Identifying Stakeholders in Change

R. Edward Freeman defined a stakeholder as any group or individual who can affect, or is affected by, the achievement of an organization's objectives. Change management applies the same idea to a single change and adds a third group: people who perceive themselves to be affected, whether or not they are.

A stakeholder in a change is therefore anyone who:

• affects the change, such as a budget holder, a regulator or an informal opinion leader;
• is affected by it, such as the staff whose work changes or the customers who see a new service;
• perceives themselves to be affected.

The third group matters because reactions follow perception. At Larchfield Logistics, drivers from an external haulage firm believe that a new warehouse system will change their delivery slots. The plan does not touch the slots, but the drivers' concern can still disrupt deliveries, so they belong on the list.

A stakeholder in change management is defined by influence, impact or perceived impact, not by job title or contract.

1. Start from the scope and the impacts. List the processes, systems, sites and roles the change touches.
2. Brainstorm with a mixed group. Include people from different levels and functions; a project team alone tends to see only its own network.
3. Walk the organization chart for every affected unit, including support functions such as HR, finance, IT and facilities.
4. Trace the process maps upstream and downstream: who supplies inputs, who receives outputs, who approves.
5. Ask the stakeholders already found who else will be affected or has influence. Each conversation tends to reveal new names.
6. Check outside the organization: customers, suppliers, partners, regulators, unions and works councils.
7. Look for informal influence: respected experts, long-serving staff and people whom others consult before deciding.

Stakeholder identification works best when several of these techniques are combined, because each one misses different people.

The output is a stakeholder list or register. A practical register holds, for each individual or group:

• name or group, and whether it is internal or external;
• relationship to the change: affects it, is affected by it, or perceives an effect;
• expected impact, in the stakeholder's terms (for example, new tasks, loss of a familiar tool or a changed reporting line);
• an initial view of interests and attitude, to be tested later;
• an owner in the change team who manages the relationship.

Groups should be split when their situations differ. At Harbourside Council, "housing staff" covers office staff, who gain a new system, and field officers, who lose their paper forms. They need different conversations.

The stakeholder list is the input to mapping and engagement, so its quality limits everything that follows.

Stakeholder engagement means involving stakeholders in a two-way dialogue, so that their knowledge and concerns can influence the change and how it is delivered. It is broader than communication:

• Communication can be one-way: announcements, newsletters, status updates.
• Engagement includes listening, consulting, co-designing and reporting back on how input was used.

Identification is the precondition for engagement: a team cannot involve people it has not found. It also sets expectations, because once people are consulted, they expect their input to count. Consulting people after decisions are fixed is a common way to lose trust.

Stakeholder identification therefore leads into engagement, and engagement depends on a list that is complete and honest.

• Using only the governance documents. Approvers and board members are a small part of the picture.
• Stopping at the organization chart. Informal influencers and cross-functional dependencies do not appear on it.
• Forgetting external parties such as suppliers, customers and employee representatives.
• Ignoring perceived impact because "it does not affect them".
• Treating identification as a one-off. New stakeholders appear when scope, timing or design changes.
• Leaving out likely opponents to keep the list comfortable. Opponents identified early can be engaged; those found late usually arrive as resistance.

Stakeholder identification is an ongoing activity that deliberately looks beyond the obvious names.