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WP_Query Object ( [query] => Array ( [name] => how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques [post_type] => resources [resource-type] => blog ) [query_vars] => Array ( [name] => how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques [post_type] => resources [resource-type] => blog [error] => [m] => [p] => 0 [post_parent] => [subpost] => [subpost_id] => [attachment] => [attachment_id] => 0 [pagename] => [page_id] => 0 [second] => [minute] => [hour] => [day] => 0 [monthnum] => 0 [year] => 0 [w] => 0 [category_name] => [tag] => [cat] => [tag_id] => [author] => [author_name] => [feed] => [tb] => [paged] => 0 [meta_key] => [meta_value] => [preview] => [s] => [sentence] => [title] => [fields] => [menu_order] => [embed] => [category__in] => Array ( ) [category__not_in] => Array ( ) [category__and] => Array ( ) [post__in] => Array ( ) [post__not_in] => Array ( ) [post_name__in] => Array ( ) [tag__in] => Array ( ) [tag__not_in] => Array ( ) [tag__and] => Array ( ) [tag_slug__in] => Array ( ) [tag_slug__and] => Array ( ) [post_parent__in] => Array ( ) [post_parent__not_in] => Array ( ) [author__in] => Array ( ) [author__not_in] => Array ( ) [search_columns] => Array ( ) [ignore_sticky_posts] => [suppress_filters] => [cache_results] => 1 [update_post_term_cache] => 1 [update_menu_item_cache] => [lazy_load_term_meta] => 1 [update_post_meta_cache] => 1 [posts_per_page] => 10 [nopaging] => [comments_per_page] => 50 [no_found_rows] => [order] => DESC ) [tax_query] => [meta_query] => WP_Meta_Query Object ( [queries] => Array ( ) [relation] => [meta_table] => [meta_id_column] => [primary_table] => [primary_id_column] => [table_aliases:protected] => Array ( ) [clauses:protected] => Array ( ) [has_or_relation:protected] => ) [date_query] => [queried_object] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1435 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2018-11-30 00:00:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-11-30 00:00:00 [post_content] => Stakeholder mapping is a critical step in your stakeholder engagement strategy so that you can identify and track who your most important stakeholders are. However, there are a variety of stakeholder mapping techniques based on different identifying factors.

What Is Stakeholder Mapping?

Stakeholder mapping is the process of organizing your stakeholders according to an internal organization system, such as tiers of engagement, issue areas, or job role. Stakeholder mapping can be categorized according to what makes sense for your organization. The first step to stakeholder mapping is identifying who your stakeholders are. Then, separating the stakeholders out into each category.

Why is Stakeholder Mapping Important?

Mapping your stakeholders helps you evaluate your relationships with them so you can organize communication strategies and engagement efforts depending on where someone falls within your stakeholder map. This will also help you understand what kind of stakeholder an individual or organization could become and their influence and importance to your campaign.

Five Techniques for Mapping Stakeholders

There are many ways to map your key stakeholders. It is important to map the stakeholders according to what you are trying to accomplish within your stakeholder engagement strategy. When deciding how to map your stakeholders, consider these five techniques:
  1. By Issue
  2. By Team Member Relationship
  3. With an Interest-Influence Matrix
  4. With a Tiered System
  5. As Champion, Neutral, Detractor

1. By Issues

One way to map stakeholders is by the issues they impact in your organization.

By mapping stakeholders by issues, you can quickly answer the question, for example, “What key stakeholders do we have on renewable energy?” This way, if new legislation is introduced, you can quickly sort for the key stakeholders with whom you need to communicate and engage.

After elections, officials are assigned to new committees and you may have new stakeholders you need to be aware of, so take the time to tag stakeholders to your issues. When legislation gets moving, you’ll be prepared to act.

Additionally, by tagging officials by issue, you can target specific organization updates or invitations based on issue area. This will allow you to both refine and specialize your communications with stakeholders based on the topics that are most important to them.

Then, if you log your meeting notes with stakeholders throughout the year, you can quickly share with your leadership team exactly how many interactions you had on each issue based on which stakeholders you met with.

