My husband teases me because I constantly complain about all the leaf blowers being used in our community.
Gas fired leaf blowers, which most people use, are noisy, loaded with fuel, blow leaves in one direction and add pollution through fuel emissions and dust. Leaf blowers eliminate the good organic matter that makes soils healthier and leave city drains clogged. More than 170 cities have now banned leaf blowers.
Some organizations use a leaf blower-like approach to their public affairs strategies. They show up assuming they are the experts and have all the answers, communicate a bunch of one-way messages quickly, and leave a trail of debris behind. And then, the leaves and dirt just blow back.
This past legislative session, I worked with a diverse team of people and organizations on a piece of legislation that had been attempted in the previous year. The previous strategy by one organization was to develop legislation without any stakeholder input, distribute the draft legislation just prior to the session, and avoid sharing key information or getting feedback. This approach created mistrust and miscommunications, resulting in stakeholders forcing engagement on them during the legislative session and the bill ultimately not passing.
In this session, those stakeholders played a critical role in reviving the legislation, working to get consensus on key issues, and working hard to get the legislation passed and ultimately signed by the governor.
I was fortunate enough to work on this bill and several others that had gone through extensive stakeholder input processes, bringing together, as multiple legislators said, “odd bed fellows” in support of the bills. It was a painstaking process getting there but these bills represented key stakeholders’ input and interests. There’s no other way to achieve success in that environment without doing this hard work.
So many surveys, especially since the 2008 recession, indicate that the public increasingly does not trust companies and other organizations. A lot of this goes back to how we communicate. Being authentic, transparent, listening more than talking, understanding others’ truths, and finding common ground and aligning interests is where your success lies.
Stakeholder engagement that focuses on using these practices saves money, increases trust and improves decision making. A few tips on engaging stakeholders:
- Engage key stakeholders early in the process. Whether you are developing legislation, starting a communications campaign, or a introducing a new service or product, think through the different stakeholders that can be impacted by your project or can influence the final outcome.
- Be transparent and genuine. Make a genuine effort to meet with stakeholders, be transparent about what you are trying to achieve, and get their feedback. It doesn’t mean you have to agree on everything but taking their perspective into account and including their perspective in final decisions is critical to your success.
- Don’t use stakeholder engagement for one issue and then move on to your next initiative. Take the opportunity to develop long-term relationships for your organization.
Key lesson – don’t use a leaf blower approach. Take the time to do meaningful stakeholder engagement. Check out my training session on stakeholder engagement and other communications strategies at ammconsultingstrategies.com/