How nonprofit L&D leaders can build relationships that move work forward

One of the most challenging parts of our jobs as nonprofit learning and development professionals is working with and through other people. This makes our ability to influence critical to our work.

In this episode of Learning for Good, I sit down with leadership development consultant and relationship expert Morag Barrett to talk about how nonprofit learning and development professionals can build influence and strengthen the workplace relationships that make training initiatives succeed.

Morag walks through her Relationship Ecosystem framework: ally, supporter, rival, and adversary. Most relationships aren't fixed in one category. Her advice is to start by moving your supporters closer to allies and to make sure you have at least one go-to ally relationship.

▶️ Key Points:

00:00 Using Influence to Shape Work

04:13 Morag's Path Into Relationship and Leadership Work

08:57 The Part of Relationships You Can Control

13:24 From Transactional to Transformational Relationships

16:28 The Relationship Ecosystem: Ally, Supporter, Rival, Adversary

26:19 Relationship Pulse Check: Three Questions That Build Trust

Why Stakeholder Relationships Matter in Nonprofit L&D

Over the past 20 years, I have definitely had projects where I felt like I was chasing a stakeholder for everything: content, feedback, approvals, you name it. In the moment, my focus was usually pretty simple. I needed the thing so I could keep the project moving.

What I didn’t always stop to ask was whether the way we were working together was part of the problem.

That’s one reason I’m still thinking about my conversation with Morag Barrett on episode 205 of the Learning for Good podcast. Morag is the CEO and founder of SkyeTeam and an expert on workplace relationships and leadership. She has spent her career studying how the quality of our relationships affects our ability to lead and influence.

Learning and development work is collaborative by nature. Even when the training itself sits with us, the conditions around surrounding the project usually don’t. A subject matter expert may hold the information we need. A leader may control the resources or approval. A manager may determine whether employees ever have the opportunity to practice what they learned.

We can be accountable for an outcome while depending on several people we don’t directly manage to help create it. That means stakeholder relationships aren’t separate from the work. They’re part of how the work gets done.

When a relationship feels difficult, it’s easy to focus on the visible problem. Someone misses another meeting. Feedback comes in late. A leader keeps pushing for a solution you don’t think will solve the real issue. Sometimes the problem really is the other person’s behavior. But sometimes there is more going on, and we haven’t stopped long enough to ask.

Which Stakeholder Relationships Should L&D Leaders Prioritize?

Morag recommends starting with the work itself. What are the three things you most need to accomplish over the next few months? Once you have those, ask who can directly help or hinder your ability to get them done.

Those are the relationships that deserve your attention.

Some will be obvious: your manager, an executive sponsor, your team. Others may be people you work with across the organization. Maybe operations controls whether managers can make time for a learning initiative. Maybe a subject matter expert has the information you need or a peer has influence with a leader who needs to support the work.

The point isn’t to turn every professional relationship into a networking exercise. It’s to be intentional about the relationships that your priorities actually depend on.

Morag’s relationship ecosystem gives us another way to look at those people. She describes relationships as allies, supporters, rivals, or adversaries. I like the framework because it helps us think about the relationship itself instead of simply deciding that someone is “easy” or “difficult.”

An ally may support you while still giving you feedback you don’t particularly want to hear. A supporter may be encouraging but less willing to take a risk on your behalf. A rival relationship can become more conditional when priorities compete. An adversarial relationship has more friction.

And then there’s the question Morag raised that may be the harder one, “How would the other person describe the relationship?”

How to Use a 3-Question Relationship Pulse Check

One of the most useful tools from our conversation was Morag’s relationship pulse check:

What’s working?
What’s not working?
What’s one thing I could do to help you — or help us — succeed?

I tend to think of questions like these as project-debrief questions. We get to the end, talk about what worked, talk about what didn’t, and make notes for next time.

Morag’s point was that we don’t have to wait.

What’s Working?

Starting here gives you a better sense of what the other person values in the relationship. Maybe they appreciate that you summarize decisions after meetings. Maybe your questions help them think through the problem differently. Maybe the way you organize information makes it easier for them to respond.

If something is working, you want to know that so you can keep doing it. It also gives the conversation a different tone. You aren’t calling a meeting to tell someone what’s wrong. You’re checking in on how the partnership is working.