Organizations take this to the next level by using a stakeholder alignment methodology, where instead of just mapping by issue, they map by the stakeholder's alignment with the organization's stance on that issue. To do this, stakeholders are tagged as champion, neutral, or detractor on a given issue. A stakeholder may be a champion on one issue in your portfolio but a detractor on a different issue, and with this mapping strategy, you can personalize your communications more narrowly.

2. By Team Member Relationships

Another way some organizations map their stakeholders is by which team member is the primary relationship owner with each stakeholder.

To map your team’s relationships, build a spreadsheet that has the stakeholders as rows, and then add your team members’ interactions with stakeholders as a series of columns, with an additional column that designates the primary assignment. With this technique for mapping your stakeholders, you can assign or reassign team members directly in the sheet after evaluating who has the strongest relationship based on interactions with a particular stakeholder.

3. With an Interest-Influence Matrix

Each of your stakeholders has a certain level of interest in an issue as well as a level of influence on that issue. With knowledge of this information, you can build a matrix mapping interest versus influence, providing you with four categories of stakeholders—high interest and influence, low interest and influence, high interest/low influence, and low interest/high influence.

Then, use this knowledge to prioritize which stakeholders you should be engaging with. Your first priority should be those with high interest and high influence—they’re engaged on the issue, and they can help move the needle. Your second priority should be those who are of high influence, but low interest. With these stakeholders, spend time communicating your message about the impact of your organization’s work and sharing data on the way the issue impacts their legislative district or state in order to move them to the high-interest level.

4. With a Tiered System

With a tiered system, your organization should give every stakeholder a number 1-3, with tier one being your biggest champions, and tier 3 being the least engaged stakeholders. You may use a subjective numbering system to determine which tier a stakeholder belongs in, or set strict parameters to what constitutes a tier 2 versus a tier 1 stakeholder—such as the number of events they’ve attended that you hosted or the number of one-on-one meetings with your team. Then, measure how stakeholders move up tiers and track which of your organization’s efforts are effective at moving stakeholders to new tiers. Are certain team members especially effective at increasing the engagement level of lower tier stakeholders? Do certain actions make a stakeholder more likely to increase their involvement in your issue?

5. As Champion, Neutral, Detractor

By mapping stakeholders as champions, neutral, or detractors, you can see everyone that has an influence on your organization’s issues and which direction they lean. Using these tags also makes it easier to distinguish different messages for different stakeholders. The language you use with champions to support an issue you care about is likely different than that you use with detractors to sway them, so with a clean mapping system, you can make sure each stakeholder is receiving the correct message.

Best Practice:

Regardless of which mapping technique your organization chooses for its stakeholders, or a combination of all of the above, start the year with a unified tracking system so that each individual on your team can always have the most up-to-date information on where each stakeholder stands on your issues and your organization. Logging meetings, emails, and other engagements with these stakeholders will help make sure the entire team has all the necessary information to map stakeholders to their correct category used in your chosen mapping technique. With an organized stakeholder mapping technique that tracks ongoing engagement, your organization can pull insights about relationships with those that matter most. [post_title] => How to Map Stakeholders [post_excerpt] => Stakeholder mapping allows you to sort through stakeholders by their relationship to your organization. Learn techniques to effectively map stakeholders. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-12-27 17:43:39 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-12-27 17:43:39 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://marketing-staging.quorum.us/resources/how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques/ [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [queried_object_id] => 1435 [request] => SELECT wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_name = 'how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques' AND wp_posts.post_type = 'resources' ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC [posts] => Array ( [0] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1435 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2018-11-30 00:00:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-11-30 00:00:00 [post_content] => Stakeholder mapping is a critical step in your stakeholder engagement strategy so that you can identify and track who your most important stakeholders are. However, there are a variety of stakeholder mapping techniques based on different identifying factors.

What Is Stakeholder Mapping?

