The difference between what management thinks and what stakeholders actually believe only becomes visible when the inquiry happens in a structured way rather than through conversations that arise on their own. How that inquiry is precisely built up is explained on what it is and on how it works. This page describes which route fits: doing it yourself, partially guided, or fully outsourced. The order is not arbitrary. The tool is at its core a self-service instrument; what human contact is still needed afterward only comes up once that has been chosen.
What the client gets: the Trust Baseline as a tool, with an internal inquiry alongside an external structured inquiry among the existing, known circle of stakeholders. This includes the influence × impact matrix with an owner per relationship, the commitment tracker per pledge, and the signal rhythm toward the boardroom table. Annual re-measurement is part of the same route.
This route fits when the stakeholder circle is known and reachable, and when the organization can itself distribute the external questionnaire and process the responses. What the client must be able to do themselves: assign owners per relationship, actually have commitments registered at the moment they are made, and have the signal rhythm land with people who act on it. Without the latter, the matrix remains a list and nothing changes at the boardroom table.
Route 1 does not fit when the stakeholders who claim to be most relevant fall outside the existing contact list. An inquiry that only reaches the known circle repeats exactly the problem this tool is meant to address: a picture that turns out predominantly positive because it reaches the people who were already positive.
What the client gets: the same tool as dossier, supplemented with a partner who conducts the external conversations with stakeholders outside the fixed circle. The questionnaire from the tool serves as a script, so that the outcomes score in the same way in the matrix, the tracker and the rhythm as the internal inquiry.
This route fits when there is a suspicion that relevant stakeholders are not being reached, but the organization itself lacks the capacity or suitable access to conduct those conversations. Think of research outside the fixed circle, or the modules for affected-communities research and social value mapping, for which tool templates are available but execution lies with a partner.
What the client must be able to do themselves: carry out their own internal inquiry independently, and feed the partner's results back into the tool so that the dossier remains complete. The partner conducts the conversations; the tool remains the place where everything comes together.
This route does not fit when the organization is actually seeking a judgment about the outcome, or wants a third party to confirm the trust. The partner conducts conversations according to the format and delivers the output; what happens with the outcomes remains up to the organization.
What the client gets: an engagement program with the partner, with the Trust Baseline as the baseline measurement on which the program builds. Here too, the tool remains the dossier: matrix, tracker and signal rhythm continue, even when the conversations themselves lie entirely with the partner.
This route fits when stakeholder relationships have structurally remained underexposed, when multiple departments are speaking to the same parties without coordination and no one has an overview anymore, or when the organization must account for stakeholder trust in the short term without having the capacity to do so itself.
What the client must be able to do themselves: actually put the program's results on the agenda at the boardroom table, and have the owners of each stakeholder relationship join as soon as the program yields commitments. Outsourcing the conversations does not mean outsourcing the follow-up.
This route does not fit as a replacement for route 1. A full program without the organization itself ever having done the internal inquiry leaves the actual problem — the gap between self-image and external image — unaddressed. The baseline measurement only has value if there is something to compare it against.
The tool is and remains the dossier. Matrix, tracker and signal rhythm work the same way, regardless of who conducts the conversations. There are no completed engagement programs being referred to: the tool structures the inquiry and the follow-up, it does not prove a track record and it does not guarantee an outcome. What happens with the signals once they reach the boardroom table is up to the organization itself.
More background on the structure of the questionnaires and the matrix can be found in the knowledge base. The button to start is currently on a waiting list; those who sign up will be invited first upon launch.
Stakeholder trust only becomes concrete once it can be traced back to who conducts which conversation, how many hours that costs, and in which system it is recorded. That translation into tasks, hours and systems is what the work scan from ftetoai.com does.
Vraag maar. Het interessantste antwoord komt meestal van wie u nog niet heeft gesproken.
Answers come from this site’s knowledge base. Not tailored advice, and not a scan of your company.