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😖 Some stakeholders are painful AF

Whoever just popped into your head - yeah, that’s who I’m talking about!

It’s often the execs who’ve built a career on gut feel and “years of experience,” and look at your data as if it’s a personal attack on their brilliance.

These people aren’t (always) bad or stupid. They’re (mostly) human. But when data challenges their sense of value, or worse: their ego, they get defensive. And if you come along and barge in with charts and models without any respect for that ego, you’re very unlikely to win them over.

Unfortunately, in many organisations, data-phobic stakeholders are often the gatekeepers to budget, influence, and whether your initiative actually gets a chance to take off.

So if you get this wrong, you’ll end up stuck in political quicksand.

⚠️ Handle with care

💥 1. Turf wars erupt
When senior leaders feel threatened, they don’t roll over and admit defeat. They dig in. Suddenly, it’s not about whether your insight is good or bad, it’s about whose version of “reality” the company should believe. That’s when little empires spring up, with each exec rallying their teams behind “their” way of doing things. Instead of progress, you get guerrilla warfare.

🤥 2. Your credibility suffers
One of the harshest labels you can get is “doesn’t understand the business.” But this is often just political and usually has nothing to do with whether your analysis is correct. If your message bruises egos or contradicts long-held beliefs, the data can be perfect and it will still not matter. If that label sticks, your influence is capped. It does not just slow down one project, it puts your future seat at the table at risk.

🎭 3. Analysis becomes theatre
Rather than focusing on driving outcomes, you end up staging performances. Your decks get watered down, the insights softened, and your time spent anticipating which parts will spark an argument. The work becomes less about solving business problems and more about not upsetting the wrong people. That is a dangerous shift because data integrity turns into an afterthought instead of a lever for action.

🐌 4. Progress stalls
With the turf war rages and your credibility is dented, every decision now requires endless rounds of “alignment.” Meetings multiply, decisions get pushed back, and the opportunity that your analysis uncovered has already been missed. Momentum dies, and so does trust in the value of your team’s work.

But it don’t gotta be like that… you can still turn things around here. You can still “defeat” the villain.

🩸 Achieving a bloodless victory

You want to win. But you want to do it in a way that makes them think they’ve won. Call it subtle manipulation if you like, but sometimes that’s necessary with tricky stakeholders. If you want your data initiatives to survive, you need to approach these people with care and create the conditions where they actually want to back you.

Let’s explore how 👇🏻

🤝 1. Position data as a partner
Your analysis should never feel like it is in competition with their instincts. Instead, frame it as an ally, something that strengthens their experience and helps them make sharper bets. A simple change in tone can shift the dynamic: “This supports your view and highlights where we can double down” lands a lot better than “The data says you’re wrong.”

⚓️ 2. Anchor everything in what matters to them
Execs do not lose sleep over SQL code values or p-tests. They care about revenue growth, risk exposure, customer retention, and shareholder value (interestingly, the same things you should care about). The more you tie your insights to those outcomes, the more relevance you build. If your work is positioned as their tool for hitting their goals, you have a much better shot at being listened to.

🤗 3. Invite their experience in
A great way to disarm defensiveness is to ask how your insight combines with their expertise. This flips the dynamic from confrontation to collaboration. Instead of being the person who “knows better,” you become the person who brings valuable evidence to their table. It signals respect for their background while nudging them toward better decisions. It’s collaborative rather than combative.

🥊 4. Be strategic with your fights
Not every hill is worth dying on. If you pick battles over small details, you will burn goodwill fast. Sometimes it pays to let minor disagreements slide, so that when the big, high-stakes issues come up, you have built enough trust to hold the line. Influence is not about being right all the time, it is about being effective at the right time.

You don’t need to defeat the “villain” in this story. You just need to make sure the business wins in the end.

Tristan Burns

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