Ideas to improve conversations with stakeholders

Sherif Amin
UX Collective
Published in
8 min readDec 13, 2021
Orange sheets of paper lie on a green school board and form a chat bubble with three crumpled papers.
Photo by: Volodymyr Hryshchenko

*This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. Thanks.”

I work as a user experience consultant. My role requires and demands intensive communication with many stakeholders, including clients, business people, project managers, and other colleges.

During the past seven years, I was involved in hundreds of meetings, presentations, and discussions with various stakeholders. Sometimes things go as planned, and everyone leaves happy. Other times, things can go in the wrong direction, stakeholders feel frustrated, you sense the tension in the air and everyone leaves unsatisfied.

This article is more of a reflection on my experience and I’m sharing three ideas that helped me to conduct more efficient and better meetings, conversations, and presentations.

1- It’s not about you

A scene from The Godfather with the quote “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”

“I’m disappointed with this design, It’s not reflecting what we are looking for.”

“These ideas are very traditional.”

“I was expecting more from you.”

“Please can you move forward, we don’t have much time.”

Someone use their mobile while you are giving a presentation.

These are some examples of words or actions you might encounter in any meeting or conversation. It can make you feel bad about yourself, the way you speak, and think that you did a really poor job.

Criticism, ignorance, and signs of boredom are harsh, no one loves them. On the other hand, you can’t avoid them. So, you need to accept them.

All of these can make you feel frustrated and move to a defensive position. I took this defensive position many times, I tried to defend my designs, decisions, and the way I see things that I believed were the right ones. Unfortunately, this approach didn’t work most of the time even if I’m right and ended up with undesired frustration for people in the room.

I was taking things personally. I was only defending myself because I felt bad about myself.

We take this defensive position because of our “Ego”, we hate to be hurt and start defending ourselves.

My opponent is my teacher, my ego is my enemy. — Renzo Gracie

The simple strategy to stop your ego from controlling you is not to take things personally. When you stop taking things personally, you will have the power and control over your emotions and therefore, you’ll look at things from a logical standpoint.

An easy way to stop taking things personally is to stop mind-reading which is assuming what someone else is thinking without having much to go on. You can think that the other person didn’t like your idea, or he might hate you, or he thinks that you are lacking the right skills for this job.

Unfortunately due to the negativity bias, as humans, we tend to give more importance to negative experiences than positive ones. Instead of these negative thoughts, you can think that:

  • A frowning person could have just heard some bad news.
  • Harsh criticism can come from a stressed person.
  • Someone who is not paying attention could be distracted by an unpleasant conversation with her partner.

and more...

When you start thinking about the other person, not yourself, and by giving excuses to “Why they are so harsh, frustrated, or angry?”, you will feel less stress and anxiety, you can control your emotions, and you’ll never take things personally. Then and only then, you can lead the conversation and proceed with confidence.

Next time when you encounter such a situation, just remember these simple words: IT’S NOT ABOUT ME.

Don’t assume it’s about you. Instead, remember that you don’t how what the other person is going through. (Maybe they are just having a bad day!)

2- We are humans, we are irrational creatures

An example that shows how liking someone is linked to influence

I used to think that the only way to convince someone is through logical thinking and strong arguments. It turns out that I wasn’t 100% right.

As humans, the majority of the decisions we make are irrational. We buy things we don’t need, stay in relationships that are bad for us, make decisions driven by our emotions, etc.

You can find thousands of resources talking about how and why we behave irrationally, and the different biases that describe the irrational errors in human decision-making.

Considering that your stakeholders are humans too. Using logic, reasoning, and critical thinking only will not get your job done.

People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.

What makes us humans is that we seek to build connections with others, express ourselves, and share our stories. That’s why I realized that I need to show my human side at work, express my emotions, and try to build connections with others.

Simple behaviors will work like magic. Try these simple behaviors and you will notice the difference in how better you became in influencing and convincing them.

