During any undertaking there will be parties who have an interest in the outcome. They are expecting a change that enhances or adds value in material or emotional terms to what they care about, or even removes something detrimental, or lowers a risk to it. Meeting their expectations may be critical or peripheral to the success of the undertaking and their expectations may be shared with or antagonistic to those of other parties. They hold a stake in the undertaking whether they are directly involved or just affected by the outcome.
These individuals and organisations, the parties, are ‘stakeholders’ and could be comprised of business, governmental and regulatory entities as well as employees, shareholders, managers, other private individuals, and ‘society’ as a whole.
It is the balancing of these stakeholders’ expectations that is crucial to a common understanding and agreement of what they recognise as successful change. The balancing process is a negotiation with and between stakeholders, establishing to what extent and when their expectations will be satisfied. For this you need to set out a framework and mechanism that can be used for effective stakeholder negotiation. This approach is useful in any situation where a negotiated outcome is better than all the alternatives.
Bibliography:
‘Getting to Yes: Negotiating an agreement without giving in’ (Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, published by Houghton and Mifflin). The Harvard Negotiation Project.
‘The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology’ (Lee Ross , Richard E. Nisbett , et al. published by Pinter and Martin)