How to map stakeholders for change

Stakeholder mapping is a pretty useful process when you're running any change. Because not all stakeholders are created equal! And when time is limited and choices must be made about where your change efforts will go, a trusty stakeholder map can work wonders to get clear on who needs what.

Step #1: Define your axes

In my Leading Successful Change program, I teach a super simple Stakeholder Map. It's a 2 x 2 matrix with 2 axes:

• Interest
• Influence

Interest is how interested are the people in this change.

Influence is how influential is this stakeholder or this stakeholder group.

This creates 4 quadrants:

• High interest / High influence
• High interest / Low influence
• Low interest / High influence
• Low interest / Low influence

There are sooo many variations of this and you can really make your axes anything that is meaningful and useful for your change. You could swap "impact" or "involvement" for "interest". Or "power" or "seniority" for "influence". It could be tenure vs job impact for a restructure, or geographical proximity vs collaboration requirements for a return-to-office move. There are no hard and fast rules or right or wrong way. The 2 x 2 is your oyster, but I tend to keep it simple: Change is hard enough!

Step #2: Create groupings and commitments

For each of the quadrants, you can then decide what you want to do for that quadrant. What commitment will you make to keeping them informed, confident and ready (or maybe even involved in the change).

You can label them, and again, I've seen tons of variations of this but here's what I tend to use:

• High interest / High influence = Engage and consult
• High interest / Low influence = Keep satisfied
• Low interest / High influence = Keep informed
• Low interest / Low influence = Monitor

Step #3: Plot your stakeholders

So how do you actually map your stakeholders onto this matrix?

It's a series of questions. Ask:

• Who is this stakeholder?
• How much interest or involvement do they have in the change?
• How much influence do they have?

And simply plot them on this matrix. Using post-it notes or doing it virtually makes it easier to move and shift stakeholders up, down and around the quadrants. You can put in their name or their role, or even plot them at a team level. If you're working with externals, it might be the organisation or group's name, like "customers", "community" or "regulator".

Step #4: View and review

The point of a map is to use it to get to where you want to go. In Change, that's our future state! So when you've finished plotting the names, you'll be able to see at a glance who the most critical people and teams are to engage, and who can just be kept informed or watched and this can really help inform your change efforts and activities (especially things like regular meetings, briefings or updates, or people you might need to bring closer into the project). You might notice you have a really full quadrant, or there might be stakeholders you want to move from one quadrant to another using stakeholder engagement and management. The choice is yours - nothing is set in stone and everything is negotiable. So keep revisiting your map and correcting course and you'll be reaching your destination of success in no time. 

If you want to learn more on engaging stakeholders, come along to my free Engaging Hearts and Minds through Change webinar on Wednesday 18 May 2022. 

CLICK HERE to register your free spot for Engaging Hearts and Minds webinar

Lata xx