple boundaries demarcating sub-systems that compose the whole – boundaries between management and workers, marketing and production, business units, and so on. However, functioning of an organisation, including how it structures itself and conducts its activities, depends on the relations between the task and sentient systems. The former involves definition of functional boundaries, so we can ensure that the input and output of the system, as well as its organisation, are geared towards the accomplishment of its primary task, that is, the task it must perform to survive. This, in turn, is interdependent on mobilising people, whose beliefs, wishes, and concerns are tied to the sentient system - the one which often takes the form of identity groups, be they occupational or professional groups, or gender, ethnic, or other social groups. Sentient systems exist to satisfy emotional needs. Through managing the interplay between these two systems, managers enable exchange with the environment while preserving the system’s integrity.