  • Smile when meeting your stakeholders.
  • Thank them for their time to join the meeting.
  • Appreciate their feedback and their opinions.
  • Ask them for their opinions and thoughts.
  • Confirm your understanding of what they said.
  • Show that you care about them.
  • Give true complements.
  • Show that you are open to cooperating.
  • Show that you stand on their side and you care about their goals.
  • Acknowledge their fears and pain points.
  • Repeat their words to show that you are listening and that you understood what they said.

These simple tips will increase the probability that people will like you, and you’ll notice how they become more flexible, calm, and easier to accept your opinions.

In his book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.”, Dr. Robert B. Cialdini dedicated a whole chapter highlighting the relationship between “Liking & Persuasion”, He says that:

The more you like someone, the more you’ll be persuaded by them.

The three factors of liking.

He defined three factors for getting people to like you:

  • We like people who are similar to us.
  • We like people who give us compliments.
  • We like people who cooperate with us.

Next time when you are involved in any meeting, try to adapt some of these techniques and remember to reflect on what worked for you and what didn’t.

3- The world is not the same

The blind men and the elephant story illustration

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. — Werner Heisenberg.

Everyone views the world differently, In his book “All marketers are liars” -, Seth Godin defined this as the worldview that he defined as the set of rules, values, beliefs, and biases people bring to a situation.

It’s very hard to change someone's values, beliefs, and thus their worldview. No one wants to feel wrong about how they view the world, no one wants to challenge their beliefs and values.

Instead of changing their worldview, you can frame the story in a way that matches their worldview. And that is much easier to achieve.

Small changes can lead to a much better discussion. For instance, if you are seeking a buy-in to conduct some user research and you are presenting for the top management, you will probably highlight how user research will help in understanding our users, how the findings will help us in designing something that achieves their goals, and you’ll explain how user research is important for the UX process.

Instead of trying to change their worldview of research, you can craft it in a way that will fit with their worldview. You can just highlight the impact of this research on the business revenues and how much money we can save by investing in this research.

“A worldview is the lens used to look at every decision a person is asked to make.” — Seth Godin

As a successful designer, you must acknowledge that, try to look at your work through their eyes. When you do that, you will see in the same way your stakeholders are viewing things. You will be able to understand their ulterior motives, think as they do, and use the same language they are using.

The best thing to do here is to have some personas for your stakeholders, that highlight their goals, pain points, motives, beliefs, etc.

The goal is to understand how they are viewing the world, what they are looking to achieve, and then, you can design your presentations and discussions to achieve their goals.

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. — Anthony Robbins

Here are some other examples:

  • If you are talking to a project manager who might be concerned about timelines and budgets, try to understand his concerns, acknowledge them, and find a way to help him achieve his goal.
  • If you are talking to a developer, they will look at your wireframes from a different perspective, put some effort to understand their perspective.
  • If you are dealing with someone from finance, they would probably think about numbers only.

You should tailor your language based on the situation, who are you talking to, and what are their goals. You are more likely to get acceptance and make your stakeholders satisfied and happy by seeing the world through their eyes.

Next time, put some effort to understand how the other person is looking at things, and then craft your story in a way that will make sense to them,

Final thought

It’s always easier to say than do. In theory, applying these three ideas seems simple, but in reality, it requires a lot of discipline and hard work to apply them.

Additional Resources

Thanks for reading, I hope this article was helpful.😊

Follow me on LinkedIn

Sign up to discover human stories that deepen your understanding of the world.

Free

Distraction-free reading. No ads.

Organize your knowledge with lists and highlights.

Tell your story. Find your audience.

Membership

Read member-only stories

Support writers you read most

Earn money for your writing

Listen to audio narrations

Read offline with the Medium app

Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Sherif Amin

I'm a UX Researcher, driven by the never-ending journey of discovering new insights about people - a captivating adventure that ignites my passion.

No responses yet

What are your thoughts?