Check your relationships

The purpose of the tool is to make a health check of your key relationships. Through a systematic reflection on the qualities that create trust among the stakeholders, you get the opportunity to develop the relationships. The tool will also develop your empathy and the ability to listen actively to stakeholder feedback concerning your leadership.

The tool uncovers and assesses the most important relationships in the project and considers how strong the individual relationship is at the moment. The tool describes where the weak points in the individual relationship are and defines which measures are necessary for improving the individual relationship

When is the tool used in the project?

• The tool can be used to evaluate the most important relationships at the start of the project. Are there relationships to be built?
• The method can also be used continuously throughout the project when the project manager considers that there are challenges in the relationship with individual stakeholders.

Relationships are built by trust. The stakeholders have to trust you.

The equation below contains four properties that determine whether people trust you, and thus whether you can build up close relationships with others.

Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy)/Focus on your own needs

The four qualities that create trust

Relations have to be built before you need them. It is absolutely crucial to make deposits into the goodwill account before you can withdraw backing and support.

• Credibility is based on your knowledge regarding the project task. You must have a professional standpoint. Did you put together a credible team to handle the task? Your credibility will be weakened if the stakeholders can see that your team is weak. What do you stand for? What are your values? Do you lead according to these standards and values? Do you announce honestly if you’re in doubt or simply don’t know the answer?
• Reliability. How do you fulfill your promises? Do you deliver on time? This is also very much about announcing changes instead of letting them pop up as a surprise. You should be ahead at all times and communicate adjustments coming up in the project. Reliability can also be  affected by experiences from previous projects.
• Intimacy. It’s all about empathy and an honest interest in other people. This means that you have a personal relation which induces people to share their own personal worries. It describes your ability and readiness to be open and share your doubts and vulnerability.
• Less focus on your own needs. The last element describes how selfish you act. How much do your own interests come first compared with the stakeholder’s or the project’s interests? It’s all about how much your own interests are allowed to control or disturb your work.

How to do

This is primarily an analysis tool for the project manager. It will be an advantage if it is prepared on the basis of conversations and experiences with the stakeholders.

Template 1:

• Step 1: Enter the key stakeholders in the left column and mark with an X in the colored squares how much trust you think the stakeholder has in you. Green: Great confidence, you are perceived as a star. Yellow: Reasonable trust, but with some slips. Red: Lacks trust in you.
• Step 2: Then consider the individual stakeholder from left to right in the four column. If there are problems with trust where is the challenge then? Mark with an X in the colored squares where you think the problem is. Green: No Problems, Yellow: Problematic, Red: Substantial problems.
• Step 3: Then review the individual stakeholder from left to right and assess which initiatives you are going to use where you have set X in yellow or red. Complete your actions and follow up by asking stakeholders for feedback on your project leadership.

See the detailed description in the PowerPoint tool: Check your relationships. The Word tool contains only the templates. Note the PowerPoint tool uses the above color code, whereas the Word tool uses a score 1, 2 and 3 or A, B and C. This health check of your relationships is a general leadership tool that can be used regardless of whether you work with projects based on IPMA , Prince2, PMI, agile methods like Scrum or Half Double.