As leaders, we are on a never-ending journey of continuous improvement in all areas of our business. Some of us, including myself, derive a great deal of satisfaction from transitioning teams and businesses into a new and improved future state. This journey towards a better future state can become arduous if we do not have genuine support from some of the stakeholders.

One way of managing your stakeholders is what I call the 20-70-10 rule of buy-in. The numbers represent the size of three stakeholder groups:

• 20% group – Fully Supportive change agents
• 70% group – Indifferent majority
• 10% group – Detractors

In my experience, for any change to be effective, you need at least 20% of the stakeholders to be fully supportive and optimistic about getting to the end state. The second group of individuals, the 70% group, may not be enthusiastic about the change, but won’t be detractors either. The third group is the dangerous detractors; those who may go out of their way to maintain status quo.

Carefully managing all stakeholder groups is vital, as momentum in the wrong direction can be disastrous.

My top five tips for leaders on this topic are to:

1. Create a stakeholder map to identify the 20-70-10 groups. In the past, I have built this map after having one on one conversations with team members to understand what motivates them and listen to their feedback. By putting yourself in their shoes, asking open-ended questions related to the change, and carefully listening to what they have to say, you will be able to determine if they are a fully supportive change agent or a detractor. If they seem indifferent, then they would be part of the majority i.e. the 70% group.
2. Build momentum with the agents (20% group). Back in 2013 when I was leading a team that was working on a new product, I found that a handful of developers were highly motivated to transform the industry that we were operating in and would come up with innovative ideas on an almost daily basis. We then set up a think tank group with those change agents and had a weekly brainstorming session to build momentum.
3. Accept the fact that there will always be detractors (10% group), so acknowledge their concerns and try your best to address them. I inherited a team back in 2007, and during the stakeholder mapping exercise, I realised that a senior team member did not support our new initiative. In that case, it was the development of a new automated testing framework. After carefully listening to this individual’s concerns, I realised that he would see the success of this framework as a personal failure because he was part of the team that had earlier failed to develop a similar framework. During the one on one conversation, I acknowledged his concerns and requested him to play the devil’s advocate role during the technical review sessions. Everyone in the team knew that he would play this role, and he felt that he made a valuable contribution by using his experience in identifying potential issues with the framework design before it got developed.
4. Ensure that the majority of the stakeholders are heading in the right direction by explicitly setting behavioural expectations, SMART goals, frequently measuring progress using KPIs, and course correcting when necessary. Developing SMART i.e. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goals are an essential building block for results oriented execution. I have seen numerous initiatives fail as the leaders did not design and assign SMART goals. In those cases, individuals thought that they were making progress, but in the absence of clearly defined goals, they were heading in different directions ultimately leading to wasted effort.
5. Over-communicate, because there is no such thing as too much communication. Don’t stop after an initial announcement. Reiterate your message on every opportunity you get. Use different modes of communication: record videos, organise webinars, send regular newsletters, set up all hands meetings, and have skip level one on one conversations to ensure that you receive feedback and individuals are adequately informed.

What are your top tips? Please share them in the comments below.

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Tarang Waghela is a Senior Director of Software Development at ABB, Inc. He has extensive experience in leading global software teams and has successfully led and delivered numerous software products in the areas of mining long–term scheduling, short–term scheduling, geological data management, mining economics, ERP, and simulation.