How to manage multiple stakeholders interview question.

How do you manage multiple stakeholders? 

Interviews can be nerve-wracking. They can have both a physical and mental effect on you, the nerves, the wobbly legs, the butterfly enclosure in your tummy and it doesn’t matter whether you're a junior or an executive those feelings come thick and fast.

For some of my clients, they haven’t sat for an interview in a couple of years or more and when this happens it tends to lead to uncontrollable waffling… 

They are completely oblivious, it’s as though their tongue is moving on its own.  

The frustrating thing is they’re beyond capable, extremely experienced in their job so this isn’t the reason why they don’t know how to manage multiple stakeholders - Interview questions.  

So what is?  What is bringing on the verbal diarrhea and lack of confidence..?

It’s the pressure of the interview…  For some reason, they get tense and struggle to articulate clearly the answers to the questions. 

When it's focused on capability and technical expertise most people manage, but when it comes down to something like stakeholder management, they go blank, they become lost not unlike a deer in the headlights… 

• How do I build relationships? 
• How do I do this? 
• How do I get the trust? 

“HELP me Caroline please…  What is the process?” 

Don’t panic, I am here... I am here to help!

I am going to help by giving you a simple five-step framework that you can take on board and utilise immediately, customise it to your style and approach. 

And be assured, It will be the answer to How to manage multiple stakeholders interview question.  Because it's such a critical question...

#1 Identity

You need to always say that you identify with the different stakeholder groups. Being able to identify the different stakeholder groups: that you have a primary, secondary and key stakeholders. You also need to see that they are ALL important. 

So start by mapping out the who's who! 

• Firstly who is in each group? Then…
• What is their appetite for what you want to achieve? 
• It's a change, or is it like an educational piece? Or 
• Do they have to contribute to a certain project? 
• What is that appetite? 

You have to understand where they sit, so it's almost like a matrix mapping that you have to do, map out those different stakeholder groups in order to identify the different levels.  

#2 Understanding the drivers

When I talk about drivers I am meaning understanding what motivates them? What are their priorities? And what stresses them? 

Before you can get people on board you need to be able to relate and connect to them.

Stakeholder management is not an ABC process and this is just the framework here but you need to know that engagement is really important, setting up the one on one meeting with your stakeholders. 

Ensure you know them, their agenda, their priorities, their motivations and you take the relationships to a deeper level to create that connection and build that trust. 

#3 The Communication Plan

Make sure that you identify both the communication frequency and the communication channel.

When you're dealing with multiple stakeholders, you could be dealing with a variety of levels such as blue-collar, or high profile ministers, so you have to be able to adjust and adapt as a person in order to manage those multiple stakeholders. 

Ensure that your communication frequency is adjusted and also the channel.

You will find that people will differ with their preferred method of communication such as, “you need something just pick up the phone and call me” or “just send an email if you want to catch up and I'll come back to you”. 

#4 Accountability

Here we are creating an accountability framework. Ideally, with a little pause, because we all know that people sometimes miss deadlines and if you put an accountability framework in place when they need to deliver certain things very close to the deadline, then you're going to freak out and have additional stress that you do not need!

So put a time accountability framework in place with a little bit of room, to make sure that delivery occurs on what is expected of them.

So you’re setting clear expectations, and you’re building an accountability framework. 

#5 Escalation Point

What do you do when things go apeshit..? 

Where do you need to go and to who when it is escalated so that everything is crystal clear. 

So that’s the framework you can take it and manipulate it into your own approach and style.

I always make a point to talk with the people in my programs:

“Interviewing is a skill, a skill you can learn and the only way you learn something is by practice”. 

Take a bike for example…

You can't learn to ride a bike by watching a YouTube video or by reading a book. You have to jump on the bike and yes you may fall a few times, scrape your knee but practice and persistence is what you need to have before you master the bike.

Interviewing is no different, practice will make you a master…

The inspiration does not stop there…  I have more:

Gold nugget 1:

What got you to a certain level once won't get you to the next level. So don't rest on your laurels, don’t assume that because once many moons ago you were awesome at interviews!  If you are looking at a different level, looking at climbing the corporate ladder, you need to also look at how competitive it becomes the higher you go. 

Gold nugget 2:

Everybody that goes to the interview has the capability to do the job. So if you have over 15 years of experience, an interview is not necessarily going to be about your capability and your ability to perform and do the job. It's going to be about your leadership standards, your strategic style, your team leader style and so on it is ALL these things combined. 

The important thing is to make the shift and really understand the commercial, leadership and strategic outputs and linking that in the interview.

Naturally, there are additional things such as knowing how to navigate the interview and the psychology behind it. 

There is so much that goes into an interview that you need to understand before you can actually show up and be able to position and navigate the interview process and position yourself as an obvious candidate at the end of it. 

At your level you can no longer wing it, you need to understand it's about understanding how to build trust, project confidence in your ability and achieve great results.

Of course, there need to be a cultural fit and different elements to consider but when you go into an interview, you have to think about the key, what you can and can’t control. 

In the training, I provide within my program is weekly interview training, because interviewing is a skill you can learn, during this training you can receive feedback immediately from me and others.  

The training group is all senior professionals who have been on both sides of the table and can provide you with constructive criticism as they know what to look for and will help you transform in both your interview process and your ability to articulate yourself very clearly. 

I hope everything mentioned above for "How to manage multiple stakeholders interview question" has been useful for you.  

Please connect with me on LinkedIn and my other social media platforms, I am very much about increasing my connections so I can spread my message and help more people. 

If you have been struggling with anything mentioned above or with other areas of your career I'm more than happy to have a conversation with you.

Don’t panic It's just going to be a very informal chat to make sure I understand what your situation is.

Every situation is different and I want to understand yours for example, what's holding you back, what are the roadblocks involved, what your big dreams and visions are. 

If you are a little hazy on all of that then that's okay because we can work on that also and at the end of the call if working together is something for you, then we can talk about that too. 

I hope that gives you some inspiration to reach out.