Voice of the Stakeholder

Stakeholders, defined as anyone impacted or having a stake in the success of the organization, need to be engaged and involved in change effort as early as possible. Action Research should be conducted to gain the voice of the stakeholder (V.O.S). Action research provides essential information to improve the quality of decisions regarding the change. In addition, by engaging stakeholders, they become aware of the change, focus on it, and are more open to the change at time of implementation.

Since organizations are increasingly global, gaining the voice of the stakeholder is increasingly difficult. Face to face (f2f) communications are useful for local change but global change requires a virtual approach. Virtual meeting technology coupled with the Acceptance Quotient (AQ) approach can effectively gain the V.O.S. There are many virtual meeting technologies with more being developed daily. The AQ approach utilizes any virtual system that can conduct interactive polling and "chats" that approximates a f2f meeting despite no physical proximity.

The AQ process produces an AQ score which is an indication of acceptance organizational to change. The AQ score is in the positive range when the organization is ready to accept the change and negative if the organization has unresolved resistance. It allows charting of an organization's growing acceptance or continued resistance to an initiative over time.  A change measurement allows change to be managed. Prior to AQ, it was difficult to quantify the "soft" side of change. Because it wasn't measurable, it wasn't manageable. 

AQ involves an interactive group survey to gather information. Stakeholders are asked to respond to a series of questions dealing with issues and assumptions regarding change. The assumptions are categorized by credibility, organizational benefit, and individual benefit. Participants in the AQ sessions anonymously and synchronously respond to polling questions in the same room or from anywhere in the world. Their collective responses are gathered and the results immediately shared. This approach stimulates discussion on the responses. The data can be statistically analyzed to determine the aspect of the change that the stakeholders are most excited (positive forces: +F) and most concerned (resiting forces:-F).  

The key to the power of this action research is the discussion based on the interactive survey. Instead of interpreting the results of the survey responses, the session facilitator can ask the participants for deeper understanding what was meant by the responses. After the interactive survey, participants are encouraged to share what excites or concerns them about the project either verbally or in a virtual chat. In this way, focused action can have direct input from stakeholders to the design.

The strength of the overall IAR AQ approach lies in the subsequent analysis and action plans derived from the survey and open session results.  The change initiative risks are minimized due to the broad participation. Communication plans and other forms of interventions are developed to address the issues that are surfaced.  The IAR AQ approach allows targeting limited resources to areas where the stakeholders have concerns, thus allowing us to manage the acceptance.

Key questions of any change process can be answered directly. Questions such as:

• Is this change initiative credible? Does it deserve my attention now?
• Is there too much change? Do we really need this project now?
• Who do we need to support us?
• Who else should we involve and when?
• What groups are impacted and what are their concerns?
• Is the organization ready for this?
• To whom and what do we need to communicate at this point?
• Who makes a difference to the success or failure of this project's acceptance? Do we know how to enlist their support?
• Are we listening? What are the stakeholders saying about what we are doing?
• How do we know that the stakeholders have become committed to the future vision and are willing to leave the current state?
• What else do we need to provide to the stakeholders so they can move forward?

Many organizations have experienced a more robust project designs and reduction in cycle times of implementation by applying an AQ change process. This provides the ability to be responsive and therefore sustainable. As important, the projects that utilize this change process have engaged and involved global stakeholders so they are involved in co-creating their future.

AQ Connection to the Power Tools of Change

For change projects, there are three power tools. They are interconnected since information from one is an input and output to the others. Those tools are: Stakeholder Analysis, Communication Plan and Force Field Analysis

Please contact us if you are interested in leveraging the Interactive Action Research (IAR) the process within your organization.