Some thoughts on communication and consultation

Every project or change programme you might ever come across talks about the importance of communication and consultation. Every business or community Leader will talk of the importance of clear messages, which are understood and supported. All this is simple, obvious and easy to do, but so few people do this stuff well.

These are my thoughts….

CONTEXT

I have been the programme manager for the Incorporation of Jersey Post and Ports of Jersey. Both are large scale and complex change management projects which where reliant upon great communications and each had at the helm an inspirational CEO. I learned a lot from these people.

I also have an MBA (Management Consultancy) and as a Project and Programme Manager have been hired on various occasions to undertake a “project rescue”. Very often the core problem has been to do with communication and consultation. Very rarely has it been a technical or project issue. Indeed most projects fail due to people and politics and that failure is often as a result of failures in understanding, commitment and momentum.

As well as being PRINCE2 qualified I am also an APMG qualified “Change Practitioner” and my experience is that the latter is a more useful to successful projects than the former since PRINCE2 is about outputs and process (the mechanics of getting things done – doing things right) whereas the latter is about outcomes and behaviours (purpose and passion – doing the right things)

This blog on communication and consultation will touch on both the outputs and process (hard factors) as well as the outcomes and behaviours (soft factors).

Having established that I have some experience in this area, I should be equally quick to say that some of what I have learned is by past error or mistake and there is no one-solution that will work. As Oscar Wilde once put it “Experience is the word people use to describe their mistakes!” My time served as a project and change manager gives me an opinion, it doesn’t mean that it’s right.

HAVING A STRUCTURE

When I initially drafted this blog it was a collection of thoughts and ideas with some useful references to many of the concepts, models and theories I’ve picked up from various books, some inspiring people and the trials of personal experience. Ironically for a blog about communication and consultation it was a complex mess of ideas which were difficult to navigate, so after a re-write by first suggestion for any plans towards communication and consultation is to have a structure!

THE BASICS

I won’t go into great detail about every idea but instead assume you, the reader, knows what I am talking about and provide a source/reference for further reading if the concept is new to you.

I’ll start with a very simple concept: Plan, Do, Check, Act. It’s a great way to structure anything!

Deming and PDCA Source:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_89.htm

From here I expanded upon my key themes as follows:

1.Planning: You first need to think about needs; both the business/organisational needs as well as the personal and political needs of the stakeholders. Adair got this right when he talked about the need to align task, people and business as part of action centred leadership.

John Adair Source:
http://www.learn-to-be-a-leader.com/john-adair.html

2.Doing: Once you have a plan you can progress the discussion, necessary decisions and pursuit of consensus which form the essential part of your communication plan.

3.Check: When you have the basics covered, then you have something which is sufficient to consult upon. The process of consultation is to check, and thereafter to review and revise as necessary.

4.Act: Clearly having completed this process the business/organisational should now ready to act. Whether that is to start, launch, lodge, begin it should be possible to commence with confidence that you have both direction and momentum to progress and meet the challenges ahead.

Hold these thoughts, we will come back to them later.

COMMUNICATION PLAN

I am a fan of Edward de Bono’s 6 Hat Thinking and agree with the idea of separating facts from feelings and managing both. I talked above about the need to consider the outputs and process (hard factors) as well as the outcomes and behaviours (soft factors). Managing one without the other is doomed to failure; so there must be at least three components to a Communications Plan: Content (what is discussed – hard factors); Style (how it is discussed – soft factors); Management (organising all this).

Edward de Bono’s 6 Hat Thinking Source:
http://www.debonogroup.com/six_thinking_hats.php

It is important to address both facts and feelings because if you don’t you’ll be faced with feelings dressed-up as facts which you simply won’t understand if you try to examine them logically.

For example, if I feel my motives or identity is being threatened rather than admit my feelings I might instead come up with some spurious facts in an effort to win a logical argument. I see this often in the boardroom where people contrive to find reasons to stop something simply because they feel it is wrong.

Separating facts and feelings means that you can seek to find solutions for each, rather than the more difficult task of finding one solution that satisfies both.

COMMUNICATION STYLE

It should be obvious that the style and content of communication will affect each-other. Something said in a light-hearted style in a pub, with your friends may engender a different response to the same message shouted in the office by your boss. The content may be the same, but the style, context and setting give a wholly different “meaning” to the recipient.

When the brain processes information (using Reticular Activating System) the subconscious is constantly checking three things: 1) what is happening here 2) how am I being treated 3) what will happen next.

Reticular Activating System Source:
http://www.successwithkirk.net/blog/how-to-utilize-our-reticular-activating-system-for-goals-setting

Another useful reference is Transactional Analysis. A gross simplification, but useful for my purpose is that if you set yourself up as a teacher/preacher and speak to your audience as a student/child you are going to get a very different response to if you converse equally as adults. Every parent of teenage children is familiar with the battle when you treat your offspring as a child but they see themselves as an equal (an adult).

