In order to gain trust and establish rapport, you need to demonstrate an open mind, an interest in the individuals affected by the change, and active listening skills. The key to this is good preparation. This includes finding out as much as you can in advance from your contacts and desk-based research to learn what’s important to them and what’s affecting their day-to-day lives at work. You can use the tools from this section to prepare meetings and reflect on how your stakeholders will be feeling, so you can use suitable verbal and body language.

In some ways, you can’t avoid Gaining Entry: you’re always going to have your initial meetings. This is about handling them properly, as getting it wrong will slow things down. Sometimes project boards or project teams forget that other stakeholders haven’t been through the same thought processes and emotions that they have. They expect people to get up to pace quickly and understand everything that they do, but without the time and space to do so. This risks alienating people from the first.