Best Ways To Recognize Stakeholder Feedback

How to Extract Information from Stakeholders 🎯 Getting accurate information from stakeholders can make or break your financial planning process. Each stakeholder speaks a completely different language and focuses on totally different metrics. The secret? Knowing exactly what to ask and how to ask it. ➡️ CEO CONVERSATIONS CEOs think big picture, so focus on strategic direction and vision. You want company strategies for next quarter, budget allocation expectations, risk tolerance levels, and market positioning goals. The money question: "What are the top 3 strategic priorities that should drive our Q4 planning?" ➡️ HEAD OF SALES Sales leaders live and breathe pipeline projections and customer acquisition costs. Get those sales pipeline projections, customer acquisition costs, territory performance data, and resource requirements for targets. My go-to approach: "What's the realistic revenue projection for Q4, and what support do you need?" ➡️ MARKETING DIRECTOR Marketing lives for lead generation and brand metrics. You need campaign performance metrics, lead generation forecasts, brand awareness initiatives, and marketing budget requirements. Hit them with: "How many qualified leads can marketing deliver to support the sales targets?" ➡️ HR MANAGER HR thinks talent and workforce planning 24/7. Grab headcount projections, recruitment timelines, employee retention rates, and training and development needs. Start here: "What's our hiring timeline to support the growth plan, and any retention concerns?" ➡️ ENGINEERING LEAD Engineering leaders obsess over product development roadmaps. Collect that product development roadmap, technical debt priorities, infrastructure requirements, and team capacity information. The must-ask question: "What features can be delivered by Q4, and what technical investments are critical?" ➡️ ACCOUNTING MANAGER Accounting thinks financial health and compliance every single day. Get cash flow projections, budget variance analysis, financial compliance requirements, and cost optimization opportunities. The essential question: "What's our cash flow outlook, and are there any financial constraints for our growth plans?" ➡️ UNIVERSAL BEST PRACTICES These six practices work with EVERY stakeholder: Be Specific: Ask for concrete numbers, dates, and measurable outcomes rather than vague commitments. Respect Their Time: Come prepared with focused questions and provide context upfront. Speak Their Language: Use terminology and metrics relevant to their department and priorities. Validate Understanding: Repeat back key points to ensure alignment and avoid miscommunication. Follow Up: Send summaries of key decisions and next steps within 24 hours. Close the Loop: Show how their input directly influences decisions and outcomes. === What's your approach to stakeholder communication? Share your best practices in the comments below 👇

A quiet stakeholder is a risk not a win If your stakeholder isn't giving feedback, it's a blind spot. Too often PMs assume silence means approval. No complaints? Must be aligned. No questions? Must be clear. No feedback? Must be fine. Wrong. Silence usually means disengagement, lack of clarity, or unvoiced concerns. Here's 3 things to do to tackle silence and ensure alignment: ☝ Pull quiet stakeholders in early and often Don't wait for silence to become a problem. Be proactive in asking for feedback in 1:1 settings. Sometimes the quietest team members become the biggest allies. ✌ Ask pointed + specific questions "Any thoughts?" is going to invite silence. "Do you foresee any downstream risk in X?" will get you real input. The devil is in the details. 🤟 Be on the lookout for passive misalignment Use nonverbal cues like body language. Take note of slow approvals or vague comments. These usually indicate something's off and you need to dig in. When a quiet stakeholder finally speaks up, it's usually too late to fix it without a cost. Proactive engagement beats reactive damage control. 🤙

😅 Ever build an awesome new process, then realize you forgot to tell anyone about it? Yeah, me too. (Oops.) It's tempting to just flip the switch and say, "Ta-da! Go forth and use!" But we know how that ends... usually with confusion and some creative excuses. 🥴 The truth is: building it is the easy part. Bringing people along—that's where the real leadership magic kicks in. ✨ Here's what actually works (learned the hard way!): 👉 Admit you’re late to the party. A simple, “Hey, we built this, and honestly should’ve talked to you earlier—can we talk now?” goes a looooong way toward trust. (Transparency wins!) 👉 Swap "any feedback?" for real talk: "How would your team break this?" (Yes, seriously.) "If you could tweak one thing to make life easier, what would it be?" "Does this feel like it'll actually help, or did we just invent more busywork?" 👉 Context, not commandments. People resist "because I said so." They embrace "here's why this helps, and what we're trying to achieve." (Clarity unlocks buy-in faster than authority ever could.) 👉 Tiny moments of teamwork. Pilots, feedback loops, quick huddles, group chats—give stakeholders a chance to shape the outcome, even if it’s small. Ownership is a powerful motivator. 👉 Prepare for adoption (for real!). No documentation, training, or support? Congrats, you've built a shiny new paperweight! 🥳 At the end of the day, people don't resist change—they resist change done TO them instead of WITH them. I'd love to hear your stories! 👇 Ever rolled out something great (or not-so-great) and learned these lessons firsthand? Share your wisdom (or hilarious fails!) in the comments. #Leadership #RealTalk #ProcessAdoption #Collaboration #StakeholderEngagement #ChangeManagement #LaughAndLearn #PeopleFirst

