Yes, there is a song from a bygone era of wide ties and bad haircuts and while the line is corny, the sentiment is true, particularly when it comes to organisations wanting to engage the community or other stakeholders.

In day-to-day life, apologies can roll off the tongue, ‘sorry for the bump’, ‘sorry for being late’, ‘sorry for missing the wedding anniversary (again).’ In fact, consider the people you have more respect for, the ones who pretend nothing has happened, or those that genuinely apologise from the understanding that they did something wrong?

For most of us, the person that is willing to show humility is elevated in our esteem, rather than diminished. In part because we all know it can be hard to swallow our pride and in part because it reminds us that none of us are perfect. 

However, while we appreciate the power of apologies on a personal level, organisations get very nervous about the prospect of delivering one. The most common reason given is that it might increase the chance of litigation, yet researchers are putting this myth to bed.

One study showed that a genuine apology resulted in 73% of recipients being more inclined to accept an offer/settlement (which is not always money) but when the apology was ‘half baked’ (my words, not theirs) this dropped to 35%. If no apology was given, there was a 50/50 chance. This awareness is now becoming standard operating procedure for the medical profession with their 'open disclosure' policies. 

This is interesting for other sectors to consider. ... in essence, if you want to engage people and are getting some form of push-back or outrage then there is a good chance you have done something wrong. This means that apologising may be an important step in the re-establishing of the relationship.

Yes people can react for different reasons and it is important not to take the blame for something you didn't do, but jumping to defense and denial becomes a sure fire way to inflame the situation.

Which means, we need to be careful that it doesn't become a strategy to try to manipulate. We are seeing this more and more, we also see apologies being made by celebrities, politicians and sports stars who have fallen from grace front the media with an apology, only to repeat the same behaviour.  

So apologise, but it needs to be done in a genuine way. We need to be willing to name the mistake, claim it and let them tell you how they have been affected by it ... some may say it's a courageous move, but others (like the health sector) know that it makes good sense because they know it works.

The upcoming public course on Strategies for Dealing with Opposition and Outrage in Public Participation will present more on this strategy and the other 5 strategies developed by Peter Sandman.

​At a recent International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) breakfast in WA, three leaders presented their views on leadership in engagement; their insights were too valuable not to be shared more widely. The speakers were:

• Dr Shayne Silcox,  CEO of the City of Melville
• Anthony Vuleta, CEO of the Town of Victoria Park
• Catherine Ferrari, General Manager Customer and Community, Water Corporation

This is what I gleaned from their contributions:
​

Rather than having every decision go through management, this approach is about giving staff the authority to use their expertise and understanding. 
Dr Silcox called this an empowerment warrant.  Which was not just about working with the understanding that staff should trust their judgment but making it clear to them that he will back them, when they do.

Having an engagement policy was seen as an important step in having your staff on the same page BUT the policy needs to be lived. This means that it needs to be up for review and that staff are given the chance to practise and apply it.

Mr Vuleta has given staff from across the organisation the chance to be trained and get involved in engagement projects. There are people facilitating workshops from across the whole organisation, at the same time not learning an engagement policy exist but how it is lived and breathed in real life.

While organisations may have a team of people with engagement expertise, engagement is not something that is just for them.  Ms Ferrari made the point that different parts of the organisation can begin to think that ‘engagement is their job’ but the fact is, engagement is everybody’s job. 
The more your technical/project people have the responsibility and exposure to engagement the better they understand how it works in their context. 

What was truly surprising was that all three leaders were genuinely confused that other leaders could not or did not see the inherent value in engagement. It was noted that at times it does take a painful and sometime public failure to trigger that awareness but in the reality of all the management fads to come and go, engagement is one of the only truly NEW and constructive paradigms to be offered to organisations.

As such, there is value in backing your staff to build skills and understanding. Not everyone needs to be the ‘expert’ but most people need some understanding.
In all these cases these leaders have invested in in-house training and staff development. This was made available not just for communications and engagement staff but for the technical /project people and leadership as well.  

​The Town of Victoria Park now have nine people who have completed the IAP2 Certificate of Engagement and 70 people who have done the one day IAP2 Engagement Essentials course, making the language of engagement more widely accessible and understood across the whole organisation. Their councillors have also completed a 2hr ‘Understanding engagement’ workshop


To find out more about IAP2 training for your organisation.

