Communicating With Stakeholders

I was Wrong about Influence. Early in my career, I believed influence in a decision-making meeting was the direct outcome of a strong artifact presented and the ensuing discussion. However, with more leadership experience, I have come to realize that while these are important, there is something far more important at play. Influence, for a given decision, largely happens outside of and before decision-making meetings. Here's my 3 step approach you can follow to maximize your influence: (#3 is often missed yet most important) 1. Obsess over Knowing your Audience Why: Understanding your audience in-depth allows you to tailor your communication, approach and positioning. How: ↳ Research their backgrounds, how they think, what their goals are etc. ↳ Attend other meetings where they are present to learn about their priorities, how they think and what questions they ask. Take note of the topics that energize them or cause concern. ↳ Engage with others who frequently interact with them to gain additional insights. Ask about their preferences, hot buttons, and any subtle cues that could be useful in understanding their perspective. 2. Tailor your Communication Why: This ensures that your message is not just heard but also understood and valued. How: ↳ Seek inspiration from existing artifacts and pickup queues on terminologies, context and background on the give topic. ↳ Reflect on their goals and priorities, and integrate these elements into your communication. For instance, if they prioritize efficiency, highlight how your proposal enhances productivity. ↳Ask yourself "So what?" or "Why should they care" as a litmus test for relatability of your proposal. 3. Pre-socialize for support Why: It allows you to refine your approach, address potential objections, and build a coalition of support (ahead of and during the meeting). How: ↳ Schedule informal discussions or small group meetings with key stakeholders or their team members to discuss your idea(s). A casual coffee or a brief virtual call can be effective. Lead with curiosity vs. an intent to respond. ↳ Ask targeted questions to gather feedback and gauge reactions to your ideas. Examples: What are your initial thoughts on this draft proposal? What challenges do you foresee with this approach? How does this align with our current priorities? ↳ Acknowledge, incorporate and highlight the insights from these pre-meetings into the main meeting, treating them as an integral part of the decision-making process. What would you add? PS: BONUS - Following these steps also expands your understanding of the business and your internal network - both of which make you more effective. --- Follow me, tap the (🔔) Omar Halabieh for daily Leadership and Career posts.

If you're delivering bad news over email, you've already lost the relationship. I see it all the time. The termination notice sent at 5 PM on a Friday. The policy change buried in a mass email. The apology that reads like it was drafted by legal and approved by no one with a pulse. Leaders hide behind screens when things get hard. And it always backfires. Because bad news delivered without presence feels like cowardice. And cowardice destroys trust faster than the bad news itself. Here's why email fails in crisis: 1.) It removes accountability. You can't see the person's reaction. You can't answer their questions. You can't adjust based on how they're receiving it. You just send it—and hope it lands okay. 2.) It feels transactional. Email says: "This is a task I needed to complete." A conversation says: "This matters enough for me to show up." 3.) Tone gets lost. What you meant as direct reads as cold. What you meant as professional reads as detached. And in a crisis, tone is everything. 4.) It invites misinterpretation. People fill in the gaps. They read between the lines. They assume the worst. Because when you're not there to clarify, they're left to imagine your intent. The hard conversations—the ones that matter most—deserve your presence. Not your inbox. That means: → A phone call when you can't be there in person. → A video meeting when you need to see their face. → A real conversation—not a one-way broadcast. Yes, it's uncomfortable. Yes, it takes more time. Yes, it's harder than hitting "send." But leadership isn't about efficiency. It's about integrity. And integrity shows up. Even when—especially when—the news is bad. Follow for weekly insights on communication, presence, and leadership.

