#3: How to Do Stakeholder Mapping w/ Tim Frick

Stakeholder mapping is a process that helps organizations identify, understand, and analyze their various stakeholders. But if you’re a purpose-driven enterprise or Certified B Corp, your stakeholders will likely look very different from a traditional company’s. 

Joining us today to talk about stakeholder mapping and the shared value it can bring to purpose-driven organizations is Tim Frick, Founder and President of Mightybytes, and author of Designing for Sustainability: A Guide to Building Greener Digital Products and Services. 

While traditional companies typically focus on stakeholders directly related to their projects, purpose-driven enterprises and Certified B Corps consider a wider range of stakeholders, including communities and the environment. 

We talk with Tim about the process of stakeholder mapping for B Corps and why it’s so useful, before learning how Mightybytes engages with clients and facilitates human-centered design workshops. Our conversation covers key topics, from recommended tools and techniques to common challenges and how to address them. To discover all the ins and outs of stakeholder mapping and how to implement it in your organization, be sure to tune in to our conversation with Tim Frick!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Tim’s company, MightyBytes, and how he became involved in the B Corp community.
• What stakeholder mapping is and why it’s important.
• The use of human-centered design workshops in the shareholder mapping process.
• A rundown of new B Corp requirements.
• The contents of a materiality assessment and how it differs from a stakeholder map.
• Considerations and criteria for identifying relevant stakeholders.
• Effective strategies for engaging stakeholders once they have been identified.
• The benefits of these workshops for companies, even if they feel they don’t need them.
• Common challenges companies face when trying to engage stakeholders.
• How they work with clients before, during, and after their workshop.
• Tools and techniques for running an effective stakeholder mapping exercise.
• How to ensure authentic engagement with stakeholders.
• Affinity mapping and what to do once you’ve identified your stakeholders.
• How to integrate feedback from different stakeholder groups into your business strategies.
• The impact of stakeholder mapping on a company’s sustainability efforts.
• Key action items for any company conducting its first stakeholder mapping and materiality assessment, specifically for the new B Corp standards.
• A reminder to have fun with stakeholder mapping and human-centered design exercises!

Quotations: 

“‘[Mightbytes is] a digital agency and human-centered design workshops are a big part of what we do.” — Tim Frick [0:05:05]

“For organizations that don't understand who their stakeholders are, [stakeholder mapping] is a great first step towards digging into who is going to be impacted by this thing that we're about to build.” — Tim Frick [0:06:04]

“The process of actually coming to consensus in a human-centered design workshop kind of way, that collaboration that happens, it is unrivaled as far as I'm concerned, and you really just have to do it.” — Tim Frick [0:18:36]

“Fear of failure is really, really, really big in a lot of organizations. And that's a huge hurdle for this kind of work.” — Tim Frick [0:32:58]

“I would probably encourage that you have separate workshops for each of your primary stakeholder groups.” — Tim Frick [0:38:32]

“Have fun! Human-centered design exercises are meant to be interactive, collaborative, and fun. And so it's easy to get bogged down in things and overthink things.” — Tim Frick [0:50:41]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

• Mightybytes: https://www.mightybytes.com/
• Tim Frick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfrick/
• ‘Stakeholder Mapping: A Guide for Purpose-Driven Organizations’: https://www.mightybytes.com/blog/stakeholder-mapping/
• Designing for Sustainability: A Guide to Building Greener Digital Products and Services: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/designing-for-sustainability/9781491935767/index.html
• Google Tools: https://about.google/products/
• Zoom Whiteboards: https://www.zoom.com/en/products/online-whiteboard/
• Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/
• B Lab: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/
• Next Economy Now Podcast: https://www.lifteconomy.com/podcast
• Email Beyond the B: beyond@lifteconomy.com
• Ryan Honeyman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhhoneyman/ 
• Ryan Honeyman on X: https://twitter.com/HoneymanConsult 
• Emmy Allison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mnallison

Help Us Grow the Show!

We are trying to grow our audience and wanted to ask you a huge favor.

Try to think of one person that might like this show. Then, pull out your phone, and text them something like:

Hey, I think you might like this new podcast Beyond the B. Check it out at lifteconomy.com/beyond. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Seriously! Take out your phone and try it right now! Then, follow up with them to see how they liked it.

This would be super helpful for us. We deeply appreciate your support. 😊