Organisations should be applauded for their willingness to embrace new ways of reaching out to and engaging with their communities. Invercargill City Council has recently decided that there is value in going to where its communities are, rather than making those communities come to them, with two initiatives.

One of these involves physically connecting with people, the other is an online channel.

To improve its people-to-people connections, the Council has bought a caravan. It can tow this around the city to venues and events where people gather and have a comfortable private space out of the weather where people can talk with council representatives.

It has been branded with Council colours and logos and should be a bit of a conversation starter in itself.

Council’s new online engagement initiative is what it plans to call “ICC TV”. This is a YouTube channel intended to provide a range of content about Council’s thinking, initiatives and projects. Hopefully the community will get behind this, particularly if the content is relevant and engaging, and provide useful feedback through this channel.

There are also some exciting ways that both the caravan and ICC TV could be linked to work together, which Council will no doubt seek to explore.

Hopefully Invercargill’s citizens will see value in these initiatives, rather than focusing on the costs. Mind you that will depend on how well the Council puts these new tools to work.

Initiatives like these are generally a good reflection of where an organisation’s mind-set is – embraced by the top levels of the organisation, filtering through planning and operational staff. If it is to be judged by these two exciting engagement initiatives, Invercargill City Council’s organisational community engagement mind-set is in a very positive space.

Good practice community engagement is about building positive and constructive relationships with communities to enable their valuable knowledge to be incorporated into effective decision-making, not just about meeting minimal legal requirements.

The Queenstown Lakes District Council clearly does not subscribe to this premise. On one hand its significance and engagement policy says that “we want to have the right conversations with the right people about the right issues before making significant decisions”, while on the other its senior managers are clearly unwilling to consult unless there is a legal requirement to do so.

An example of this is are reported concerns within the Wakatipu community about a lack of consultation over proposed Special Housing Areas. The Queenstown Lakes District Council says there is “no obligation to consult with anyone” and this is emphasised by a reported comment made by the council’s planning and development general manager who stated “There is no obligation under the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act for the council to consult with anyone.”

Since 1 December 2014, changes to the Local Government Act require councils to have a significance and engagement policy. The purpose of such a policy is to enable the council and its communities to determine the degree of significance attached to particular issues, assets or other matters; to provide clarity about how and when communities can expect to be engaged in decisions; and to inform the council from the beginning of a decision-making process about the extent, form and type of engagement required.

The Queenstown Lakes District Council has a significance and engagement policy which sets out thresholds and criteria for determining significance. These are:

• Importance to the Queenstown Lakes District – the extent to which the matters impact on the environment, culture and people of the District (e.g. significant capital projects).
  
• Community Interest – the extent to which individuals, organisations, groups and sectors in the community are affected by the Council’s decisions.
  
• Inconsistency with existing policy and strategy – the extent of inconsistency and the likely impact.
  
• The impact on the Council’s capability and capacity – the impact on the objectives set out in the Financial Strategy, Ten Year Plan and Annual Plan.
  

Based on media reports, the special housing areas proposal is considered by the community to impact on people in the district and is clearly of significant community interest. On this basis one would conclude, as many in the affected area believe, that a requirement to consult has been triggered.

By ignoring the wishes of the community and acting with apparent disregard to its own policy, the council seriously undermines its relationship with its own community and creates an unnecessary controversy that will consume council resources dealing with community fallout. All of this could be avoided by council complying with its own significance and engagement policy and implementing a good practice community engagement process.

New Zealanders have a strong and emotional connection with our natural heritage. This is about our spirit of place and respecting and treasuring things that are uniquely ours. Kauri trees are no exception, being massively majestic and long-lived, visually appealing and providing tangible connections to past eras that they were part of and we were not: days that preceded human settlement in and development of this remote island nation. The greatest enemy of the kauri is people who seek to mill it and compromise the environments in which it thrives. Like many links to our natural past and legacies for our natural future, it is under threat.

Fast forward to 2015. A west Auckland property developer acquired a section of land in a good location with great views. It has a bit of native forest cover that’s in the way of any development opportunity, including a kauri tree estimated as being 500 years old, and a 300-year-old rimu tree.

