Stakeholder management

The five stakeholder-* skills and self-reflect form a tighter system than the rest of the bundle. They share private data at ~/bettersense-work-reflections/ and are designed to be used together over months.

How it works

The system is cadence-driven: register once, reflect weekly-ish, synthesize before big moments.

register → reflect (weekly) → stay current (due-list) → synthesize (before big moments)

Data lives in plain markdown files, organized by relationship type:

~/bettersense-work-reflections/
├── stakeholders.json
├── managing-up/
│   └── trae-north.md
├── managing-across/
│   └── sahil-bhatia.md
├── managing-down/
│   └── yulia-krenkova.md
├── teams/
│   └── platform-team.md
└── self/
    └── reflections.md

Skills

`stakeholder-register`

Triggers: “register a stakeholder”, “add a new stakeholder”, “I have a new manager”

Walks you through registering a new stakeholder:

Name and relationship category (managing-up / managing-across / managing-down / teams)
Role, context, and initial notes
Creates a structured .md file in the right category folder
Creates the stakeholder category folders inside ~/bettersense-work-reflections/ if they don’t exist yet

`stakeholder-reflect`

Triggers: “let me reflect on [name]”, “it’s time to reflect on [name]”, “how are things going with [name]”

Guided reflection session on a registered stakeholder:

Loads the stakeholder file and checks what’s been reflected on recently
Picks 2-3 cadence-appropriate questions from a question library
Questions span ask lenses (what do I know?) and sense lenses (what am I observing?)
Surfaces things_to_consider for each question to deepen the reflection
Pushes back on one-line answers and identity-level labels (“he’s difficult”)
Writes a dated entry per question

Quality of synthesis depends on quality of input. One-line entries produce shallow synthesis. Use the things_to_consider prompts.

`stakeholder-due`

Triggers: “what’s due this week?”, “who should I reflect on?”, “stakeholder due-list”

Scans all stakeholder files and surfaces which question × stakeholder pairs are overdue based on suggested frequency. Sorts by overdue ratio.

Most useful as a recurring scheduled check:

/schedule "Every Monday at 9am, run /bettersense:stakeholder-due and post the list"

`stakeholder-synthesize`

Triggers: “synthesize my reflections on [name]”, “what do I know about [name]?”, “before my 1:1 with [name]…”

Reads all accumulated reflection entries for a stakeholder and produces:

Patterns across entries (with citations to specific dates)
Contradictions and blind spots
Suggested next conversations or questions
Handoffs to feedback-frameworks or one-on-one-prep when natural

Synthesis is honest about its evidence. If your file is sparse, the synthesis will be tentative. If it’s rich, the synthesis will be sharp. The skill will not claim a pattern without citing a dated entry.

`stakeholder-manage`

Triggers: “list my stakeholders”, “Jill is my manager now”, “archive [name] — they left”, “rename [name]”

Lifecycle operations on registered stakeholders:

List — show all registered stakeholders with category and last-reflected date
Re-categorize — move between folders (history preserved)
Archive — when someone leaves; file is kept, marked inactive, available for retrospection
Delete — permanently removes (only on explicit confirmation after archive is offered)
Rename / edit — update name or role

Defaults toward archive over delete.

`self-reflect`

Triggers: “let me reflect on myself”, “self-reflection”, “how am I doing as a leader”

Same shape as stakeholder reflection — aimed at you. Covers:

Behavior under pressure
Communication patterns
Time and energy
Fulfillment and motivation
Advocating for yourself

Writes dated entries to ~/bettersense-work-reflections/self/reflections.md.

Worked example

See Stakeholder reflection: a worked example for a full lifecycle walkthrough from registration through synthesis.

Things to know before adopting

The data lives outside the public repo. The skill creates ~/bettersense-work-reflections/ on first run, gitignores it, and warns you about privacy. The folder holds candid notes about real people — treat it like a journal.

Override the data path if you want it on an encrypted volume:

export BETTERSENSE_WORK_REFLECTIONS_HOME="$HOME/Encrypted/bettersense-reflections"

Synthesis composes with the management skills. stakeholder-synthesize output from a managing-down file feeds naturally into report-career-architect (growth plans) and report-promo-case (promotion packets). patterns-watch scans across all stakeholder files together.