Perceived barriers to true stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement is fashionable — many organisations claim to use it. There are many examples where stakeholders have been truly involved in defining and exploring the issue and in creating solutions. Unfortunately, there are also many instances where only lip service is paid.

In these “lip service” cases the perception can be that users or wider stakeholders are not experts and thus unable to create solutions. True, they may not be experts in specific technological solutions but they are experts in their own lives.

With expert inquiry and facilitation a rich seam of insights and ideas for potential solutions can be unearthed and stakeholders can be guided to develop these solutions. The true expert will discover — while engaging with users/stakeholders — when people are able to develop their own solutions and when specific knowledge and expertise needs to be brought in. And in some cases people are more expert than the experts think!

I also believe that there is a trade-off: an objectively sub-optimal solution created by users/stakeholders so they feel ownership is more likely to be adopted and thus be successful than the “perfect” solution.

I have been been wondering if another reason to pay lip service to stakeholder engagement is related to power. Expert power is one of the sources of individual power. Decision makers or designers may feel that truly engaging stakeholders would erode their sense of expert power. I wonder if this even comes into play with organisations, not just individuals.

Another way of looking at this reluctance to truly involve stakeholders is through the lens of the Five Core Concerns, a concept introduced by Fisher and Shapiro in their book “Beyond Reason”. They identify five "core concerns" that motivate people. Having a meaningful role is one of them. If experts consider it their role to design or decide on solutions, then empowering stakeholders to create solutions erodes that role.

Whatever causes reluctance to truly engage stakeholders, I wonder if we need to change the narrative about stakeholder engagement. Rather than focusing on the benefits it brings to stakeholders — a message that has been tried and tested but is not always working — should we emphasise a new, powerful role for experts? One that recognises the expertise that is needed to use inquiry and facilitation and the power that comes from empowering people?

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts — catherine [at] strategic-consulting.scot