Dialogue is a bit like a dance and knowing what role you and your partner are performing are as essential to constructive dialogue as to well-choreographed dance.

Transactional Analysis Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_OK,_You%27re_OK

The response and behaviour that results from your communication is dependent upon the other person’s past and present experiences, bias, hopes and fears of the audience which influence how they categorise the content (what is said) and style (who says it, or how it is said) of the message.

This pattern searching, checking against past experience and prediction is central to all human experience and the basis of either confidence or cynicism. The phase “I will believe it when I see it” is actually wrong because in truth the brain is looking for patters to confirm existing beliefs and experiences: it therefore looks to see and confirm or corroborate their in-built experiences, bias, hopes and fears.

OK so at a simple level it’s obvious that “…It ain’t what you do but the way that you do it, that’s want gets results…” but the science of communication, negotiation, persuasion, hypnosis, and cognitive change closely resembles magic.

I’ll expand further in the section below called Neuro-linguistic programming.

NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING

NLP enables better awareness and control of oneself, better appreciation of the other person's feelings and behavioural style, which in turn enables better empathy and cooperation.

Neuro-linguistic programming Source:
http://www.businessballs.com/nlpneuro-linguisticprogramming.htm

I’ll only briefly touch on this suffice to say that rapport is the single most important thing to building trust. Trust is the most important pre-condition to being listened to. Being understood it the most important factor to being liked and followed. These are the essential components of Leadership and communication.

Graham Daldry, Creative Director at Specsavers, said at a conference: “…to market a product or message you first must have the audiences’ attention and something that is engaging [entertaining] is more likely to succeed at getting their attention… than simply preaching…”

Ironically I am not a great communicator, but I know this. So using the knowledge above I use different people, and different methods to get my message across because I know some people respond better to one approach and others to a different approach. This does not mean they get different messages – that would be incongruous and potentially disingenuous – it is instead more like speaking Spanish to the Spaniard, German to the German and French to the Frenchman. In a business context it might be talking about People to the HR Team, Sales and Revenue to the Marketing Dept. and Profit and Loss to the Finance Team.

If you simply shout German at all of them they are unlikely to obey orders!

COMMUNICATION CONTENT

From the above it should be obvious that a lot of factors need to be considered when planning the content of the communication. The old adage “Know your audience” is key and addressing their hopes or fears (‘What’s in it for me’) should direct your choice of content.

WIIFM Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIIFM

Remembering your audience “hot buttons”, past and present experiences, bias, hopes and fears should be factored into what you plan to say, and who says it. The result is that you may be better to have five meetings to cover five topics than try to do everything and satisfy everyone in one meeting.

Hot Buttons Source:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hot+button

For my projects I often maintain lengthy lists of key people, and a note of their “hot buttons”, past and present experiences, bias, hopes and fears so that I am always conscious of who thinks what, who influences who, and which are the people who will 1) resist it happening 2) let it happen 3) make it happen. This will always inform the meeting choices including attendance, agenda, venue, timing as well as supporting reports, and subsequent minutes or actions.

I will also note the preferred communication and learning styles of key people. Who likes facts and figures in a report and who prefers a visual presentation. Which people like email and which prefer a phone call.

Understanding something about MBTI (Myers Briggs) and DISC can be helpful. The former is about how people perceive the world and make decisions and the latter is about a person's behavioral style or personality traits. Knowing these helps when planning who should attend which meetings and how the information should be presented.

For example some people like “details” others only the “big picture” some will worry about the “task” and others about the “people”. As suggested above the result is that you may be better to have five meetings than try to do everything and satisfy everyone in one meeting.

To be clear, you may have five meetings but you need to be consistent in your message. Five meetings means saying the same thing five different ways. It does not mean saying five different things which contradict each-other or undermine your consistent, transparent integrity.

People will very quickly spot inconsistencies between messages or divergence between what you say and what you do. Mahatma Gandhi said “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

MBTI and DISC Source:
http://www.discoveryreport.com/DISC-and-MBTI-Myers-Briggs-Type-Indicator.html

Change and incongruity
http://www.cios.org/encyclopedia/persuasion/Ccongruity_theory_4strengths.htm

COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT

You can be confident that unless it is really simple and really short 10 people will all have a different recollection of what was said at a meeting. Poor management of attendance, agenda, venue, timing as well as supporting reports, and subsequent minutes or actions is like navigation without a compass or map and you are bound to keep going around in circles.

Even the best orators, like Churchill, plan what they are going to say and are very careful about the orchestration of the words, timing, tone. They are also good at supporting the messages with briefings, press releases, posters and use of as many channels as possible to reinforce their message rather than risk it becoming diluted, mis-represented or mis-understood.

Marketing, advertising, and campaign management are increasingly based on science, and seldom left to chance. For my projects I often maintain lengthy lists of who will say what, to whom, when, and how. I am clear on which messages will be said by email, which will be said face-to-face, which are done behind the scenes and which in full media glare and every variation of these for every stakeholder and every communication channel. This is discussed further in the section below.