Speaking Tech and Human: Why Every Team Needs a Communication Chameleon Ever been in a meeting where it feels like everyone's speaking a different language? Not in the literal sense, but in that "tech jargon vs. human speak" kind of way. It happens all the time, especially in cross-functional teams. Engineers, with our love of acronyms and complex terminology, can sometimes leave non-technical folks feeling lost in the weeds. I recently witnessed this firsthand. Picture a late-night meeting about an upcoming AI launch. The tension is high, the deadline is looming, and suddenly, someone asks a seemingly simple question: "So, what exactly is an IDE?" The engineer on the call launches into a detailed explanation, complete with references to command-line interfaces. It's like trying to explain astrophysics to someone who just learned the alphabet. This is where we TPMs (or anyone with a knack for both tech and "human speak") come in. We're the interpreters, the bridge-builders, ensuring everyone's on the same page. In that late-night meeting, I jumped in with a simple explanation: "An IDE is basically the tool where developers write and test their code. It's like a word processor for software." Problem solved! The question-asker got the gist, the engineer learned a valuable lesson about audience-focused communication, and we all got a little closer to hitting that launch button. Key takeaways for clearer tech communication: - Know your audience: Tailor your explanations to the listener's technical understanding. - Focus on the "why": Explain the impact and benefits, not just the technical details. - Keep it simple: Avoid jargon and acronyms whenever possible. - Use analogies (when appropriate): Relate complex concepts to everyday experiences. Effective communication isn't about showing off your technical expertise, it's about building a shared understanding and achieving goals together. And in a world where tech is increasingly intertwined with every aspect of our lives, the ability to translate "tech-speak" into "human-speak" is more important than ever. Have you ever witnessed a "lost in translation" moment in tech? Share your stories in the comments! 👇 #TPMlife #TechLeadership #Google #LifeAtGoogle

𝗛𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗵 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗽𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻'𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹. A lame hodgepodge of names, emails and vague notes that don't move the needle towards achieving your policy, reputation, and political goals. Here are some more powerful ways to organize so you can have greater impact and influence, which is the whole purpose right? ⬇ ⬇ 𝗕𝘆 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿: —This is the often the first way to organize “tabs” or define labeled categories but it shouldn't be the last. Some examples: media (print, broadcast, bloggers/influencers, podcasts) think tanks and universities, charitable partners, elected officials and senior staff, trade associations and coalitions, embassies, etc. 𝗕𝘆 𝗜𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗲𝘀: —Depends on your org., but say you’re a hospital company, these would probably include ones like Medicare/Medicaid, drug prices, workforce, DEI, price transparency, EMR/data security, antitrust, site neutrality, etc. 𝗕𝘆 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲/𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: — Is the stakeholder currently an ally, neutral/persuadable, or a detractor? This will often depend on the issue. Obviously, consistent allies on all issues are rare (and super valuable if they’re influential, see below), but it’s crucial to know where you stand in real time. 𝗕𝘆 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲/𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁/𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝘅: —Regularly sketch out a side map outlining how interested and impactful various stakeholders are on important issues. Think high interest/low influence, high interest / high influence (the best of its aligned to your strategies, a challenge if not), low interest, high influence, etc. Recco doing this for your top 3 main issues. 𝗕𝘆 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗥𝗮𝗻𝗸: —Here, past performance is often (but not always) indicative of future results. Assign numbered 1-3 rankings to the most important stakeholders. Group 1 are the most engaged, group 3 the least engaged. **Do this for your allies, neutrals/persuadable and definitely for detractors.** 𝗕𝘆 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 (𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀/𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝘀): —Whose been lead on “watering the plants” from particular groups? What is the nature of the relationship (e.g. former colleague, friend, acquaintance, donor/supporter), how far does it go back? Are there secondary connections within the org.? 𝗛𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝟭: This doesn’t need to be someone from Corporate Affairs, sometimes back channel relationships can do more than formal ones. 𝗛𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝟮:People come and go often. Develop and nurture secondary contacts wherever possible. However your org. manages the map, it needs to be a living, breathing asset. Feel free to add your ideas in comments and big thanks to my friends at Ortus Draws for the awesome infographic that brings it all home!