Although the developer had the good sense to check with Auckland Council to gain consent for removal of this forest remnant before starting work, they did not include as part of their due diligence process before acquiring the property, the public impact of removing heritage trees. Auckland Council subsequently issued a non-notifiable consent approving the development of the site including the removal of the trees.

The local west Auckland community and nature lovers from hither and yon got word that something was up and that this piece of forest and its heritage trees were under threat. Protest action ensued, including one game fellow shinning up the kauri beyond the reach of Police officers who issued him with a verbal prosecution notice. News and social media went berserk. Celebrities and politicians got involved. Questions were asked.

Auckland Council said it had complied with legal requirements when issuing its consent, which could not be revoked. Reports prepared by council officers were examined and their initial concerns about development on this site appeared to have been tempered, to support the non-notifiable consent decision.

It was the property owners who wisely decided to back down, rather than council emerging from its legal fortress and changing its decision. From this incident there have been significant costs to both parties – council and developer – both financial and reputational. Costs that could have been avoided if council officers and the developer had thought about issues beyond minimal legal compliance. Simply focusing on compliance with the Resource Management Act and the council’s various plans demonstrates the vast difference between legal compliance and good practice community engagement.

Lessons to be learned from this include that good practice community engagement will always incorporate legal compliance, where required. Legal requirements are a minimum standard to be applied, not the only standard. Identifying and analysing stakeholders is an essential element in any good practice community engagement process. Had this been undertaken correctly, and early, then the developers would have known, before purchasing the property, the intensity of public interest. The council, for its part, would have required the application to be notified.

The importance and influence of affected stakeholders and communities should always be examined, and should be part of any conversation that council officers have with applicants. A council that was in touch with its communities wouldn’t have allowed this situation to happen.

The following question was recently added by Engagementworks Director Brett Sangster to the Community Engagement Group on LinkedIn:

“This week’s engagement question: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from community engagement? Good or bad. Summarised in a sentence would be useful!”

This discussion inspired over 75 people to make more than 160 comments triggered by the original proposition and also to share their experiences and beliefs. Many comments exceeded the suggested one sentence contribution.

Participants were multi-national, from countries including New Zealand, Australia, the USA, the UK and Pakistan. A lesson from that is that the challenges of community engagement and the principles that can be applied to its delivery are (or should be) the same everywhere. Some seasoned professionals contributed, as did others keen to grow their knowledge and understanding of engagement.

So what were these important lessons that contributors provided? They can be summarised as follows:

• Engagement done badly will hurt your organisation’s reputation
  
• Badly done engagement can widen a gap between an organisation and its communities rather than bridging it
  
• Good engagement is about making good community connections
  
• Don’t discount or overlook young people
  
• Youth build connections better than most, nudge you to walk your talk and inspire hope in the possibility of change
  
• Be honest, transparent and don’t make promises you can’t keep
  
• Under promise and over deliver
  
• Good decisions are made with timely input from those affected
  
• Shut up and listen
  
• Assume nothing. Listen and learn
  
• Don’t start with preconceived answers and seek to validate those
  
• Seek to uncover all issues and concerns
  
• If you can’t listen, don’t ask
  
• Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answer to
  
• Listening and evaluating what you hear in the correct context is vital
  
• Communities soon decide to ignore an agency with fixed ideas and its own agenda
  
• Understand what communities think they need rather than what your organisation wants to provide
  
• Engagement isn’t a popularity contest
  
• Manage expectations internally and externally
  
• Keep participants updated regularly and they’ll be more willing to engage again in the future
  
• Engagement can be manipulative when the questions asked don’t address real community issues or are just about ticking compliance boxes
  
• Communities can smell tokenism a mile away
  
• Unless a community accepts you, your efforts will not bear fruit
  
• Community members should be the decision-makers
  
• Embrace controversy! Be prepared to have awkward conversations
  
• Be clear about where the engagement boundaries are
  
• Build rapport and be candid
  
• Don’t patronise, particularly lower socio-economic or disadvantaged groups
  
• Learn to accept criticism and don’t be afraid to challenge openly and constructively
  
• Keep communities updated about progress and outcomes, particularly the gatekeepers for certain groups
  
