In the previous article, we discussed how to balance the dynamics between a young founder with a vision and a senior stakeholder.
Now that we understand how to establish our vision, the next question becomes: who should you talk to first?
Every university has a range of internal funding mechanisms across real estate, operations, and innovation. While some universities have limited resources, others are overflowing with them. However, understanding the command structure within your institution can be challenging. There’s rarely an online chart mapping out the leadership hierarchy, yet the information to build one is readily available.
Conducting Stakeholder Research
The first step is stakeholder research, or as some might call it “strategic stalking”.
I use a note-taking tool called ObsidianMD, which treats each note as a node in a connected graph. This allows for seamless linking of different data points and visualising networks of relationships.
To create your own organisational chart, you will need three key data sources:
- The university website
- Academic Outlook email system
The goal is to map out your university’s structure, such that every node in your graph represents a member of staff and each link between nodes a social connection.
For each person you want to add to the chart, find the following information:
1. Title: Name and Role
2. Tags: Their department, office, and any committees or boards they sit on
3. Connections:
- Who do they report to?
- Who do they work with?
- Who reports to them?
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): What does their department measure success by? (“The Party Line”)
5. Personal Motivations: What do they care about? Where is their emotional investment?
Mapping the Ecosystem
Now, how do you leverage your data sources to populate an organisational chart?
1. Start with university funding programs
Look internally for what mechanism may exist for funding: trusts, grants, and internal programs. Explore all options even if they do not seem to fully align with the project.
For example, my primary funding source was the President’s Community Fund. Historically, this mechanism funded real estate projects like renovations and office relocations. However, we knew there was a way to position the garden within the scope of the fund.
On the university website, you can find details about the committee and administrative body behind the funding.
2. Identify key stakeholders
Suppose that the university website shows ‘John Smith, Deputy CXO’ listed as co-chair for the funding committee. By understanding their values and interests you can perfect your application to increase your chances when applying.
3. Leverage the Academic Outlook email system
Using the name you found, you can draft an email to John with your academic account. If you double click on their outlook account, you can access outlook’s organisational chart.
Bingo!
Here you can find the supervisors, coworkers and direct reports related to John. Each person in this list will be a new node in your network.
4. Understand departmental KPIs
University strategy reports outline how departments measure success. By reading these reports, you might uncover the Deputy CXO’s KPIs, which will help you understand what parts of your project you must emphasise during your application.
5. Explore personal motivations via LinkedIn.
Career trajectory, volunteering, and education offer insights into personal values. Additionally, conversations with their colleagues can reveal further details about their priorities and challenges.
By repeating this process, you can systematically expand your organisational map.
Organisational Charts in Action: Moving 6,000 Kg of Concrete
At this point you might be thinking: “You are crazy Emilio”. And you’d be right, but let me show you how powerful an organisational chart can be.
For our project, we needed to build a 45m² greenhouse, requiring 100 concrete slabs. Buying and transporting them would have cost £700.
I met with a building manager overseeing the renovation of the university courtyard. They were removing concrete flooring, exactly what I needed. Instead of discarding the slabs, he offered to make a “sustainability donation”.
Great! I now had my materials at zero cost and he could check the sustainability checkbox.
The challenge now: I had to figure out how to move six tonnes of concrete slabs across Exhibition Road and the subcontractor was quoting a four figure price and a two month timeline.
At this point, I returned to my organisational chart.
- I searched my notes for the university’s Waste Management Team, who recently announced their net-zero commitments
- I found a contact within the team, someone I had met at an event. Who previously was a PhD in circular economics at the university.
- I sent them an email, explaining how this task not only was significant CO₂ offset for the university but also a perfect example of circular economics.
- Excited and fully onboard they introduced me to a colleague in charge of internal university transportation.
- Problem solved! They quoted us £50 for the job.
Today, the concrete slabs are in the garden, waiting to be laid by volunteers in March.
Positioning Your Problems
By positioning your problems in such a way that they also become someone else’s pain points you can maximise the possibilities of being helped.
As project leaders our role is to frame our pitch so that it aligns with the personal and professional objectives of the people we need support from.
Your organisational chart should identify these decision-makers, typically holding Deputy or Chief titles. But approaching them directly isn’t always the best strategy.
Instead you can connect with their colleagues or direct reports in the first instance. These early conversations can help to put your name on the radar, turn colleagues into allies, and encourage them to vouch for you.
Their colleagues can provide you with insights on their priorities, challenges, and interests, which you can use to position your project within their sphere of interest. By the time you reach the senior decision-maker, they’ll already be familiar with your project and more receptive to your pitch.
The Bottom Line
Eventually, you will work your way up the ladder and have the people you need paying full attention to your project. Your objective is to have this senior leader say “I am in”, sometimes, within less than thirty minutes.
Now that you have their attention, how do you convince them?
In the next article, we’ll explore the art of persuasion, and learn how to craft a compelling and memorable pitch that ensures success.
Emilio Garcia Padron is an MSc Applied Mathematics student at Imperial College London, specializing in Computational Dynamical Systems. He is a full-stack software developer and founder of NEA Studios. He is also a founder of RE:GEN @ Imperial, a project aiming to protect and expand Green Spaces on Imperial grounds that raised over £39,000 in funding.
Image: DALL-E
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