I’ve spent a lot of time learning and reflecting on how to manage stakeholders while meeting user needs.
I know how hard it can be to deliver good content with tricky stakeholders. And I understand the view that maybe it’s better for stakeholders to solely own the information while content designers own the content.
But too often I have seen this approach result in discord and division. And I honestly don’t think it’s the best way for us to meet the needs of our users.
I think it’s time we changed the narrative.
Having worked in publishing (print and digital) for 30 years, I know a lot about difficult stakeholders.
Difficult stakeholders I have worked with
When I worked for the University of London, an academic described my team as ‘Stalinist’ and told me he didn’t want to work with us. Another academic emailed me and the entire senior management team to say that the Birkbeck website was the worst she’d ever seen. A group of academics - rejecting our ‘evidence’ (Google Analytics) as ‘statistically insignificant’ - refused to engage with our consultation and staged a mass walkout.
In 2019, I joined the Government Digital Service (GDS), almost 10 years after the incredible and inspiring project that birthed GOV.UK. The blogs I read, the training sessions I attended and the speakers I listened to transformed my practice and the discipline of content design. So when I joined GDS, I genuinely thought things would be different. But it wasn’t long before I experienced deja vu.
A policy expert at a key stakeholder meeting crossed her arms and refused to talk to me once she knew I was there on behalf of GDS. When I asked someone else why she was so hostile, they told me she had still not forgiven GDS for what ‘we’ had done to ‘her’ website 10 years before. Colleagues in other departments repeatedly told me they spent a lot of time defending GDS from angry policy experts, who didn’t trust us. And a policy expert I was negotiating with told me that she didn’t like working with content people because ‘we’ didn’t listen to her. And we didn’t respect her expertise. And information would be available faster if we simply got out of the way.
I could go on.
Do you know this story?
Do you see what I did there? I just started to tell you a story. One where a happy-go-lucky little content designer (me) tried to engage with difficult stakeholders, who didn’t respect me and refused to work with me.
Only that’s not the whole story.
In my 25 years at the University of London, I never worked with an academic who was difficult simply because they wanted to undermine me. Like me, they were driven by passion. And although their objectives may have been different to mine, and we didn’t always agree, we definitely figured out how to work together.
I’ve seen talented content designers share brilliant content stories with policy experts, and showcase evidence that helped us understand the problems our users were experiencing, and run HMW (how might we) workshops, and pair write with subject experts. And I watched these same content designers flex and change their minds and deliver something even better than they originally planned, because they listened. And be congratulated by their stakeholders on a job well done.
At Defra, I reported into a project group (weekly) and a working group (biweekly), which meant I had regular access to a whole swathe of key stakeholders. That meant I heard their opinions and insights, and I was able to leverage these to develop solutions to the problems our users were experiencing. And these hugely overworked-and-under-pressure staff were really nice to work with and really kind to me.
I want to end this section by telling you that the most fun I ever had in my career was working with talented content designers who understood the value of partnership working. Because it was exhilarating to agree and disagree, and plot, and listen, and move forward. And engage with people who weren’t already part of our digital content tribe.
Here's what I'm wondering
Inclusion is at the heart of great digital content design.
So a model that excludes non-digital staff from the creative process of shaping and publishing digital content doesn’t feel quite right to me. I think this dynamic sets up adversarial relationships that don’t make anyone feel good. I also think we all see the effects of tribalism in society, and I believe we owe it to our users to do better.
So I wonder:
What if I told you that learning to manage stakeholders well is actually the same thing as people management - and that learning these skills will stand you in good stead in other parts of your life. Would that interest you?
What would happen if we told all of our content people that their job is to be great at partnering with our stakeholders? And that we’ll empower them by teaching them the influencing and negotiating skills that will help them? Would they accept the challenge?
What if our teams were tasked with turning our stakeholders into allies, who want to work with us? Even those who have held onto their grievances for a long time. What might that look like?
What if we told our content people that flexibility and open-mindedness and the ability to change their minds are far more important than a dogmatic adherence to house style? Would this interest them?
And what if we asked our teams to start sharing their content stories - the ones that they save for prospective employers in interviews. The ones that showcase their ability to work in effective partnerships and deliver value for users. Would they rise to the challenge?
Isn’t it time we changed the narrative?
I feel like a lot of content stories I’ve read in the past have focused on the craft of content design - and I understand how exciting it is to learn and practise these skills. But the application of these skills has only ever been a small part of the story. And I think it’s time we heard more.
Stakeholders have always and will always play a key role in digital content design. I think it's time we embrace this and apply our shared knowledge and experience to making the best of this engagement - whatever it takes.
Isn't it time to change our narrative?
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