The 3 stages of successful stakeholder engagement: A comprehensive guide
For successful translation and research more generally, we must acknowledge the importance of stakeholder engagement, collaboration, and network building. Research on stakeholder engagement has found that authentic communication and reciprocal relationships are highly important. However, all too often, what we want to do and what is actually done are very different.
Engagement is a prominent topic on the global research agenda. I talk to a lot of research groups and research user groups that say they will engage stakeholders, and they determine the relevant stakeholders; however, in the midst of projects and the process of doing the research, the engagement part of the equation gets neglected. In light of this, I want to outline what engagement should look like and create an understanding of the processes and time involved.
Ultimately, there are three stages of engagement:
Initial stakeholder engagement
Initial engagement occurs during the development of your project. You need to consider who the relevant stakeholders might be, and then you need to go and engage them. This part of the process is not only important but also the most time- and effort-intensive, in some cases taking up to six months. Failure to build solid, trusting relationships that provide value to all parties will ultimately derail the success of your project.
What does this look like? Plenty of phone conversations, face-to-face meetings, and lots of coffee drinking, it is about taking the time to build the relationship, develop trust and understand the wants, needs and desires of your stakeholder. If you take the time to build the relationship, you will learn the stakeholder’s real needs.
Maintaining stakeholder engagement during the project
Stakeholders must not only be heard and respected. It is also vital that you keep your stakeholders informed and nurture the relationship. Discuss expectations with your stakeholders, what do they want from the collaboration, how and how often should you be communicating. Share your expectations and wants as well. Approach this with an open mind and be willing to compromise to reach an agreement. Make suggestions about the management of the collaboration, it doesn’t always have to be regular meetings, you may decide to use an online collaborative platform, training days, or some other more dynamic or relevant form of collaboration management.
Delivering findings through stakeholder engagement
By now, you will have a solid, trusting, and ongoing dialogue with your stakeholders, provided that you have laid the foundation in the previous two steps. There will always be those times when the groundwork was laid with a particular person or team, and then the team was restructured or staff left the organisation, think broadly to overcome this during your initial relationship building. Hopefully, if the relationship is strong enough, the person you are linked to will introduce you to others in their absence and ensure the project’s success. Remember that the project is valuable to the entire organisation, not just the person that you are dealing with – so sell it!
Your stakeholder engagement activities at this stage of the process are vital; the interest you have created, the relevant work undertaken in partnership with your stakeholders, and the success of your translation depend on the buy-in you have from the ultimate beneficiary or end user of your research. Consider carefully how the information is best served to them, in what format, structure or forums should it be delivered. This stage of the process will lead to the passing of the baton, where the organisation will move with the solution that you have provided. They must feel confident in the solution, and they must feel confident in coming to you for clarification as they go through the implementation process. Additionally, if you are to consider the impact of your work you need the connection to the stakeholders. Ultimately, research impact is measured at the level of the user, and you will need to go back to them sometime after the fact to see how that is going. Poorly managing the relationship after delivery will derail the entire process and may harm any possible collaboration with that stakeholder in the future.
Do you have any processes that work or stories of when things have gone wrong with your stakeholder engagement initiatives? We would love to hear about them in the comments so we can all keep learning.