Stakeholder mapping is the process of organizing your stakeholders according to an internal organization system, such as tiers of engagement, issue areas, or job role. Stakeholder mapping can be categorized according to what makes sense for your organization. The first step to stakeholder mapping is identifying who your stakeholders are. Then, separating the stakeholders out into each category.

Why is Stakeholder Mapping Important?

Mapping your stakeholders helps you evaluate your relationships with them so you can organize communication strategies and engagement efforts depending on where someone falls within your stakeholder map. This will also help you understand what kind of stakeholder an individual or organization could become and their influence and importance to your campaign.

Five Techniques for Mapping Stakeholders

There are many ways to map your key stakeholders. It is important to map the stakeholders according to what you are trying to accomplish within your stakeholder engagement strategy. When deciding how to map your stakeholders, consider these five techniques:
  1. By Issue
  2. By Team Member Relationship
  3. With an Interest-Influence Matrix
  4. With a Tiered System
  5. As Champion, Neutral, Detractor

1. By Issues

One way to map stakeholders is by the issues they impact in your organization.

By mapping stakeholders by issues, you can quickly answer the question, for example, “What key stakeholders do we have on renewable energy?” This way, if new legislation is introduced, you can quickly sort for the key stakeholders with whom you need to communicate and engage.

After elections, officials are assigned to new committees and you may have new stakeholders you need to be aware of, so take the time to tag stakeholders to your issues. When legislation gets moving, you’ll be prepared to act.

Additionally, by tagging officials by issue, you can target specific organization updates or invitations based on issue area. This will allow you to both refine and specialize your communications with stakeholders based on the topics that are most important to them.

Then, if you log your meeting notes with stakeholders throughout the year, you can quickly share with your leadership team exactly how many interactions you had on each issue based on which stakeholders you met with.

Organizations take this to the next level by using a stakeholder alignment methodology, where instead of just mapping by issue, they map by the stakeholder's alignment with the organization's stance on that issue. To do this, stakeholders are tagged as champion, neutral, or detractor on a given issue. A stakeholder may be a champion on one issue in your portfolio but a detractor on a different issue, and with this mapping strategy, you can personalize your communications more narrowly.

2. By Team Member Relationships

Another way some organizations map their stakeholders is by which team member is the primary relationship owner with each stakeholder.

To map your team’s relationships, build a spreadsheet that has the stakeholders as rows, and then add your team members’ interactions with stakeholders as a series of columns, with an additional column that designates the primary assignment. With this technique for mapping your stakeholders, you can assign or reassign team members directly in the sheet after evaluating who has the strongest relationship based on interactions with a particular stakeholder.

3. With an Interest-Influence Matrix

Each of your stakeholders has a certain level of interest in an issue as well as a level of influence on that issue. With knowledge of this information, you can build a matrix mapping interest versus influence, providing you with four categories of stakeholders—high interest and influence, low interest and influence, high interest/low influence, and low interest/high influence.

Then, use this knowledge to prioritize which stakeholders you should be engaging with. Your first priority should be those with high interest and high influence—they’re engaged on the issue, and they can help move the needle. Your second priority should be those who are of high influence, but low interest. With these stakeholders, spend time communicating your message about the impact of your organization’s work and sharing data on the way the issue impacts their legislative district or state in order to move them to the high-interest level.

4. With a Tiered System

With a tiered system, your organization should give every stakeholder a number 1-3, with tier one being your biggest champions, and tier 3 being the least engaged stakeholders. You may use a subjective numbering system to determine which tier a stakeholder belongs in, or set strict parameters to what constitutes a tier 2 versus a tier 1 stakeholder—such as the number of events they’ve attended that you hosted or the number of one-on-one meetings with your team. Then, measure how stakeholders move up tiers and track which of your organization’s efforts are effective at moving stakeholders to new tiers. Are certain team members especially effective at increasing the engagement level of lower tier stakeholders? Do certain actions make a stakeholder more likely to increase their involvement in your issue?

