What are your key objectives and questions when meeting a new stakeholder, either with them or yourself as a new hire?

My objectives when meeting new stakeholders are centered around finding out more about them as a person and how they like to work, understanding their objectives, and getting feedback from them about what their experience with my team, function, and the broader organization has been. Here are some details about why and how I dig into these topics:

• Personal - I find it’s easier to build relationships and avoid some negative behaviors and experiences with people at work when you put in the effort to get to know more about their life outside of work. I try to get a sense of where they live, what they do on the weekends, etc. In every case, we either find something we both love and are passionate about, or find some very comical differences, both of which give each of us a better sense of the other person. This is helpful in building empathy between you and your stakeholders. It’s much harder to assume negative intent or to be rude to people you have bonded with over things like the best local coffee shops in a favorite neighborhood for instance, than ones where your only experiences are work-related.

• Goals & Objectives - The next area I focus on is understanding their objectives and goals. To put a finer point on it, I want to understand their objectives and goals for themselves and their team, and what they need to be successful. The stakeholders of a healthy organization generally want the same outcome (more revenue, better customer experience, etc), but they differ on the prioritization of the goals and/or the method for reaching that goal. I ask questions and try to uncover details that will allow me to link my goals and theirs in any way. I then look for opportunities for my role and skillset to contribute positively to my stakeholder’s goals, and I brainstorm some of these opportunities with them. The shocking thing is how many people are taken off guard by this approach. So rarely are stakeholder meetings voluntarily helpful that whenever I offer to support their goals with things in my purview people are genuinely surprised and extremely appreciative. It sets the tone for a great relationship and partnership.

• Experiential - Another potential friction point with stakeholders is the experience that they are having or have had in the past with your function, certain team members, or the approach the organization is taking to address a shared need or objective. Therefore, I often spend time while relationship building asking questions about my stakeholder’s experience. What do they think is working well vs what could be improved? Are there any friction points in the process we can address? Etc. If you are going to ask these types of questions, make sure you are ready and willing to hear the answers. Be very mindful of how you respond, because anything less than “Thank you so much for sharing that, can you please tell me more,” and you have negatively impacted your relationship with this stakeholder or partner as well as their likelihood to share this kind of feedback with you in the future.

Lts flip this around - what are the questions our new partners are thinking of, but probably will not ask us? I can gaurantee there are at least four:

• Will I like working with this person?
• Can I trust this person?
• What change is this person going to create?
• Do we have the same expectations about how we work together?

I am framing things this way for two reasons. First, the primary objective when meeting new partners is always to lay down a foundation of trust. A great way to start building that trust is to be genuinely curious about your partner's perspective and offer up answers vs. making them dig around. Second, it's far too common that we start with trying to understand that person's role ahead of understanding the person themselves. Remember, we work with people, not roles. There will be plenty of time to talk about the work in front of you, your roles and responsibilities, and OKRs.

A few finer points:

I encourage everyone to take on a mindset of having partners vs. stakeholders. Personally, having stakeholders feels adversarial to me. I know it's semantics, but consider if you would rather be considered a partner or stakeholder :) 

There are specific questions you should answer together in order to set healthy boundaries and clear expectations. All too often unclear boundaries and expectations are the fuel for discord and drama

1. Who is the decision maker for X, Y, and Z?
2. How do you like to receive feedback?
3. What does it look like for us to disagree and commit?
4. If we feel the need to escalate something where we are at an impasse, how do we do that together in a way that preserves our partnership?