Political Dilemmas at Work: How to Maintain Your Integrity and Further Your Career

The Other Side of Stakeholder Management

The role of stakeholder and relationship management is indisputably important to organizational politics. We have said this many times in this book. The downside is that it can reduce people to map references. It forces us to commoditize a relationship and categorize it—and unless we are the calculating kind—this does not come naturally. The other side of stakeholder management requires that we redefine real people as markers in our tactical plan. When working on stakeholder management, we should remember that these are people, not just our conscripts or roulette chips. We need to look to build real relationships, and not just because people are politically useful to us. We need real relationships with all the joy, pain, frustration, sharing, and sacrifice that come with them. We spend so much of our time in the world of work that it is not just politically useful to build authentic relationships; it is also better for our mental health.

 

• Yes, stakeholder and relationship management are a must.

• Remember, these are real people you are putting into 2×2 boxes.

• Commit to building real relationships, not just tactical ones.

• Your personal values inform your political antenna about relationships, and you should learn to listen.

 

Our charter needs to commit to building real relationships. We need to see people as more than grid references on our master plan; instead, we should view them as whole, real people.