Explain the key principles of Stakeholder Engagement.

Stakeholder engagement is an alliance-building tool. Corporations practice stakeholder engagement in an effort to understand the needs of their stakeholders, create partnerships and to promote dialogue. Stakeholder engagement identifies stakeholders, assesses stakeholder needs, develops stakeholder relation plans and forms alliances with stakeholders. Key principles of Stakeholder engagement are as under: Communicate: Interactions from the various stakeholders should be promoted. Example: for customers there should be dedicated customer care center. The communication may be made through the print media elaborating about the progress of the company, which is also a part of the transparency and disclosure. Ensure intended message is understood and the desired response achieved. Consult, early and often: Always ask the right questions to get the useful information and ideas. To engage their support ask them for advice and listen how they feel. Remember, they are human: Operate with an awareness of human feelings. Plan it: Time investment and careful planning against it, has a significant payoff. Relationship: Try to engender trust with the stakeholders. Seek out networking opportunity. Simple but not easy: Show care. Be empathetic. Listen to the stakeholders. Managing risk: Stakeholders can be treated as risk and opportunities that have probabilities and impact. Compromise: Compromise across a set of stakeholders' diverging priorities. Understand what success is: Explore the value of the project to the stakeholder. Take responsibility: Project governance is the key of project success. It's always the responsibility of everyone to maintain an ongoing dialogue with stakeholders.