• Vocal minorities do not represent all community views
  
• Don’t make assumptions and beware of agency experts
  
• Have simple, open, honest and authentic conversations
  
• Don’t talk about “them” or “us” and avoid corporate jargon
  
• Let participants shape the vision and values for engagement
  
• Patience, absolute patience
  
• Community engagement should be mutually beneficial, even though values may not align
  
• Beware of mixed messages coming from different agency silos
  
• Watch out for organisational silos where agencies are self-protective and unprepared to share knowledge or resources
  
• Engagement is not a vote. Make sure that communities understand that
  
• Value trust and respect different perspectives
  
• Don’t let information gathered fall on deaf ears
  
• Treating others as you would want to be treated yourself may not be appropriate in some cultural situations. Understand different perspectives
  
• Governments or agencies don’t hold the patent on good ideas
  
• Don’t go for a complex solution when a simple one will work
  
• Respect the strength to be found in diversity
  
• When barriers come down, then we can talk
  
• Effective engagement can break down barriers
  
• Good things take time. Don’t rush participants
  
• Building trust takes time and can be easily lost
  
• Take time to rest and reflect
  
• Adopt engagement early for long-term benefits
  
• Expect the unexpected, which may be positive rather than negative
  
• Be prepared to listen, respond and deliver
  
• People are not “hard to reach”. Rather they are “seldom heard”
  
• Not everybody is interested in public meetings or questionnaires. Understand the difference between “hard to reach” groups and using appropriate tools
  
• Be careful when using third-party consultants and facilitators.
  

A single document summary of all of the contributions up to 14 January 2015 (New Zealand time) can be downloaded below. The discussion on LinkedIn continues…

Social Licence to Operate. SLO. The latest buzz phrase and three-letter acronym doing the rounds and one that seems to be capturing the attention of senior managers in diverse enterprises. So what’s it all about? Do organisations really need to gain the approval of communities in order to operate?

“Social licence” is another way of describing the currency of reputation or goodwill. Some people may refer to this currency as Brownie Points™. While that description may be a bit glib, it’s a fair simplification of what’s an operationally complex issue. Complex because embracing it and doing it well cuts to the core of an organisation’s mind-set and culture and underpins that organisation’s brand.

An organisation accumulates goodwill by conducting its affairs in a manner that either meets with the approval of communities or doesn’t annoy them. This currency takes a long time – perhaps years – to accumulate but can be lost in a moment. Organisations that understand this value proposition and its complexities and are still prepared to invest are the ones who will do it well.

There are many examples of organisations that have damaged their social licence to operate. On this list are multinationals who manufacture their products in countries that allow child labour, manufacturers who include non-sustainable palm oil in their foodstuffs, those who trade in products sourced from endangered species, or airlines whose planes crash because of deficient maintenance and staff training.

These are extreme examples selected to make a point. Not all social licence-related issues involve breaking the law. A truth for any individual or organisation is that perception is reality. That perception doesn’t have to be underpinned by facts or sound science but if it’s widely held, then it needs to be understood and respected.

Another reality is that all organisations require a social licence to operate, whether or not they acknowledge that. In some cases the minimum standards necessary are set by regulations administered by government agencies or councils. In these cases the authority needed is provided by proxy from communities through government.

A social licence is based on trust, respect and mutual understanding. These are products of a commitment to partnership, a commitment which for many organisations is, regrettably, undertaken because they have to, thanks to regulations and statutory requirements, rather than because they want to. Such organisations may have no real interest in things like social licences to operate.

Organisations that do care about their social licence to operate generally seek ways to connect with their customers, clients and communities that add value to both sides of the relationship. They probably have an engagement policy, engagement strategies and plans for their major products, projects and processes. They’re probably no strangers to market research, focus groups, online panels, and community-led sponsorship, to name a few tools. There’s also a high probability that they’ve been actively engaging for a while. They will also understand what investing in their brand really means – that this investment involves more than a nifty logo and jazzy advertising.

Organisations new to this world of engagement and consequent reputation building – social licence to operate – may feel a bit confused about how to get started. They may also be organisations that have been around for a while but are feeling threatened or exposed by changes to what their clients, customers or communities are thinking and doing.

