How can I turn hesitant stakeholders into enthusiastic supporters of my strategic initiatives?

TL;DR

1. Build a data-driven plan that is clear, showing how you came to your conclusions
2. Empathize with stakeholders so you can address their concerns directly while taking their feedback seriously
3. If required, iterate your plan, collaborating with stakeholders to make it stronger

There are so many reasons stakeholders might be hesitant about strategic initiatives. If you’re experiencing stakeholder hesitancy on your plans, fear not! There are several paths you can take to manage it. 

First, there’s the initiative itself. When you are building out your initiatives, it’s helpful to think of them as drafts rather than the final version. Like writing a novel, you build out the bare bones and then write the messy version of the story on top*. You evaluate and revise until you feel good about it. And, importantly, you gather feedback to do some more revision. Maybe you get the insights and input before you even start, which is an excellent way to begin on a steady foot.

Include as much data, evidence, and context in your plan as you can to support clear, transparent strategy. Learning how to measure your impact, especially as a communicator, can be tough when it’s intangible – but there are ways to combine user data with business developments

Empathy – our greatest asset

Once you have your proposal, it’s time to earn any buy-in you haven’t already secured. If your stakeholders are hesitant, practice empathy in order to understand them and address their concerns directly.

As communicators, empathy is one of our greatest assets. When we put ourselves in the shoes of our stakeholders, using our own experiences to help us understand why they feel the way they feel, we can show up in a much more effective way. Empathy helps us show we’ve thought about our strategy from multiple perspectives – including theirs – which helps them feel heard and that their viewpoint matters (because it does!).

And it’s good to prepare yourself for feedback and concerns that have merit. Always be on the lookout for gold that you can incorporate into your plans to make them even stronger. Give credit to your collaborators for their ideas and input. This builds trust and shows you are a collaborative person who prioritizes what’s best for the project and cares about relationships.

Ultimately, focusing on making your stakeholders feel valued for their experience and perspective, even if you don’t incorporate all of their ideas, will go a long way for building trusting relationships that will bring hesitant people onto your side. You don’t need to cater to their every need, but having a data-driven plan, empathizing and addressing their concerns – including explaining why your idea is strong (with evidence) – can change an “I don’t know” to a “go for it!”

* Regarding writing a novel: okay, if you’re a pantser, this is NOT how you write a novel. And I would know, I used to be one – until I learned the magic of planning in advance and eschewing the pain of writing myself into a corner for now and ever more!