We’ve addressed your team members’ individual needs and we’ve looked at the team’s needs. We also need to ask stakeholders what they need. It’s no good second guessing what they need or making assumptions.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Asking vs assuming
And you probably need to have these conversations before you have the team conversations, as the team’s work will be shaped by the stakeholders’ needs.
First of course, you need to identify all of the stakeholders. And remember the story of the 13th fairy who was left out of the Christening invitations for Sleeping Beauty so cast the spell that laid her to sleep for a hundred years? The moral of this story – don’t miss anyone out of your stakeholder analysis. They will feel aggrieved and seek retribution in some way or another.
Then ask:
- What does the world of tomorrow need?
- What is the problem we are trying to solve?
- What are your expectations in terms of solving this problem?
- What will success look, sound, feel like?
- What is the impact on society and the climate of those results? Are those still the right results to aim for?
- Who else should we be asking?
One thing I have noticed is how difficult it can be for stakeholders to answer these questions, but we must not leave without clear answers, otherwise we are on a hiding to nothing. How can the team deliver on unclear expectations? There will be guesswork and assumptions and differences of opinion within the team, which will make the work more difficult to achieve and the frustrations more likely to surface.
Ask and keep asking, until you are clear.
If you want to work on your own Human-Centred Leadership, through coaching or team coaching, please get in touch via clare@clarenormancoachingassociates.com
Here are the links to the previous blogs in this series.
Human Centred Leadership
Why Human Centered Leadership Matters
Human Centred Leadership the Team Matters