They may also be looking for an off-the-shelf solution that can be quickly put to work.

While there are off-the-shelf remedies, they’re unlikely to work in a believable and trust-building way unless the organisation concerned with delivering those is genuinely committed. Remember, communities have highly tuned Bullshit Receptors™ and can spot disingenuous operators in a heartbeat.

The choice of tools and techniques for community engagement and reputation building has to align appropriately with an organisation’s vision and values. If it doesn’t, then it is unlikely that employees of that organisation will make the right connections and any investment made could be money wasted.

But the first step has to be at an organisation’s top table. The board of directors, elected councillors, CEOs and their direct reports. The mind-set of these people is crucial for success. No well-intentioned, visionary and workaholic operational manager will succeed in this space unless they have the guidance, leadership and backing of those at the top of the organisation.

These leaders need to accept that their organisation will operate best with societal approval and all of the reputation and risk issues associated with gaining or retaining that.

So do organisations really need to gain the approval of communities in order to operate? If they want to operate successfully, then yes they do.

Can Engagementworks help organisations who want to better understand what’s possible in this world of social licences to operate? Yes we can. And we’re happy to discuss options and choices.

A couple of recent media stories published in the Taranaki Daily News highlight the controversy that can occur when an organisation fails to engage with its community or stakeholders on a significant issue. Both stories relate to a recent decision by the New Plymouth District Council to create a Māori ward for the 2016 and 2019 local elections.

The first media story, published in late September was headlined “Grey Power sets referendum target on wards”. It reported that Grey Power was trying to force a binding referendum on the decision and planned to have the 3,500 signatories to its petition before Christmas. This article also reported that councillor John McLeod had resigned in protest to the decision, triggering a by-election and its consequential costs.

A month later the second media story was published headlined “Judd tells of agony over ward decision”. According to this story New Plymouth District Mayor Andrew Judd had experienced somewhat of a backlash to his decision to back Māori wards and feelings were running so high that he may have committed political suicide. Mayor Judd is quoted as stating that he never knew (the community) was so divided and never in his wildest dreams expected that Māori wards would be an issue.

The introduction of Māori wards strikes at the very heart of local democracy and is a very important and significant decision. The question this raises, given the controversy that has ensued, is what input did the community have prior to the decision being made?

Information obtained from the council advised that a diverse range of views around Māori had been well articulated to the Council in recent years, and as a result no formal community engagement process was undertaken as it was considered that the range of community views was well known. This advice was supported by a list of names of people who had in the past led deputations to the council. However, receiving deputations does not necessarily provide a representative viewpoint and certainly does not qualify as good practice community engagement.

An added consideration is the council’s community engagement policy that was in force at the time this decision was made. Under the policy, the council would consult with the public whenever a significant decision was to be made and there was time to do so or a legal requirement to consult. Of particular relevance under this policy are decisions described as being significant to “well-being” and “community”. Well-being is described as the impacts upon the current and future cultural, economic, environmental and social well-being of the district or region and community as any persons who are likely to be particularly affected by or interested in the issue, proposal, decision or matter.

Based on the council’s consultation policy, the decision to introduce a Māori Ward is significant in terms of well-being and community and this should have triggered a community engagement process. Had this been done then the current controversy should have been avoided, the cost of a by-election would not have arisen at this time, and the potential for a costly referendum could also have been avoided. In addition, this was a great opportunity for the council to build better relationships with its community, add to social capital and create a more engaged District with which to work with on future decisions.

One of the questions we are often asked is why is having the right mind-set so important?

The simple answer to this question (which we’ll cover in more detail in our upcoming Mind-Set Webinar) is that if public participation is not valued, then no matter how good strategies and plans are, they are much less likely to deliver positive results.

We are developing the webinar’s content and would welcome your thoughts on what you would like to learn on this important topic.

Please add your comments below.

 

At this time of year New Zealand’s 78 local authorities are involved in crafting their annual plan documents or, once every three years, a long-term plan with a 10-year vision in accordance with section 93 of the Local Government Act (LGA).