5. As Champion, Neutral, Detractor

By mapping stakeholders as champions, neutral, or detractors, you can see everyone that has an influence on your organization’s issues and which direction they lean. Using these tags also makes it easier to distinguish different messages for different stakeholders. The language you use with champions to support an issue you care about is likely different than that you use with detractors to sway them, so with a clean mapping system, you can make sure each stakeholder is receiving the correct message.

Best Practice:

Regardless of which mapping technique your organization chooses for its stakeholders, or a combination of all of the above, start the year with a unified tracking system so that each individual on your team can always have the most up-to-date information on where each stakeholder stands on your issues and your organization. Logging meetings, emails, and other engagements with these stakeholders will help make sure the entire team has all the necessary information to map stakeholders to their correct category used in your chosen mapping technique. With an organized stakeholder mapping technique that tracks ongoing engagement, your organization can pull insights about relationships with those that matter most. [post_title] => How to Map Stakeholders [post_excerpt] => Stakeholder mapping allows you to sort through stakeholders by their relationship to your organization. Learn techniques to effectively map stakeholders. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-12-27 17:43:39 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-12-27 17:43:39 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://marketing-staging.quorum.us/resources/how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques/ [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 1 [current_post] => -1 [before_loop] => 1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1435 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2018-11-30 00:00:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-11-30 00:00:00 [post_content] => Stakeholder mapping is a critical step in your stakeholder engagement strategy so that you can identify and track who your most important stakeholders are. However, there are a variety of stakeholder mapping techniques based on different identifying factors.

What Is Stakeholder Mapping?

Stakeholder mapping is the process of organizing your stakeholders according to an internal organization system, such as tiers of engagement, issue areas, or job role. Stakeholder mapping can be categorized according to what makes sense for your organization. The first step to stakeholder mapping is identifying who your stakeholders are. Then, separating the stakeholders out into each category.

Why is Stakeholder Mapping Important?

Mapping your stakeholders helps you evaluate your relationships with them so you can organize communication strategies and engagement efforts depending on where someone falls within your stakeholder map. This will also help you understand what kind of stakeholder an individual or organization could become and their influence and importance to your campaign.

Five Techniques for Mapping Stakeholders

There are many ways to map your key stakeholders. It is important to map the stakeholders according to what you are trying to accomplish within your stakeholder engagement strategy. When deciding how to map your stakeholders, consider these five techniques:
  1. By Issue
  2. By Team Member Relationship
  3. With an Interest-Influence Matrix
  4. With a Tiered System
  5. As Champion, Neutral, Detractor

1. By Issues

One way to map stakeholders is by the issues they impact in your organization.

By mapping stakeholders by issues, you can quickly answer the question, for example, “What key stakeholders do we have on renewable energy?” This way, if new legislation is introduced, you can quickly sort for the key stakeholders with whom you need to communicate and engage.

After elections, officials are assigned to new committees and you may have new stakeholders you need to be aware of, so take the time to tag stakeholders to your issues. When legislation gets moving, you’ll be prepared to act.

Additionally, by tagging officials by issue, you can target specific organization updates or invitations based on issue area. This will allow you to both refine and specialize your communications with stakeholders based on the topics that are most important to them.

Then, if you log your meeting notes with stakeholders throughout the year, you can quickly share with your leadership team exactly how many interactions you had on each issue based on which stakeholders you met with.

Organizations take this to the next level by using a stakeholder alignment methodology, where instead of just mapping by issue, they map by the stakeholder's alignment with the organization's stance on that issue. To do this, stakeholders are tagged as champion, neutral, or detractor on a given issue. A stakeholder may be a champion on one issue in your portfolio but a detractor on a different issue, and with this mapping strategy, you can personalize your communications more narrowly.

2. By Team Member Relationships

Another way some organizations map their stakeholders is by which team member is the primary relationship owner with each stakeholder.

To map your team’s relationships, build a spreadsheet that has the stakeholders as rows, and then add your team members’ interactions with stakeholders as a series of columns, with an additional column that designates the primary assignment. With this technique for mapping your stakeholders, you can assign or reassign team members directly in the sheet after evaluating who has the strongest relationship based on interactions with a particular stakeholder.

