Stakeholders

Stakeholder Consultation

The Glasgow Group provides Stakeholder Consultation Facilitation (sometimes known as focus groups) for a wide range of organizations. They uniformly find that the facilitation process provides exceptional value:

“The Canada Media Fund launched a nationwide stakeholder consultation process in the fall of 2009 that included travel to 14 cities. This process included a wide cross-section of the television and new-media industry stakeholders in Canada – broadcasters, funders, producers, unions and guilds, industry associations and national organizations – with competing and conflicting agendas, and often little understanding of each other. Without the advice, guidance, process that he developed and focus group sessions led by Alan Kay, this could have been a recipe for disaster. Instead what we have is understanding – if not always agreement – and an environment of trust and knowledge on which to move forward.” Valerie Creighton, President and CEO, Canadian Television Fund | Fonds canadien de télévision

Clients value an approach that goes beyond the usual ‘capture and synthesis’ of discussions:

• A client core planning team helps design the consultation structure and the activities.
• Customer and external stakeholder sessions, often roundtables among an audience with whom they interact, provide insights.
• Stakeholders are first asked what’s working in their own domain in order to establish a better context for their input on the topic at hand. They are then asked, what needs to get better.
• The staff from the client organization listen and interact verbally with the stakeholders; Their direct dialogue helps the organization align with their audiences more effectively.
• The session content is captured and synthesized by either the core team or our team.
• Throughout the process the client takes a purposeful view of the current strengths and possibilities for the future of the audience and the organization.
• Teams often find they are clear on the stakeholder perspective such that strategy development is enhanced and that they automatically take small steps to begin the changes brought forth.

Overall…

– by engaging stakeholders in a purposeful dialogue about both what’s working and what needs to improve, the stakeholder voice is reasonable

– planning decisions are easier and clearer

– action plans align with both the organization’s goals and those of the stakeholders

What’s different about our approach?

We are deeply Solution Focused in all of our work and we are regarded as one of the leading users of the Solution Focus approach. This intensely researched approach has been around for 30+ years and is used to clarify issues and seek paths to solutions. It works rigorously around the client’s existing systems – there’s no right way, just a better way based on what works for you.

Contact: Alan Kay at [email protected] 416 481 3588

Follow him on Twitter at alankay1 and his Solution Focus blog