Many web3 Founders wonder why enterprises won’t buy from them. It’s NOT their tech holding them back. It’s the way they communicate it. Most founders speak in crypto-native language. Hype. Jargon. Protocol talk. Perfect for the X (Twitter) crowd. Useless for enterprise buyers on LinkedIn. Because these buyers don’t care about decentralisation, block space or validator sets. They care about: → Reducing risk → Improving margins → Staying compliant in regulated environments → Getting clear outcomes they can defend internally And when your messaging doesn’t map to those outcomes, two things happen: • They don’t understand what you do • They don’t trust you enough to buy This is the silent killer of Web3 B2B growth. Your team world-class. Your traction impressive. Your product can be brilliant. But if your narrative doesn’t translate into their language, your deals die before the first call. The teams that win outside crypto do something different: → They stop selling tech and start selling outcomes → They rebuild the founder’s LinkedIn for credibility → They reposition their story around business impact → They publish content that speaks to decision-makers, not degens Because enterprises don’t buy innovation. They buy clarity. Fix the story and the sales motion finally starts moving. P.S. Want to see how a web3 Founder’s narrative sounds when it’s rewritten for enterprise buyers instead of crypto natives? ♻️ Repost this to help others in your network. 📌 Follow Aram Mughalyan for daily crypto insights and LinkedIn growth tactics.

We don’t talk enough about the danger of being a subject-matter expert. Expertise is a gift. It’s earned through discipline, curiosity, and years of showing up. But expertise can also trap us. When you spend long enough in a particular industry, surrounded by people who speak the same technical language, something subtle begins to happen: Your words get heavier. Your sentences get longer. Your communication becomes a private club. Before long, you’re speaking in acronyms, frameworks, and jargon that feel completely normal to you yet are entirely inaccessible to the people you’re trying to influence. If people can’t understand you, they can’t follow you. If they can’t follow you, they can’t trust you. And if they can’t trust you, your expertise becomes… irrelevant. One of the most consistent patterns I see when training leaders and teams is brilliance getting lost in translation. Not because people don’t know their work, but because they’re too close to it. They communicate for peers, not for stakeholders. Storytelling and Leadership, we run specialized workshops for SMEs within organizations, helping experts translate complexity into clarity, and insight into influence. Because in the age of AI, the competitive advantage is no longer what you know but how well you can communicate what you know. Three practices SMEs can start applying today: 1. Replace jargon with meaning. If you can’t explain the idea without the acronym, you don’t understand it well enough or you’re not thinking about the listener. 2. Lead with the “why,” not the mechanism. People engage with purpose first. The mechanics can always follow. One of my mentors once told me: “sell the benefits, not the features.” Agreed! 3. Test your message outside your circle. Share your explanation with someone far removed from your field. If they don’t get it, refine. Clarity is a discipline. To my SME circle, remember: expertise is powerful. But expertise, communicated simply, is transformative. #StorytellingAndLeadership #Leadership #Communication #SoftSkills #StrategicComms #ThoughtLeadership #ClarityIsPower

From advising #legaltech and AI founders, I’ve seen a lot of pitches land, and a lot of good ideas stall. The difference is rarely the technology. A few critical things I wish more founders understood about law firms: ➡️ You’re not just selling a product; you’re selling a change in workflow. Partners don’t wake up wanting another platform to work in. They want: - Faster turnaround for high-volume work - Better margins on fixed-fee matters - Happier associates and fewer mistakes - Higher quality outputs and better outcomes If your demo doesn’t clearly map to a specific workflow and outcome, it will struggle. ➡️ Governance and implementation support are features, not after-thoughts Firms are not just comparing feature lists; they’re asking: - “Will this pass internal InfoSec reviews?” - “How much change fatigue will this create?” - “Who will own this day-to-day?” - "What governance will this product require?" - "Does this product respect ethical walls and permissioning?" Having a credible story around implementation, training, and governance is a competitive advantage. ➡️ Proof of value beats proof of concept Pilots that live in a sandbox and never hit real matters tend to die quietly, unless the product being piloted is expressly for the purpose of R&D. The strongest vendors: - Co-design a pilot around a real matter type - Define success metrics upfront - Share learnings transparently with stakeholders If you're building AI for legal, your real product is trust + outcomes, packaged inside software. For those on the vendor or firm side: curious to know what’s the best (or worst) experience you’ve had with an AI pilot so far? #legaltech #legal #law #changemanagement

