Lots of books and articles have been written about 7 Best of This and 12 Top Tips for That... To be honest these titles do not excite me anymore as there are so many of them and they seem to be recycling the same things just in a different format or context. So, I wasn't that keen on a book that had been handed to me by a fellow project manager, "The 77 Sins of Project Management". After about 2 years on the shelf, the book has finally made it to my hands... and oh, boy! It's amazing! Everything in this book is so true!

I'd like to share this one lesson with you: Managing stakeholders is like working with horses...
I've shared this with some friends/colleagues and the most common response I get is "oh, that means you need to round them up, gather them in one spot"... Well, kind of... there is more though

The analogy is related to the pain that one feels when kicked by a horse. Approach a horse from behind, stand at a distance and feel that hoof reach you... Ouch! This is what happens when you avoid getting too close, a kick from a horse hurts most at the 'end' of its kick, when it's leg is farthest from its body and moving fast. On the other hand, if you stay close, even if you do get kicked, it hurst a whole lot less.

The same applies to stakeholders and issues associated with especially those challenging ones. Keep your distance from them, or worse, ignore them, and you'll soon feel the pain - that mighty kick is coming and once the leg is fully extended it's hard to stop it or reduce its power. So, stay close to the stakeholders and close to the issues - they won't go away by themselves! - you have a chance to anticipate, mitigate and manage them within your control.

And, as a friend of mine added, if all fails pull out a whip... I'm not encouraging animal (or stakeholder!) cruelty here, by no means! However, there is something about the sound of a whip and horses behaving .... works on the stakehoders too :)

Funny enough, I had pictures of horses with faces of those challenging stakeholders from my previous projects flashing in front of my eyes as I was reading the book, and now again when writing this blog... I'm sure you can relate to it too!