Someone who is affected but has zero influence over a decision isn't in the way I most commonly see it being used a stakeholder.
If HR decides to lay you off, you're probably not a stakeholder.
But I agree that YMMV, and I see how it could also be used in the way you suggest.
The best example of Stakeholder is a director who a teammate presented a project to before taking it to the VP. The director said:
- I don't agree with this project, but it isn't my decision. But I'm a trusted advisor of the VP.
One of the best classes I ever had was called "Power and Politics in Organizations", and dealt with identifying, managing and using power in organizations. Power comes from many different sources (information, money, influence, friendship, knowledge, formal authority, etc.), and managing is one of the most important learnings when working in any organization with more than 2 people.
Sadly, most engineers overlook those skills and focus only on "hard" skills, which I personally find to be far easier than "soft" skills (which are hard as hell to master, IMHO).
If HR decides to lay you off, you're probably not a stakeholder.
But I agree that YMMV, and I see how it could also be used in the way you suggest.
The best example of Stakeholder is a director who a teammate presented a project to before taking it to the VP. The director said:
- I don't agree with this project, but it isn't my decision. But I'm a trusted advisor of the VP.
One of the best classes I ever had was called "Power and Politics in Organizations", and dealt with identifying, managing and using power in organizations. Power comes from many different sources (information, money, influence, friendship, knowledge, formal authority, etc.), and managing is one of the most important learnings when working in any organization with more than 2 people.
Sadly, most engineers overlook those skills and focus only on "hard" skills, which I personally find to be far easier than "soft" skills (which are hard as hell to master, IMHO).