10. Interested Parties - AKA Stakeholders (definition)

NOTE: if you’re new to Ground-Up Governance, or are finding anything a bit strange or confusing, you might want to START HERE.

When a company buys and sells stuff, it affects the world.  Even the teeniest little companies have an impact on people.  Let’s say your friend Aasir (see footnote) has a company whose business is to give people generous compliments — a bargain at just a dollar per compliment. “Wow!  I love your shoes!” — Aasir might buy a thesaurus app for his phone (only $2.99) to help him come up with better sounding compliments. The app turns out not to be very helpful. “Lo!  I enjoy your clogs!” He should have bought the rhyming dictionary instead…and so he does (only $2.79)! “Gotta pay dues to your shoes: they diffused my blues!” Aasir’s customer reviews go through the roof – compliments AND poetry! 

There’s a word that applies to every person or group that is affected by a company’s actions: “stakeholder”.  Funny thing about that word is that there are no good synonyms. Seriously, check your thesaurus app: it only lists examples of stakeholders instead of synonyms.

Another issue with that word is that it sometimes gets inaccurately applied to people (e.g. Indigenous Peoples in Canada) who have constitutionally guaranteed rights, not just a “stake.” It is MUCH more appropriate to refer to Indigenous Peoples as “rights holders” than stakeholders.

If you would rather not use the word “stakeholder” at all, the best alternative is probably “interested parties.”

With respect to Aasir’s company, the customers, the people who run the phone app store, the app designers, and even Aasir himself were all impacted here.  From the company’s perspective, every one of them is a stakeholder or interested party.  There’s probably something important to say about authority and accountability and stakeholders, but we don’t have the words yet to talk about it yet…

FOOTNOTE: Aasir is named after Matt’s very handsome and small pet snake, Aasir. He is a Kenyan sand boa and his name means “one with a captivating personality.” In addition to adorable googly eyes, Aasir, the snake, has a very captivating personality that would be best described as “bitey.”