I recently surveyed five groups of project managers and asked them to prioritize the following stakeholder groups. In alphabetical order they are Community, Customers, Investors, Suppliers and Team Members/Employees.
The average ranking for all of the groups was 1. Customers, 2. Team members/Employees, 3. Investors, 4. Suppliers and 5. Community. One of the groups had employees/team members ranked number one, one group had investors ranked number one and three of the groups had customers ranked number one.
The variation in the groups was not a surprise. I recently read the book Setting The Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer. Why read a restaurateur’s book on hospitality? A big part of project management is stakeholder management, and whenever I can study excellence in seemingly unrelated fields, there are often strong parallels to project management.
Team Members are Number One! Are You Kidding?
Meyer shared how his restaurants began struggling and he had to re-establish his priorities and values. He described his priorities as Enlightened Hospitality and it puts stakeholders in the following order: 1. Team members/employees, 2. Customers, 3. Community, 4. Suppliers and 5. Investors. He credits this philosophy for turning his restaurants around and contributing to a successful business.
Fundamental to his philosophy of Team Members/Employees being the most important, is the truth that if the team cannot treat each other with respect, hold each other in the highest regard and work harmoniously with one another, then it is difficult for them to treat the customer with respect, to hold customers with high regard and work harmoniously with them. This should feel intuitive to you.
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About the Author
James Brown, PhD
Dr. James T. Brown, president of SEBA® Solutions Inc., a Registered Education Provider for the Project Management Institute, has provided training and consulting services for dozens of companies nationally and internationally. SEBA® Solutions also provides OnePdu.com http://onepdu.com for online project management training. A recognized authority in project management, Dr. Brown is a frequently invited speaker on project management areas of interest. He is the author of The Handbook of Program Management published by McGraw Hill and is a member of the Project Management Institute and the National Speakers Association. Dr. Brown has a patent for a project scheduling methodology, and has received numerous awards including "Engineer of the Year" from the Cape Canaveral Technical Societies and is a recipient of the "NASA Public Service Medal" for exceptional contributions to NASA’s mission. He is a member of the Project Management Institute and the National Speakers Association. He has a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida, a MS in Engineering Management from Florida Institute of Technology and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee State University.He is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE), a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a certified speaking professional (CSP). To learn more about SEBA® visit www.sebasolutions.com. You can contact James directly at jtbrown@sebasolutions.com.
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