It was a Saturday morning. The first day in a four-month process for members of a citizen engagement process to tackle a very tricky issue.
understand your audience
The truth about common ground and community engagement
Common ground is something that people agree about even if they disagree about other things (Merriam-Webster, 2018). It can be an important objective of community engagement where there is strong disagreement or conflict between groups. However, reaching common ground...
No one’s listening, right?
How good are your powers of persuasion? Here’s 5 simple steps to selling the most complex ideas.
When engagement gets tricky: tips to get you across the line
When engagement gets tricky: tips to get you across the line A question we hear time and time again from our clients is how to tackle difficult engagement. Whether it be highly emotional issues, opposing viewpoints, lack of strategic direction, or differing levels of...
What makes a great leader?
Drawing from my own personal experience, there is one exceptional leader who I will never forget. He had a way of connecting and cutting through. His authenticity, energy and commitment to delivering his vision was palpable, you could feel it simply by entering the room. He acknowledged that as the face of a successful company he was never alone, he explained that his success was a collective effort of his team and that he was “standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Could non-verbal expressions add value to an engagement campaign?
Communication is so much more than the spoken word. While many of us like to verbalise how we feel or think, it’s often the expressions that go with our words that add meaning. The question begs then, could we analyse only those expressions to gather rich and meaningful data?
Consultation does not necessarily mean that the community gets what it wants.
There have been a few projects in the media of late where community groups have lamented a lack of consultation on projects prior to delivery. Many of these projects have centred on construction and development but a few have involved policy development in areas as diverse as energy, water supply and even the definition of marriage. However diverse the topics, one thing stood out as being in common.
Eight Easy Steps to Workshop Greatness!
There are workshops that conjure up images of a dreary room full of disinterested people, negative attitudes, poor outcomes and bad coffee. I’m going tell you how to avoid running one of these workshops, ever again.
“So what is it you do for a living” – Your SME story
If you’re running an SME, your story, your point-of-difference, your services need to be instantly ready to roll off the tongue.