Interview Conversation Role: RTE in #SAFe framework Topic: Conflict Management 👴 Interviewer: "Imagine the Product Manager and System Architect disagree over feature priorities, with the PM focusing on customer needs and the Architect concerned about tech debt. As the RTE, how would you handle this?" 🧑 Candidate: "I’d remind them to focus on the PI objectives and find a middle ground." 👴 Interviewer: "Say this disagreement is slowing decision-making, impacting team alignment, and morale is dipping. What specific actions would you take to mediate?" 🧑 Candidate: "I’d encourage both of them to think about the project’s overall goals." What a skilled Release Train Engineer should say: ------------------------------------------------------ In cases like this, it’s crucial to foster open, constructive discussions without losing sight of both customer value and technical stability. 🌟 I’d start by facilitating a conversation with the PM and Architect to unpack their priorities and establish a shared understanding. 📅 In a similar situation, I scheduled a conflict-resolution workshop with both roles, focusing on ‘value vs. sustainability’ using the Economic Framework. 🏹 We assessed the impact of each priority on the PI objectives, assigning weights based on business and architectural needs. The workshop helped clarify the ROI of tech improvements and immediate features, allowing them to make informed trade-offs. 🛠 To make it concrete, we identified one high-priority feature to advance and a critical refactor for the next PI. By reaching a balanced decision, we addressed urgent customer needs while setting a feasible path for addressing tech debt. 🚩 Impact: This approach helped restore team alignment, fostered trust between the PM and Architect, and improved the ART’s overall efficiency. ✍ As an RTE, my role is to mediate these discussions by grounding decisions in shared values and structured prioritization, ensuring both immediate and long-term value are achieved.

A programme is six months old. The donor wants impact stories. The field team is still figuring out logistics, hiring, community trust, baseline data. This is where credibility is decided. Most organisations choose visibility over accuracy. They package two anecdotes. - Add photos. - Call it “early impact.” Here is the problem. When you overstate results at six months, you are training your donor to expect speed that systems cannot sustain. Next year, when outcomes take their natural time, you look like you have slowed down. But you have not. You were just premature. Serious institutions handle this differently. They say: Here is what we have stabilised. Here is what we have built. Here is what is still too early to measure. They report process indicators. Hiring completed. Partnerships signed. Baseline done. Training cycles finished. Not glamorous. But credible. Early-stage reporting is not a storytelling test. It is a governance test. If your communication is ahead of your operations, trust will eventually catch up and correct it. The real question is not “How do we show impact quickly?” It is “Are we disciplined enough to show progress honestly?” That is what compounds over time. . . . . #VisualStorytelling #Communications #Nonprofits #SocialSector #CreativeAgency #SimitBhagatStudios

🤔 "The senior stakeholder will only ask strategic questions when my boss is in the call. With me, it's typically checking in on executional tasks." A mid-career woman in the last hidden talent cohort asked in our 24hr whatsapp adivsory chat. She thought she had a communication problem, but It was a positioning gap. She works in communications and marketing. Her stakeholders are the regional head of expansion and the global product lead. Her updates were the activities, the panel speaking opportunities, the product launch amplification, the campaigns. Her work was strategic, she was running real visibility programs for a real expansion. The problem is that every update she had ever given the senior leader stopped at "here's what we did." And that is the question that line trains a senior man to ask back. So we told her that the most useful things she can take into a meeting this week is: "𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀." The shift is to turn your existing update into three altitudes, in one breath: 🔹 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 (𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴): "We ran X panels, secured Y media mentions." 🔹 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 (𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲'𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴): "We noticed higher traction when stories focused on Z themes." 🔹 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 (𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀): "That suggests there's an untapped opportunity to shape the narrative around [topic], especially in markets where expansion is planned." The third one is what primes him to ask you a strategic question, and not your boss. Here is the gap: 👉 Most women I work with are already doing the analytical and strategic thinking in their heads. They just stop talking after the operational sentence. They report what happened. They don't make the interpretation out loud. They don't name what they are seeing. They don't dare the strategic implication. Someone, somewhere, taught them that "concise" is what senior sounds like. It isn't. Senior sounds like the third sentence. Trusted but not chosen is rarely a communication problem. Usually it is one sentence short of where it needs to land. Hidden Talent to Visible Leader is eight weeks of getting from the operational sentence to the strategic one out loud, in real meetings, in front of the senior men. Cohort 4 closes admission on Sunday. 👊 Comment SEAT.