3. With an Interest-Influence Matrix

Each of your stakeholders has a certain level of interest in an issue as well as a level of influence on that issue. With knowledge of this information, you can build a matrix mapping interest versus influence, providing you with four categories of stakeholders—high interest and influence, low interest and influence, high interest/low influence, and low interest/high influence.

Then, use this knowledge to prioritize which stakeholders you should be engaging with. Your first priority should be those with high interest and high influence—they’re engaged on the issue, and they can help move the needle. Your second priority should be those who are of high influence, but low interest. With these stakeholders, spend time communicating your message about the impact of your organization’s work and sharing data on the way the issue impacts their legislative district or state in order to move them to the high-interest level.

4. With a Tiered System

With a tiered system, your organization should give every stakeholder a number 1-3, with tier one being your biggest champions, and tier 3 being the least engaged stakeholders. You may use a subjective numbering system to determine which tier a stakeholder belongs in, or set strict parameters to what constitutes a tier 2 versus a tier 1 stakeholder—such as the number of events they’ve attended that you hosted or the number of one-on-one meetings with your team. Then, measure how stakeholders move up tiers and track which of your organization’s efforts are effective at moving stakeholders to new tiers. Are certain team members especially effective at increasing the engagement level of lower tier stakeholders? Do certain actions make a stakeholder more likely to increase their involvement in your issue?

5. As Champion, Neutral, Detractor

By mapping stakeholders as champions, neutral, or detractors, you can see everyone that has an influence on your organization’s issues and which direction they lean. Using these tags also makes it easier to distinguish different messages for different stakeholders. The language you use with champions to support an issue you care about is likely different than that you use with detractors to sway them, so with a clean mapping system, you can make sure each stakeholder is receiving the correct message.

Best Practice:

Regardless of which mapping technique your organization chooses for its stakeholders, or a combination of all of the above, start the year with a unified tracking system so that each individual on your team can always have the most up-to-date information on where each stakeholder stands on your issues and your organization. Logging meetings, emails, and other engagements with these stakeholders will help make sure the entire team has all the necessary information to map stakeholders to their correct category used in your chosen mapping technique. With an organized stakeholder mapping technique that tracks ongoing engagement, your organization can pull insights about relationships with those that matter most. [post_title] => How to Map Stakeholders [post_excerpt] => Stakeholder mapping allows you to sort through stakeholders by their relationship to your organization. Learn techniques to effectively map stakeholders. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-12-27 17:43:39 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-12-27 17:43:39 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://marketing-staging.quorum.us/resources/how-to-map-stakeholders-five-techniques/ [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 1 [max_num_pages] => 0 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => 1 [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => [is_privacy_policy] => [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => 1 [is_robots] => [is_favicon] => [is_posts_page] => [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => 8998cbf2824f5328673611396caab967 [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => [thumbnails_cached] => [allow_query_attachment_by_filename:protected] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ) )
!!! 1435
Blog

How to Map Stakeholders

How to Map Stakeholders

Stakeholder mapping is a critical step in your stakeholder engagement strategy so that you can identify and track who your most important stakeholders are. However, there are a variety of stakeholder mapping techniques based on different identifying factors.

What Is Stakeholder Mapping?

Stakeholder mapping is the process of organizing your stakeholders according to an internal organization system, such as tiers of engagement, issue areas, or job role. Stakeholder mapping can be categorized according to what makes sense for your organization. The first step to stakeholder mapping is identifying who your stakeholders are. Then, separating the stakeholders out into each category.

Why is Stakeholder Mapping Important?

Mapping your stakeholders helps you evaluate your relationships with them so you can organize communication strategies and engagement efforts depending on where someone falls within your stakeholder map. This will also help you understand what kind of stakeholder an individual or organization could become and their influence and importance to your campaign.

Five Techniques for Mapping Stakeholders

There are many ways to map your key stakeholders. It is important to map the stakeholders according to what you are trying to accomplish within your stakeholder engagement strategy. When deciding how to map your stakeholders, consider these five techniques:

  1. By Issue
  2. By Team Member Relationship
  3. With an Interest-Influence Matrix
  4. With a Tiered System
  5. As Champion, Neutral, Detractor

1. By Issues

One way to map stakeholders is by the issues they impact in your organization.

