• Thursday, March 28, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Managing your stakeholders effectively

Stakeholders

The situation in Afghanistan is a classical example of an ineffective identification and management of stakeholders. The key to managing stakeholders is effective communication and prioritisation of needs and attention of those who are or will be impacted by our actions. Stakeholders are, therefore, people or groups of people who will be affected either positively or negatively by our actions or inactions. Stakeholders are everywhere, in business circles, in nations and communities, in families and there is hardly any circle of human endeavours without the need to identify and manage stakeholders.

The planned installation of the Sultan of Shuwa in Benin City and its suspension is another good example of miscommunication in stakeholders’ engagement. The statement released by the proposed Sultan admitting a wrong use of words and his allegiance to the Oba of Benin managed the situation without denigrating into a crisis of traditional superiority. In essence, most of the wars that were fought, most of the lives that were destroyed, the marriages that are doomed, and many inequalities including the agitation for separate nations are avoidable with effective identification and communication among the stakeholders.

Read Also: Nigeria’s economy creates many ‘bachelor’ husbands

In the business world, customers are seen as an important group of stakeholders, hence the attention given to customer enlistment, service, and retention. Business entities must carry out a comprehensive stakeholders mapping to identify the different segments of stakeholders in terms of power and influence. The most popular stakeholders’ theory by Friedman identified people in a relationship based on their power and influence. Stakeholders with high power and influence must be given priority and considered key to the continued existence of the relationship. Their needs including seeking attention must be attended to promptly. Stakeholders with low power and influence, like the minority of the minority shareholders, cannot be ignored if their agitation will not have significant impacts on the business operations. Some stakeholders are high on influence and low in power, they hence must be kept satisfied to avert them using their influence on others and start a bigger agitation for change.

There are individual stakeholders who never mind who is the president or who is dominating the political space. All they want is an environment where their basic dreams and aspirations can be met.

Nigeria as a country has stakeholders. The poor, the youth, the minority ethnic nations are all stakeholders in the Nigeria project. Thus, we can say there are individual stakeholders who never mind who is the president or who is dominating the political space. All they want is an environment where their basic dreams and aspirations can be met. They want to express themselves in business and realise revenue from their efforts. They have the energies and skills to thrive but want a level playing ground. An example is a graduate who is qualified for a job and cannot imagine being dropped for someone less qualified on the basis of a national quota system. He or she wants equity, not necessarily equality.

The crisis in Nigeria is the worst manifestation of poor stakeholders’ management. We must review our leadership selection process and elect leaders who are true nationalists with no constituency or allegiance to a regional agenda. The tyranny of the North and South agenda will break up except with enabling equality and fairness. We need to identify our political, social, and religious stakeholders as a nation and ensure we keep them satisfied at the minimum to reduce violent expression of dissatisfaction.

In the family setting, the husband and wife are the foundational stakeholders before the children. At the start of the family, the two key players are the two lovers with perceived love and constant display of affection. As the children start coming, the demands, power, and influence will need to be readjusted. Children will have their space to occupy, and a shift is needed to accommodate the new stakeholders who are mostly high in interest and power.

A recent video on social media by a man in the USA on how African women get to go out of hand and divorced their husbands in America is one case of family stakeholders’ mismanagement at a later stage in family evolution and development. In my opinion, the video exposed the problems without providing any solution. It compared average Asian women who stay with their marriages even when they are earning far higher than their African counterparts. According to the video, once an African woman starts earning forty thousand dollars, the game changed against the men. There are many African marriages that have been ruined when the family settles abroad and at the time the couple’s efforts should be on raising their children. Research has equally shown that children from divorced parents are more likely to be engaged in social vices like drugs and homosexual activities.

Adopting the stakeholders’ theory, the husbands should identify the needs of their wives at the stage of the change in behaviour. A change in social status, especially earning capacity does not necessarily change a good wife into a monster. In most cases, there are fundamental causes that need to be investigated depending on the individual scenarios. After the identification is the required shift. For example, in Africa, the man is mostly the breadwinner. He will go to work early and return late. The wife is the home manager working flexible hours or as a full-time housewife. It is understandable for the husband to do little house chores or expect food on his table while watching the television given that situation. In Africa, women have house help and family members that support them and hence, lighten their burdens.

The case is different in the civilized world. Both the man and the wife must work to pay rent and pay bills. There is no house help or leave-in family members. So, expecting the wife to work full-time, take care of the children, and at the same time be the adult minder for the husband is not practical. A shift must be made in the bend on the road to move forward. In such a case, a man must reappraise the situation and be amenable to his cultural orientation. As a good stakeholder manager in the home, husbands should be ready to give partnership when their wives request equality. You must be ready to give liberty for freedom. I will write more about family stakeholders based on my yet-to-be-released book, the family abroad.

For all of us, the business leaders, the political rulers or leaders, the religious leaders, continuous review of the interest, influence, and power of the stakeholders around us will lead to what I call atmosphere tranquillity which is a potent platform for achieving any objective. Your ability to put your ego below your mission and manage your stakeholders is a test of your leadership effectiveness.