Where we stand

With a topic, a job or a relationship we can feel like we’re on familiar ground, new territory or somewhere in between. Most of us have experience of all three.

Think of the difference between how you felt when you cooked your first meal compared to now. How you feel now in your work compared to when you started your career. How you felt when you reached out to an organisation to explore a relationship, and now, after years of engagement with them.

Where we stand – on familiar ground, in new territory or somewhere in between – depends on our skills, training and experience. Assessing where we stand is helpful in any context, as I’ve found recently working with two completely different groups of people in my professional and personal worlds.

I asked a group of business leaders to self-assess where they stood in regards to stakeholder engagement and a group of octogenarians, their comfort with using Zoom.

Most of the leaders self-assessed as being on ‘familiar ground’. Yet, at the end of our session, the first steps that they were going to take with one stakeholder read more like they were in ‘new territory’ or ‘somewhere in between’.

The eighty-year-olds were a little more honest with their self-assessment when I invited them to record a birthday greeting on Zoom for my mum’s 80th birthday. Knowing in advance where they stood made the experience much for fun for both them and me.

Some were on such familiar ground that they asked if they could share their screen to talk to black and white photo from their college days with mum. A handful had the perfect set up and recordings went off without a hitch. All they needed from me was the link and a time in the diary.

Most were ‘somewhere in between’. Five were comfortable on their iPads but had to be gently guided to look at the camera (‘there! Where your finger is – talk to that!’). Others just needed to turn on a light or close the blind behind them. A few in this camp needed a couple of attempts to get the sound working.

The ones in completely new territory needed a test link, a few phone calls and at times, re-scheduling to get their recording done. For some it was all too new and they settled on recording an audio message. Even that took a few attempts – ‘what’s a meeting ID?’

Only one revelled in his ‘blissful ignorance’. He wasn’t even sure if he had a camera on his 15- year-old laptop. That took a little more hand holding, from both me and his son. He and his wife were a bit fuzzy, but we went ahead.

I’ve captured the parallels between the two groups below.

I wonder if the leaders could learn something from the octogenarians about realistic self-assessment.

In terms of stakeholder engagement, there’s a lot to unpack here, at an individual and organisational level.

Where do you sit? Where is your organisation? How do we navigate new territory? What does that feel like for our stakeholders? Do they want to be part of our exploration?

If you’d like to sense check where your organisation stands in regards to stakeholder engagement, feel free to book a time with me here.

PS: My mum loved the video, especially the bloopers.