How to exercise strong stakeholder engagement during business transformation

To celebrate the launch of our new eCourse, we’re releasing a brilliant new podcast each week which focuses on stakeholder management. Tune in each week for the next FREE instalment (view all previous Podcasts in the series here). If you are already subscribed to our mailing list, we’ll email you a simple recap of posts each Thursday so that you can listen at your own pace. Join our mailing list on this page for updates. Feel free to join the conversation by leaving your comments below, or connect with the FMPC tribe on social media.

In this podcast, Elise Stevens speaks to experienced change leader Cassy Kowaltzke about how to exercise strong stakeholder engagement during business transformation.

Cassy has more than 10 years’ experience as a project manager, program manager and change leader and knows the kind of challenges leaders face when trying to engage stakeholders on business transformation projects. She is currently working as the Business Change Lead for Sunsuper and previously worked as Enterprise Change Manager for the QSuper Group.

She has a Bachelor of Multimedia Studies from CQ University and a Graduate Diploma in Project Management.

Points raised in this podcast:

• Leaders face many challenges when trying to engage stakeholders on business transformation projects.
• It’s important to engage the right stakeholders, at the right time, and understand what they want and what we want from them.
• While people generally don’t like change, dramatic changes made within a business transformation can create even greater fear and anxiety.
• Creating a line of sight for stakeholders about the final goal of the business transformation is crucial.
• Dealing with ambiguity can be difficult but it can also be a great opportunity to exercise strong stakeholder engagement.
• Not all stakeholders are the same. It’s important to understand their individual motivations and influences.
• It is important not just to listen to stakeholders, but to understand them.
• Project managers involved in business transformation should be prepared to be proactive, confident and flexible.
• It is crucial project managers and change leaders believe in the business transformation themselves in order to sell it to stakeholders.

You can connect with Cassy on LinkedIn.