Tell me a story...

What does your change work look like right now?

What do you care most about? What excites you?

What scares you?

“Stakeholder research” is a sterile term for what I do when I get the privilege to ask people about their change work. Whether through interviews, focus groups, or surveys, receiving diverse voices—each bearing the experiences of a living, feeling individual with wisdom to share—is both a joy and an indispensable part of consulting. It’s also a responsibility.

I’m often gathering perspectives to help shape a strategy or to learn about the impact of a program, but it is a mistake to view these interactions as the means to an end, or checklist items on the workplan to get to the finish line—rather, there is power in the conversations themselves.

Every time someone trusts me with their thoughts, experiences, or observations is a touch point for human connection and an opportunity not only for empathy or validation, but for transformation. As in any relationship, both researcher and informant come away changed.

I craft questions that create space to think more deeply, or even differently, about issues or situations you may have come to take for granted by living them on a daily basis. The process of putting your story into words during our interview or writing a survey response can be a potent opportunity for reflection and new insights.

Having heard your truth, I become invested in you, not just the issue or challenge I’ve been engaged to help address. And as I get to really “see” you, I hope that I too am seen, perhaps having become not quite so much an outsider, because you have opened the door to let me in. After all, the consulting contract doesn’t do that—only your trust does that.

And it’s my job to be worthy of that trust, by respecting your time, honoring your knowledge, recognizing your emotional labor, and treating your stories with care.

I approach not just as a researcher, but as a fellow learner and participant working toward a world of truth, love, and justice: a world we all deserve.