I have been fortunate enough to recently make another trip to the UN in Bangkok. As with my previous trip it is amazing to see people from around the world, working towards cracking some of the tough issues we all face as a global community.
                    
I also noted with interest that the challenges people working with the UN face are no different to others I work with. From organisations to countries the same dynamic is at play … what defines us, divides us.
 
Day to day in all sectors you can see ‘talks breaking down’, not because there is anything overly wrong with the content but because of a ‘personality’ issue. It is endemic that people become invested in a role, job or title and begin to see any change as a threat to that investment … it seems what defines, us divides us.
 
Interestingly enough, this is also seen on a community, national and international level, where people become overly invested in a certain national or cultural identity and the result is either a willingness to ‘tolerate’ others, a desire to change them or an outright protectionist approach… again what defines us, divides us.
 
Throw in a crisis or natural disaster and for the most part, these constructed barriers get dropped and some truly amazing things get achieved. But give us time and space to ‘think’ about it and how we look becomes more important that what we achieve.
 
Looking at this, it seems that the biggest barrier to ‘changing the world’ is changing the mind set of the people. As an engagement practitioner, this phenomenon is intriguing to explore. As a member of the human race, it’s a bit more frightening!

Try this activity… think about how you introduce yourself to others.
 
Now delete any part of that introduction that refers to your social standing, profession, job title, family of origin, marital or family status, culture, hobbies etc … is there anything left?
 
If we allow ourselves to drop the external things we use to define us, it is possible to appreciate the qualities people bring to any situation, regardless of their job, hobby, family role or cultural persuasion.
 
There are people who can bring detail to life, people who can lifting things out of the detail, the fact is both are needed. People who know how to bring truth to a situation and people who can deliver that truth in a way that doesn’t hit others over the head.
 
To get past the barriers created by an externally shaped identity starts with appreciating the quality you and others bring.  It makes sense that you would feel defensive if something you have worked years to achieve is being challenged. Yet if we are appreciating your quality it is somehow less threatening.

For example, if two people are talk about a project and one says “the CEO is not going to like this”.  There is a reasonable chance that they are going to become defensive. Instead, what if the conversation went something like - “You have an amazing ability with detail and I can see the time this have taken, for the CEO sign off on what you're suggesting, we need to put it into language they will understand. Let’s work with Bob, who is great at converting detail into CEO speak.”
 
When people are appreciated for their quality it becomes less threatening to collaborate, as each contribution has a value…and the majority of times, contribution does have a value.
 
The key though is that we can’t expect others to make the first move or expect it to be there when you need it. Appreciation is something we live and also need to apply to ourselves. It is much harder if not impossible to see and appreciate these qualities in others.
 
So what do you appreciate about what you bring?
 

To name the ‘elephant in the room’ is to point out a topic that is obvious to many, but one that people find scary or unwilling to confront.

We are told that robust debate is what helps new ideas to emerge.  The debate approach is encouraged where each side need only point out the flaws in the other side’s arguments. Certainly this is the message our parliamentary system and media model. This approach suggests that it is more important to be clever with words and have a sharp mind and a sharp tongue, and less important to have something valuable to contribute. After all, it takes pressure and friction to make diamonds right!
 
There seems to be a contradiction between the need to debate, argue and ‘win the day’ and the honesty, and at times vulnerability required for deeper insights. We forget that messengers are sensitive; in fact, we rely on their sensitivity to spot the issues that need to be named.
 
The debate approach is laced with the implicit threat that if you want to name the elephant in the room, then ‘prepared to do battle’. Just because the elephant is big, we forget that it is sensitive too.
 
Leaders who encourage the debate approach risk being trapped in the rarefied air where people around you are less willing to be honest.  The result is that many leaders are like the emperor with new clothes, protected by only seeing and hearing the things they want to see and hear, yet blinded by the reality they choose not to see. Dare we suggest that leaders are sensitive too?
 
This prompts the question – with all this sensitivity, why do we promote and perpetuate conversations that shut down the deeper honesty required for meaningful exchange and change?
 
There seems to be a crazy disconnect from knowing we are all imperfect and a defensiveness that seeks to ignore this same fact. If we accept that the way we learn is from people showing us our blind spots, then the fact that someone can see and name an ‘elephant’ should be celebrated and greeted with great inquiry, rather than met with derision or challenge.
 
Could it be that pride has a deeper hold on us than we would care to admit?
 
This is something to ponder on if you have ever felt the urge to shoot, deflect or reject the messenger. The next time you feel this urge, ask yourself “what am I protecting?”
 
