#stakeholder-engagement

#stakeholder-engagement

Twenty years ago, as the top digital and innovation executive for Citi's credit card business, I led the team that spent months building what looked like a brilliant partnership. We'd found a startup with a disruptive payments platform-one that became the forerunner of what has become a new payment type used by millions of consumers today. The deal: strategic investment in exchange for access to the startup's codebase as a sandbox for innovation pilots. No more waiting in the legacy systems queue. Just rapid prototyping with leading-edge developers.

I'm going to talk to you all about how to get involved in big strategic conversations to maximize your organizational impact and your global impact. I'm going to share some practical tips for how to do this. I'm going to end by telling you a story of how I applied these tips to get asked to lead a project which saved my organization a billion euros, in three months.

The thing is, power dynamics themselves aren't the problem. It's that Western society teaches us that power belongs only to dominant groups, when in fact there are many layers and forms of power. There is also power that resides within each individual, and power we wield when we move together even amidst difference. The key is to activate these other forms of power in strategic planning.

Anticipating early client shifts, Gopalakrishnan Mahadevan strategically guided his team to onboard techno-functional SMEs with relevant experience, strengthening the company's position for project support.

Many strategic plans collect dust, typically failing at the stage of implementation. That's often the case because of lack of buy-in by various stakeholders.

In a design feedback session, good feedback questions will initiate the design feedback session smoothly, set the feedback context, and direct the feedback session flow.

In B2B sales, buying decisions involve a committee of six to ten stakeholders, making understanding company-level attribution essential for marketers.

The Design System in 90 Days Canvas by Dan Mall functions as a roadmap, guiding teams through crucial discussions about design systems from inception to adoption.

Long sales cycles can quietly kill deals; using effective sales collateral can control the narrative and accelerate the buying process.

The timeline and scope for doing the service development plans may seem larger than people are used to or comfortable with, but that is intentional—so that we are doing a lot of the good iterative planning that we need to do in engaging the host railroads.