Hearing things you don’t want to hear.

Can’t we just get on with this?

Here’s an exchange I’ve had countless times over the years with people engaged in leading change:

AMAZING HUMAN: “So you’re saying we ask our stakeholders to contribute to the solution we’re developing?”

ME: “Yes”

AMAZING HUMAN: “Ok…. But we will ask them, and they will disagree with our ideas. And then it will take so much effort to convince them that we’re right. We don’t have time for that - we just need to get on with it. Aren’t we just making our own lives more difficult?”

Ok, so here’s what I reckon. Your stakeholders will have opinions whether you ask for them or not. And those opinions will impact the uptake of change either way.

If your stakeholders aren’t telling you, they’re bound to be telling someone else behind closed doors. But if you can be present to the feedback, sit with it, and welcome it without insult or defensiveness there’s an opportunity to learn something that will make your solution better.

Not because you have to take everything on board, but because knowing what environment you’re operating in gives you opportunities to address genuine concerns AND meet strategic intent by:

• Shaping your approach, extending your thinking, and strengthening your design.

• Surfacing the design choices, trade-offs and thinking that is behind your proposed design.

• Giving others the benefit of understanding WHY certain aspects are being proposed. You’re starting the change and education process from day one.

But here’s the part that makes people uneasy about being open: engagement does not equal consensus.

Achieving consensus is not the aspiration.

You don’t have to get everyone to agree with you. That’s not the point of engagement. Chasing consensus leads to watered-down solutions, and never-ending cycles of consultation with weak decision-making and impact.

What we are trying to achieve is clarity, not comfort.

Engagement is about surfacing different perspectives so you can understand the landscape you’re operating in.

It’s about equipping yourself to make informed, strategic choices.

Often, the choices made will go against what some stakeholders want. That’s okay—so long as the decisions are intentional, transparent, and grounded in a thoughtful understanding of the impacts.

Is it uncomfortable to engage deeply and then act decisively? Yes, quite often it is.

Is it the right thing to do when you’re working on complex, enterprise-wide strategic initiatives? Absolutely.

The six voices you need in a strategic conversation.

When you’re considering who to engage with, think about building diversity of thought and perspectives from these six lenses. Ideally, you want to hear from all of these perspectives:

1. Decision Makers

Those responsible for setting direction, making key choices, and ensuring alignment across the organisation.

2. Technical Experts

People who understand the technology, systems, processes and functional requirements of how the business runs today and what it will take to deliver change effectively.

3. Frontline and Delivery Staff

Staff with direct insight into services, systems, and the lived experience of frontline service delivery and operations.

4. Users and Beneficiaries

Those who receive or are affected by the service—customers, citizens, communities, or partner organisations.

5. Enablers and Integrators

Functions that connect strategy to delivery—e.g. finance, HR, digital, legal, data—helping ensure solutions are viable and embedded.

6. Critical Voices

Stakeholders who can test assumptions, offer challenge, and bring cross-boundary perspectives.

Not engaging is the wrong solution.

The danger is not in purposeful, open engagement, but the opposite: when leaders design strategies and solutions in a vacuum, insulated from feedback because they fear it might challenge their certainty. This almost always leads to surprises downstream, usually at the worst possible moment.

I’ve seen too many projects fail because leaders were afraid to deal with the central difficulties of their solution early (typically there is an “elephant in the room” that needs to be surfaced).

This happens when you assume that hearing a tough truth means you have to give up your vision.

You don’t.

But you do need to be strong enough to hear feedback, smart enough to use it, and have the courage to act.

Until next time, keep shining brightly and boldly!

Thanks for your support

You reading this means more to me than you know. Thank you.

If you like this, connect with me on LinkedIn where I am prone to slightly unhinged rants about people first strategy and business design.

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