By mapping stakeholders by issues, you can quickly answer the question, for example, “What key stakeholders do we have on renewable energy?” This way, if new legislation is introduced, you can quickly sort for the key stakeholders with whom you need to communicate and engage.

After elections, officials are assigned to new committees and you may have new stakeholders you need to be aware of, so take the time to tag stakeholders to your issues. When legislation gets moving, you’ll be prepared to act.

Additionally, by tagging officials by issue, you can target specific organization updates or invitations based on issue area. This will allow you to both refine and specialize your communications with stakeholders based on the topics that are most important to them.

Then, if you log your meeting notes with stakeholders throughout the year, you can quickly share with your leadership team exactly how many interactions you had on each issue based on which stakeholders you met with.

Organizations take this to the next level by using a stakeholder alignment methodology, where instead of just mapping by issue, they map by the stakeholder’s alignment with the organization’s stance on that issue. To do this, stakeholders are tagged as champion, neutral, or detractor on a given issue. A stakeholder may be a champion on one issue in your portfolio but a detractor on a different issue, and with this mapping strategy, you can personalize your communications more narrowly.

2. By Team Member Relationships

Another way some organizations map their stakeholders is by which team member is the primary relationship owner with each stakeholder.

To map your team’s relationships, build a spreadsheet that has the stakeholders as rows, and then add your team members’ interactions with stakeholders as a series of columns, with an additional column that designates the primary assignment. With this technique for mapping your stakeholders, you can assign or reassign team members directly in the sheet after evaluating who has the strongest relationship based on interactions with a particular stakeholder.

3. With an Interest-Influence Matrix

Each of your stakeholders has a certain level of interest in an issue as well as a level of influence on that issue. With knowledge of this information, you can build a matrix mapping interest versus influence, providing you with four categories of stakeholders—high interest and influence, low interest and influence, high interest/low influence, and low interest/high influence.

Then, use this knowledge to prioritize which stakeholders you should be engaging with. Your first priority should be those with high interest and high influence—they’re engaged on the issue, and they can help move the needle. Your second priority should be those who are of high influence, but low interest. With these stakeholders, spend time communicating your message about the impact of your organization’s work and sharing data on the way the issue impacts their legislative district or state in order to move them to the high-interest level.

4. With a Tiered System

With a tiered system, your organization should give every stakeholder a number 1-3, with tier one being your biggest champions, and tier 3 being the least engaged stakeholders. You may use a subjective numbering system to determine which tier a stakeholder belongs in, or set strict parameters to what constitutes a tier 2 versus a tier 1 stakeholder—such as the number of events they’ve attended that you hosted or the number of one-on-one meetings with your team. Then, measure how stakeholders move up tiers and track which of your organization’s efforts are effective at moving stakeholders to new tiers. Are certain team members especially effective at increasing the engagement level of lower tier stakeholders? Do certain actions make a stakeholder more likely to increase their involvement in your issue?

5. As Champion, Neutral, Detractor

By mapping stakeholders as champions, neutral, or detractors, you can see everyone that has an influence on your organization’s issues and which direction they lean. Using these tags also makes it easier to distinguish different messages for different stakeholders. The language you use with champions to support an issue you care about is likely different than that you use with detractors to sway them, so with a clean mapping system, you can make sure each stakeholder is receiving the correct message.

Best Practice:

Regardless of which mapping technique your organization chooses for its stakeholders, or a combination of all of the above, start the year with a unified tracking system so that each individual on your team can always have the most up-to-date information on where each stakeholder stands on your issues and your organization. Logging meetings, emails, and other engagements with these stakeholders will help make sure the entire team has all the necessary information to map stakeholders to their correct category used in your chosen mapping technique. With an organized stakeholder mapping technique that tracks ongoing engagement, your organization can pull insights about relationships with those that matter most.

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