Raise your hand 🙋🏻♀️ if this has ever happened to you ⤵ You put a piece of content in front of someone for approval. They say, “You should show this to Sally. She’d have thoughts on this.” So you show it to Sally. She not only has thoughts, but she also recommends you share the draft with Doug. Doug also has feedback, some of which aligns with Sally’s and some of which does not. Now you’re two days behind schedule, have conflicting feedback to parse through, and are wondering how you could have avoided this mess. Try this next time 👇 In the planning phase of a project, put a doc together that outlines 3 levels of stakeholders: 1) Your SMEs 🧠 → Apply as much of their feedback as possible — they are as close a proxy to your audience as you can get. 2) Your key approver(s) ✅ → Keep this group small, 1–2 people if possible. → Weigh their feedback knowing that they are not necessarily an SME 𝘣𝘶𝘵 they do control whether or not the project moves forward. 3) Your informed partners 🤝 → Typically, those who will repurpose or promote your content in some way. (e.g. field marketing, comms, growth, etc.) → Make revisions based on their feedback at your discretion. → You may even want to frame the delivery of your draft as, "Here’s an update on how this is progressing. No action needed at this time." Share this doc with all listed stakeholders. Make sure they understand the level of feedback you’re expecting from them, and by when. Then use the doc to track feedback and approvals throughout the life of the project. Preventing your circle of approvers from becoming concentric: 👍 keeps you on track 👍 keeps your content from pleasing your stakeholders more than your audience

I’ve never had a stakeholder ask about the technical details of an analysis. They weren't interested in the Python library I used or a new SQL function I implemented, it was all about the impact and results. Here’s what I focus on when talking to stakeholders:  ◼️ Actively listen to their feedback and concerns.  ◼️ Highlight the impact/results, not the methods. ◼️ Understand how they plan to use the data. ◼️ Identify what matters to them and their goals.  ◼️ Use clear language and avoid technical terms. With my team, I can get into the nerdy details. But with stakeholders, it’s about everything after the analysis: WHAT we can do with the data and HOW it helps us reach business goals. P.S. There’s always exceptions, some stakeholders may be interested in the technical side. But in my experience, they usually aren't. 

The deck where you share what you heard in your stakeholder interviews is the saddest trombone of strategy deliverables. Here's a quick pivot to keep this meeting a little more upbeat: Instead of a meeting where you tell your clients what their colleagues said, tell them instead what you heard. Here’s what I mean: At best, these meetings elicit a chilled "We know that already," which can push the whole project onto its back foot. As you talk to 6 or 24 internal folks, you feel like you're learning and building clarity around the problem. But your clients don't aren't learning anything. "Tell me something I don't know," they're tacitly chiding. Make no mistake - this part of the project is super valuable to you as you get up to speed. But this is the one part of a project where you're learning and your clients aren't. Which is why it can be so unsatisfying for them, and why this deliverable can land like a brick. But by pivoting to what you heard instead of what they said, you're adding some synthesis to your process. And what you're presenting rises from facts ("this is what Lucinda said") to something closer to insights ("this is a new way of looking at something you knew already"). Here are some examples of how to do that: 1️⃣ "Here's what everyone said, which you know already. But here's what NOBODY said, which surprised us." 2️⃣ “Your stakeholders all had different complaints about the website we’re redesigning. But here’s what all those complaints have in common.” 3️⃣ “You don’t have the analytics to measure impact. So anecdotes have become your internal currency. Our experience is that they rarely give you the full picture.” This moves you beyond merely editing. Now you’re filling in the gaps, aggregating data into themes, adding your own expertise. This makes what you’re telling your client feel more kinetic, and that you’re moving forward instead of stuck in neutral. 

Coaching skill I use with difficult stakeholders: Speak their language. Once a senior developer blocked every idea in a sprint planning. "This is over-engineered," he said. "We don't need this complexity." "It'll slow us down." I was ready to give up. Then I switched tactics. Instead of defending my idea, I asked: "What would make this simpler for you?" He lit up. Started explaining HIS approach. I took notes. Used his exact words. Next meeting, I presented the SAME idea. But this time in his language: - "Lightweight solution" (not comprehensive framework) - "Quick wins" (not phased approach) - "Tech debt reduction" (not process improvement) He became my biggest supporter. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗰: → Listen for their keywords → Note their favorite phrases → Mirror their communication style → Present YOUR ideas using THEIR words Works because people trust what sounds familiar. They hear themselves in your proposal. Resistance melts away. Try this tomorrow: 1. Pick your most difficult stakeholder 2. Write down 5 words they use constantly 3. Rework your next proposal using those words You're not manipulating. You're translating. ♻️ Hit repost - let's make meetings less painful for everyone