What’s Not Working?

This is probably the question most of us are tempted to avoid, especially if the relationship already feels strained.

But the answer may tell you that the problem is different from the one you’ve been trying to solve. Maybe the stakeholder isn’t ignoring your request; they don’t understand why you need the information. Maybe they keep missing a meeting because it falls during the busiest part of their week. Maybe you think you’ve been clear about a deadline and they think the date is flexible.

You may not like the answer, and you may not be able to change everything they raise. But now you’re working with information instead of your own story about what is happening.

What’s One Thing I Could Do to Help Us Succeed?

I like this question because it puts some ownership back on us without suggesting that every stakeholder problem is ours to fix.

The answer could be very small. Maybe they need materials earlier. Maybe they want a little more context before a meeting. Maybe they would rather give feedback in a document than schedule another call.

They may also ask for something you can’t do. Morag was clear about this: asking the question isn’t a commitment to say yes. You can listen, thank them for the feedback, and explain what is or isn’t possible.

The important part is that you asked.

When Should You Use a Relationship Pulse Check?

The obvious time is when a project feels off track, but I don’t think that’s the only time this works.

At the beginning of a project, you can ask what a successful working relationship looks like and what the other person needs from you. During the project, you can use the three questions to catch issues while there is still time to change something. At the end, you can use the same conversation to decide what you want to repeat or do differently next time.

That makes the pulse check less of a corrective tool and more of a normal part of how you work with people.

I know I’ve been much more likely to save this conversation for the debrief. But by then, the answers can only help the next project.

How to Handle a Difficult Stakeholder Relationship

Most of us don’t wake up in the morning intending to be someone else’s enemy.

That doesn’t mean difficult behavior isn’t real. It means there may be value in checking the assumptions we’re making about why it’s happening.

Maybe you think someone is ignoring your boundaries, but you’ve never actually communicated those boundaries. Maybe you think they’re resistant to your recommendation, while they think you haven’t taken enough time to understand the operational pressure they’re under. Maybe you’re both frustrated and neither of you has said it out loud.

This is where perspective-taking matters. Before deciding someone is the problem, ask how they might be experiencing you and the work.

You may still arrive at the same conclusion. But you’ll have a better chance of addressing the actual issue instead of reacting to the version of it you’ve built in your head.

How Strong Stakeholder Relationships Build Influence in Nonprofit L&D

We talk a lot in L&D about influence. How do we get leaders to buy in? How do we get stakeholders to bring us in earlier? How do we move from taking orders to helping shape the solution?

Relationships sit underneath all of those questions.

A stakeholder is more likely to hear your pushback differently if they trust your judgment. A leader is more likely to bring you into a conversation earlier if they believe you understand the organizational priority, not just the training request. A manager is more likely to reinforce the behavior after the workshop if they see themselves as part of the solution.

That trust doesn’t start when we present the recommendation. It’s being built, or weakened, in the everyday interactions around the work.

That’s what makes the relationship pulse check useful. It isn’t a big intervention. It’s a practical way to pay attention to the relationships your work depends on.

Try the Relationship Pulse Check This Week

Choose one stakeholder connected to something important you’re working on right now. It doesn’t have to be the most difficult relationship on your list. In fact, you may want to start with someone where there is already a foundation of trust.

Ask what is working, what isn’t working, and what one thing you could do to help the two of you succeed. Then give them room to answer.

You may uncover a problem that needs more attention. You may discover a small adjustment that makes the work easier. Or you may simply learn something about how the other person experiences working with you.

Any of those outcomes gives you more to work with than an assumption.

For nonprofit L&D leaders, who so often have to move people, priorities, and ideas without formal authority, this matters. Strong stakeholder relationships don’t replace good learning strategy. They help make it possible to execute one.

Listen to Episode 205 of Learning for Good to hear my full conversation with Morag Barrett about the relationships our work depends on.

Additional Resources Just for You

Other Helpful Podcast Episodes:

Subscribe to the Nonprofit L&D Insiders.
Join the Nonprofit L&D Collective.

Support the Learning for Good Podcast

Become a sponsor.

Ask a question or suggest a topic.

We love hearing from listeners!