This is exactly what a company said when they called in desperation. They had a huge team, were spending lots on materials and they didn’t feel they were getting traction.
And they are not alone.
Being frustrated and under pressure to achieve results are common drivers for clients to get help.
Our first task – a diagnostic – tells us a number of common challenges:
- There are no metrics to measure the outcomes for engagement so leaders don’t really know if things are improving or not. Leaders need numbers, so think how you can develop metrics to support and review the engagement efforts across the organisation.
- The battle is really an internal one – initiatives get stalled because internal managers or leaders aren’t really on board.
- Organisations are engaging about the wrong thing. You want to talk about noise and odour but the community needs to talk about location.
- You’re doing everything right by the textbook but no one really trusts you. That means you need to do more. And do something memorable. Like giving independent parties or the community the power to sign off on your approach to engagement.
- The community wants to be excited. Let’s be honest, only the highly motivated or highly angered people are actually waiting to be engaged. If the broader community isn’t getting on board then try something new like using Minecraft for engaging young people to plan a national park, using interactive images and videos or hand over budgeting power to the community.
