My stakeholders wouldn’t approve…

Have you ever made decisions that you assumed to directly threaten your relationship with one or more stakeholders? I am sure you have, at least in you private sphere! Normally we however like to keep our relationships calm, clear and as uncomplicated as possible. Where I come from (Norway) we also like to keep the level of conflict as low as possible. Based on this I was until lately of the opinion that stakeholder management was exclusively a tool for ensuring good collaboration with other people and organisations that have the power to impact your business, or that possibly will be impacted by your organisations activities, positively or negatively. Recently I have however learned first hand that maintaining a low conflict level with all stakeholders isn't necessarily always the most valuable approach.

Stakeholder management is a tool for understanding and assessing different threats, benefits and possible outcomes from the various relationships a company has with the external and internal surroundings. Which degree of conflict or calm, trust or scepticism you choose to pursue in a relationship with a stakeholder should really depend on which is assessed to give you the least costs