Study Stakeholder Collaboration Takes The Stage At DIA

By Christine Morris, Executive Director, TransPerfect Life Sciences Solutions

If you’ve ever tried to wrangle a group of friends or family to plan an activity, you know that even simple collaboration across different personalities can be challenging. In a professional environment, the stakes are higher, and project stakeholders are justifiably passionate. These passions can bring out both the best and worst of people’s personalities and can amplify competing world views, motivations, and interests. Collaboration can sometimes feel like a full-contact sport.

I've been professionally involved in some form of cross-industry project management for 24 years now—much of that time spent in the trenches with clinical research professionals. Study stakeholders in clinical research make up a vast and complex network of people and personalities, all working towards a common goal of compliance and quality. Successful collaboration within such a complex network requires some finesse.

I learned very quickly that the best path to identifying win-win scenarios is to first take a step back and consider each stakeholder as the person that they are, with human needs and motivations. It becomes much easier to examine ways to position requests or suggestions when you can demonstrate an earnest effort to understand and provide a source of support for their needs. They become magically more receptive to understanding your needs as well. No tears or passive aggressive emails required!