These plans are supposed to be tailored by the needs and aspirations of the communities each council is elected to serve. Their contents and priorities should be shaped after extensive community engagement. Indeed the LGA requires, as a minimum, the Special Consultative Procedure to be used to develop a Long-Term Plan. The LGA also talks about these plans providing a basis for accountability between a council and its communities. A worthy ambition.

Given the importance that a long-term plan plays in shaping a council’s decision-making and priority setting, with flow-on impacts on the levels of rates set to fund those, it is surprising that so few community members take the time to become involved in any associated discussion or debate.

Formal submissions will be sought, usually through advertisements published in newspapers or on a council’s website. Public meetings will be scheduled and held in venues and at times that work best for elected councillors. Many councils will know with a high degree of certainty in advance of a draft plan being released who they will receive submissions from and what those will say. But how representative are those submissions of wider community ideas and opinions?

It may be argued that if there is no interest in or discussion about the content of a long-term plan, then it must be a fair representation of community views. It may also be argued that additional efforts to connect with communities will impose additional demands on a council’s time and money for no apparent additional benefit in terms of information received. That may be true, but what about the connectedness a council should be aiming to have with its communities, particularly the basis of accountability the LGA says should be provided?

Long-Term Plans are large, hard to read documents built to satisfy the needs of auditors. It is not surprising that very few people, other than auditors, actually read them. Councils invest time summarising these into smaller documents that may be put into letterboxes with the outpourings of Big Box Retailers and real estate agents. Adaptations of these summary documents may also get placed on council websites where analytics will reveal they attract scant interest from cyberspace inhabitants.

This could be because community members believe that councils really aren’t interested in listening to them. If they were, then they may be more active in creating opportunities or using engagement tools that communities understand and are comfortable with. There is an abundance of tools that can be used, either for face-to-face interactions as well as online. Citizens shouldn’t have to make a formal written or verbal submission. Such measures are a barrier to engagement, as the numbers of people using those, as a percentage of all community members, shows.

This isn’t a challenge that is particularly difficult to improve on. All that is required is a little imagination and a willingness to listen to communities – earlier rather than later – and show them how what they said was considered and shaped the final outcomes. Councils need to focus on delivering simple messages that are clearly expressed and easily understood, particularly by hard-to-reach community members, such as people with language disabilities. Pictures and infographics work really well as communication enhancers.

From 1 December 2014 all 78 councils will be required to have a significance and engagement policy in place. It will be interesting to observe what changes will be seen in council community engagement, particularly annual plan engagement, from 2015 and onwards.

The public should have a big stake in what sort of community they want for themselves, their children and their grandchildren. Their willingness to contribute to their “ideal” is greatly influenced by the contribution that they are able to make to the long term planning for their community.

Fair enough. But isn’t this what already happens? Regrettably no.

However recent changes to the LGA relating to significance and engagement creates an opportunity for councils to rethink their approach about how they interact with communities. This may act as a catalyst to change how councils make decisions by acknowledging that communities are important and can make a valuable contribution, particularly if successful community outcomes are desired.

This would mean looking beyond just legal compliance to good practice processes. In an LTP development this would involve the community in deciding what should go into the LTP in the first place and being engaged through the various steps ultimately leading to the more formal special consultative procedure consultation at a later stage of development prior to adoption.

This effectively relegates the special consultative procedure to a tick-the-box exercise, as with good prior community engagement, all of the important decisions will have already been made with the full involvement of the affected community.

At the end of last year I attended an event where the guest speaker was a Senior Member of Parliament.

One of the things he was excited about was how social media was going to be used by his party to enhance interactions with the New Zealand electorate in general and young people in particular. Presumably this activity was believed to boost their performance against other contenders in opinion polls and ultimately in ballot boxes. A blog I wrote at that time can be found here http://bit.ly/1v93UZp.

So what’s the current state of play about how political parties are using social media to drive awareness of themselves and their policies?

While there’s a lot of noise, including some coming from song writers penning catchy songs about political leaders, most of the social media chatter about the election is coming from “professional” bloggers and people wedded to a particular political party, rather than from the parties themselves. Some of this is entertaining or informative. Some is born of distrust or hatred. Some is tedious.