But responsibility is not just with the receiver. The reality is as much as we want the emperor to change first, the reality is that change often starts with the person delivering the message. 

The debate paradigm leaves everyone ‘braced for the fight’ and at times messengers lace good ideas with a tone or energy that is designed to get a defensive reaction. When someone hears you say “I’ve got an idea” but they also feel “you’re not going to like this” in your delivery, most of the time they will react to what is felt before they consider the words. 
 
I hear some of you saying, “are we all just delicate flowers and don’t we need to toughen up?”, but I would go the other way and say we ignore people’s sensitivity at our own peril, as it is a window to true insight. The problem is we have misunderstood sensitivity for niceness.
 
Being nice is actually avoiding honesty, being aware of people’s sensitivity not holding back what needs be be said but saying it with care and respect to the person inside. In fact, if we say we care about a person, a project or issue, then holding back  and being nice can be just as abusive as the person who is dismissive of new (or different) ideas.
 
Think about an insight you would like to deliver to someone …
 
1) What if you shared that insight with ZERO attachment to the other person/people liking it, accepting it or even listening? Are you clear about what you are protecting or projecting onto the other person?
 
2) What if you considered if the gap you are asking them to jump is too wide? The steps that are obvious to you, may not be so for the other person. Does it need to be broken down?
 
3) What if you then added a tone that reflected your interest in their wellbeing? (Wellbeing not comfort)
 
How have the message and/or tone changed? Its good, but of course it is not a guarantee of people agreeing with you. People have free will and some are more invested in the world being the way it is. (See #1)
 
Any reaction is essentially saying that the environment is not safe enough for the person you are talking to.  Some of it will come from the receivers’ own life experience, some of it you can control by checking your own level of defensiveness. (See #1)
 
But if you get stuck, then the brave and those who truly care, have found the REAL elephant in the room. It’s not the topic but the change/learning people are scared of. Dare go there and name that, or do we have a vested interest in NOT getting too honest? It’s a crazy concept that we can get too honest.
 
This is not about everyone becoming a psychotherapist but about fostering a greater willingness to learn from each other.
 
Doing battle and debating with our intellect might be stimulating but speaking, sharing and exploring in consideration of each other’s sensitivity can change someone’s life.

Written by Joel Levin

I recently returned from a trip to Bangkok working with the United Nations (UN). I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of days with people from across Asia-Pacific talking about all things engagement.
 
Day one was spent learning/listening to some of the New York staff sharing the work they are doing, bringing more engagement with civil society organisations into the UN.
 
Day two was me, someone with lots of engagement experience but the scale of the UN was new to me.  The good news was that it only took about an hour on day one for me to know why I was there and that what I had to share was going to be well received. With in that first hour, I saw we all had something in common.

There were people from Thailand, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia and beyond, who were all working on projects from HIV prevention to building IT capacity in poorer communities, the one thing we all had in common was PEOPLE. We all dealt with, relied on and needed other people for our work to be successful.
 
Yes, there are some cultural nuances to appreciate but once I started talking about my engagement experiences with PEOPLE and the learning about why and how engagement planning and delivery works, any differences about scale, culture or nationality made little to no difference.
 
It was very affirming to be in a room with people not just from other countries but living and working in those countries and to hear them express similar frustrations to any other engagement professional:

• How do we get people interested?
• How do we make the process fair and transparent?
• How do we get people in the organisation to work more closely with an engagement approach?

Affirming not because they had frustrations but affirming of the fact that people across the globe have more in common than our difference. That is the take out I wanted to share. At times big or small projects can seem complicated and even impenetrable but it is at these moments that we could bring it back to the fundamental fact – that any project is about PEOPLE.
 
Which means there are some basics we can always come back to:

• What is the relationship I want to have with the people I want to engage with? AND what relationship do they want with me?
• Am I holding on to power too tightly and/or have I given too much away?
• Am I working in reaction to defensive things others have said and/or have I been talking from a defensiveness?
• Am I being transparent and open about what I do and don't know?
• How much time have I spent deeply understanding the others and/or how much time have I spent trying to convince them I am right?

Engagement is more than a transacted deal. We can build infrastructure, health systems, emergency response programs and national, state or local plans but long before and well after the ‘project’ will be the PEOPLE who help make it happen or use it into the future.

With thanks to my new found colleagues in the UN who are living that message right around the world.