Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what the fish wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?" Why not use the same approach when fishing for people? ― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People. Guest Post By Nicola Joseph.

Someone once asked me, “How do you handle a difficult stakeholder?”. It’s never a pretty situation managing a stakeholder who is obviously opposed to your project for whatever reason. It’s even worse when the stakeholder goes the extra mile to ensure your project doesn’t succeed. Managing stakeholders is no different from managing personal relationships with people.