Is any of this making a difference? Do potential voters believe that political parties are interested in their views, whether through social media or any other channels? Not by my assessment of what I’m reading and observing online.

If data from New Zealand’s 2011 general election is to be believed, the biggest slice of registered voters are those who choose not to vote at all – about one third of the pie.

“Young” people are probably more attracted to non-voting than they are to the policies of any political party. Analysis by Horizon Research in June 2014 showed that a disproportionately large number of younger voters are unlikely to vote at this year’s general election. Of those aged 18 to 24, just 65.6% said they will vote, compared with 72% of the general voting population.

But how many of these targeted 18-to-24s follow political blogs or read any political commentary online? I suspect very few. Statistics NZ analyses online media usage, their latest date was collected in 2012.

This shows that the 15-24s like online music, movies and games. They out-represent all other age groups online for everything except reading. Some of that interaction will involve social media discussions.

Political leadership should be focused on effectively shaping community discussion around issues that are important to those communities. The absence of effective shaping and lack of leadership can be observed in many online discussion forums – particularly online newspaper comments sections which produce more heat than light. Most people have very finely tuned bullshit receptors and know what material they should be interested in and what is just entertainment or drivel.

A wise person once said “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” Interactions between political parties and voters is no different. Even new arrivals, such as the Internet/Mana Party don’t appear to have any technological silver bullets that strike to the hearts and minds of young people or any other categories of voters. Internet/Mana has turned off the comments facility on its YouTube posts, presumably to save time interacting with those.

I suspect that is because it is the natural state of politicians to talk, rather than to listen, and to preach rather than to engage.

This time each year New Zealand’s 78 local councils are engaged in annual or long-term plan discussions with their communities. These discussions are intended to focus on ratifying council plans, priorities and related expenditure that shape the size of the taxes levied on ratepayers as rates and other targeted costs for specific council services.

While the purpose and nature of these discussions is known to most contributors, councils often receive submissions that have nothing to do with matters relating to the annual plan. A classic example of such a matter is whether or not fluoride should be added to potable water delivered through a council’s water supply infrastructure.

For a small number of New Zealanders this is an extremely contentious matter. However many others are comfortable with the dental health benefits associated with fluoride and with the assurances provided by the Medical Officer of Health and other reputable agencies.

That said, the anti-fluoride movement has enjoyed some successes in recent years, forcing the removal of added fluoride from drinking water in several towns and cities. These decisions to support the anti-fluoride movement were made by councillors, sometimes with little reference to medical science and often with little discussion with the wider affected community. Hamilton City’s decision to remove fluoride from that city’s drinking water is a good example, where a subsequent referendum on this matter showed that there was overwhelming support for fluoride to be included.

Annual plan submissions are usually the entry point for influencing council decisions on fluoride, probably because for many people this is the only channel they see as being available to express concern about what a council does. But that’s not the best way of handling matters like this, the related costs can be high for a council’s bureaucracy, and the anti-fluoriders have probably figured that they can grind councils down by continually using the annual plan channel.

Some councillors are feeling exposed and there is a growing mood that fluoridisation of drinking water is a decision that should be made by the Ministry of Health, rather than by individual councils.

I think that is the wrong way of looking at this particular issue. Left to the council annual plan submissions process, this matter will reappear annually. That is just silly.

Any decision about fluoridisation needs to be made once, whether that’s on a national or local basis, and decoupled from annual council planning.

It’s an issue that should be taken to affected communities and their opinions sought. Community members should consider the evidence provided by scientists, medical experts and those who believe that adding fluoride to drinking water is a risky, toxic practice. Affected communities should be given the authority to make that decision, to be endorsed by councillors. That discussion could also include a timeframe for revisiting the decision made, if the affected community believed that to be necessary.

Councillors are supposed to be representative of their community’s views and should not be put into positions where they can be bullied by interest groups. Being representative does not prevent councillors delegating decision making to communities on certain matters, particularly those involving high levels of emotion, as long as a robust, inclusive process is used.

The Ministry of Health could take charge of this matter, but ultimately this is a decision that affects individual communities, and what better way is there for those communities to determine their desired future than through their council.