Many of the marketing books look at various tools and techniques to manage stakeholders. No one could argue with the theory of segmenting key stakeholders intro groups and then setting the strategy to influence them. But is this going to be enough when the world and people in it keep changing?

With the current business environment rather fluid in terms of changes to organisational charts and business strategy, it is hard to maintain key relationships no matter how much planning is in place to influence these stakeholders.

So what can be done to maintain continuity of relationship when it keeps on changing?

Well the simple answer is, don’t give up! Your reputation remains and will be the constant element that will help to deliver the projects that are required. The stakeholders that move on will always provide the person that will take over this role with a run down of what needs to be delivered, but also a view on what it is like to work with you and other key stakeholders of their own. This will set the scene for the new relationship and while some down time should be expected, overall the new relationship will establish quickly enough as the projects and work load continue.

Sometimes having a new stakeholder to work with can be a good thing. It can bring new ideas in and also an opportunity to rethink what is currently on the plan to deliver.

As long as you call out the key deadlines that will not change, your new stakeholder might count on you to keep things moving as they get up to speed and thereby start to cement the relationship.

Overall, making sense of stakeholders can be challenging but the main thing is to quickly understand what success looks like for them and reassess the implications that this might have on your projects and stakeholder strategy.