Stakeholder buy-in in innovation projects
Adopting the right stakeholder centric communication
Bringing key stakeholders on board is critical for an innovation project but it is also complex for several reasons:
- As your project evolves and new knowledge is acquired, you will need to adapt your project communication to your stakeholders
- Innovation projects require obtaining stakeholder buy-in at every stage
of the project and making sure they are reassured and convinced - You will need to turn technical information into messages stakeholders can relate to, to demonstrate the value of the project to key stakeholders
- Those stakeholders might not share your project vision, particularly if you are operating in breakthrough innovation context
Borrowed from the design world, storytelling with a stakeholder centric approach, made its way into innovation projects management.
Storytelling is a communication methodology used to turn key project facts and figures into a compelling narrative addressed at a targeted audience. Storytelling translates project facts into stories people can relate to. It comes down to a few key messages that can be easily shared and adapted.
In Tesla’s case, The initial situation was that electric plug-in vehicles were not desirable, moreover plug-in electric infrastructure was lacking, therefore limiting their mass market penetration.
Sustainable transport was needed in order to meet the global sustainability challenge, more specifically end customers were trying to balance mobility against sustainability (at the time cars running on petrol were more convenient than electric plug-in vehicles…).
When Tesla first started out, the resolution of that challenge involved demonstrating customer appetite for such electric vehicles. This in turn demonstrated Tesla’s ability to find electric plug-in vehicle customers. Tesla’s version of the plug-in electric vehicle had a substantial range (charging was free throughout the network unless you were using the supercharging feature) and accelerated faster than non-electric vehicles.
The new situation was identified by Elon Musk (Tesla’s CEO) as the company’s top challenge. Every effort was directed at making storytelling a reality, be it in terms of the desirability of their vehicles (high tech, simple, a pleasure to drive) or their associated service and ease of use (charging, upgrades, maintenance).
Manage collective imagination
Managing the collective imagination of your stakeholders helps you to secure and improve stakeholder buy-in and cohesion through a clearer understanding of stakeholder roles and interest.
How to frame your storytelling?
Build a compelling storytelling of your innovation project,
according to the different key stakeholders
Pitch it!
Intrapreneurship programs in companies be it industrial or digital have increased the last decade and one emblematic word, taken from the startup world, “pitch” has been democratized as a short version of storytelling. It communicates your project feature(s) or overall project promises.
A pitch combines public expression, storytelling and argumentation to anchor your ideas in the collective imagination of your audience.
There can be several versions of your pitch, for differents audiences
Your pitch can having varying lengths eg. “elevator pitches”, designed for different impacts. It ends with a clear call to action (for financing from financing or sponsor stakeholders, support from potential partners, for customer participation in trials…).
Internet is packed with early pitches from Uber, Airbnb … Check some of them out!
This blog post is the third of a serie introducing our blended learning training with EDF on breakthrough and incremental innovation management. Check out how to manage knowledge and actions in such explorations in our first article and how to mutate your internal and external company ecosystem in our second article.