My advice is always to manage the agenda, rather than let it manage you. However my caution is that sometimes, doing nothing, or just waiting, is the best thing to do. Don’t be baited into a hasty response when a little reflection may serve you better.

CONSULTATION PLAN

My view is that the purpose of consultation is to “check” the issues/problems and proposals/solutions and therefore should only start after the necessary dialogue to agree what should be in the consultation.

Prior to “going public” with a consultation, you should have completed all the pre- consultation work including necessary meetings and briefings which should precede a media launch and public engagement. Some of my larger projects have involved a huge commitment to meetings and briefings, with Q&A sessions, bulletins, briefing papers, newsletters, one-to-one sessions, team meetings, focus groups etc.

Key stakeholders should not be “surprised” by a public consultation and if questioned about the issues/problems and proposals/solutions should be able to clearly articulate what has been agreed and the process leading to “going public”.

If a key stakeholder says “I know nothing about this” then you’ve failed to manage the agenda! That doesn’t mean everyone must agree with you before you start public consultation, but it does mean that you should agree about what you disagree! So a key stakeholder might say “I know about this, and I have been consulted, and I think …..” If someone disagrees that’s OK – it’s part of the democratic process – but if someone hasn’t been listened to or feels cheated then rather than disagree they are more likely to sabotage.

As well as “going public” with your Report, Plans or Proposals you should also seek to market the consultation much as you might a new product or service. You have an idea and you are looking for support or comment. This is no different to selling a product or standing for election and requires the same type of thinking and planning.

Some of my larger projects have involved setting up a “road show” of meetings, banners, signs and slogans. During Jersey Post’s change programme everyone got cards with the vision and values printed on them, and wore slogan T-shirts as part of “team building” identity, very much along the lines discussed above in the section about marketing, advertising, and campaign management. The consultation became an “event” following Graham Daldry’s concept: that to inform you must first engage and to engage you must first entertain.

CONSULTATION OUTCOME

As noted at the beginning, the process of consultation is to check, and thereafter to review and revise as necessary. The consultation “vote” may be YES or NO, it may require you to review and revise. What it must do is record both support and dissent and what you propose to do as a result. Do not hide dissent, but address it.

It is useful to recognise dissent as the first step beyond denial and is a good sigh that you are making progress along the “change curve” steps: deny, defend, discuss, agree, adapt and adopt.

Kubrlar Ross Change Curve Source:
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/humanresources/documents/learningdevelopment/the_change_curve.pdf

HOW NOT TO CONSULT

I have recently witnessed a vision for a community project spectacularly back-fire when over 4000 people said “NO!” I drafted this Blog about 6 weeks before the project was finally pulled by the Minister for a re-think. The comments below were not written in hindsight, but shared with a number of people involved in the project.

Source:
http://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2014/12/31/port-galots-developers-told-to-to-re-think-plans/

How did this go so badly wrong, for what looked like an easy win? On the face of it a charitable project for the local community which should benefit everyone involved shouldn’t win the record for the most number of complaints ever!

Let’s look at two approaches…

Approach A - creating consensus for proposals
1.      Get all the stakeholders together and agree a common purpose, aims and objectives
2.      Go through the forming, storming and norming process of creating a functional team
3.      Start then to develop the necessary communication, compromise and consensus to get to a plan
4.      Start to write the plan, drawings, assurances etc.
5.      Embark on a 12 week consultation process and take feedback
6.      Use the feedback to review, revise, update the plan, drawings, assurances etc.
7.      Then progress planning permission (with everyone on-board)

Approach B - managing challenges to proposals
1.      Devise a set of plans and tell people you’re going to progress a planning application
2.      Give everyone the impression that thus is a “done deal” and then invite their comments
3.      Manage the panic and confusion as everyone run’s round with their “hair on fire” because their needs are not met in the plans and they now have a looming deadline.
4.      Have to then become reactive to feedback, and revise plans (at considerable expense) following each meeting with a separate stakeholder group.
5.      Manage this in the full media glare, because you have already lodged the planning application and forced the dialogue into the public domain

You may have a personal experience or view on the Port Galots saga, and may be very passionate about the issues, but briefly setting that aside which approach do you think had the better chance of success?
Did the last project, change or communication you were part of start with an open dialogue or a ready-made plan being “sold” to the audience? Did your last experience look like Approach A or Approach B?

WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

In his famous book Dale Carnegie suggested Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

1.      The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2.      Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say "You're Wrong."
3.      If you're wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4.      Begin in a friendly way.
5.      Start with questions to which the other person will answer yes.
6.      Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7.      Let the other person feel the idea is his or hers.
8.      Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9.      Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10.  Appeal to the nobler motives.
11.  Dramatize your ideas.
12.  Throw down a challenge.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie

The secret to being a successful leader if to have followers. You’ll only have followers if you are prepared to listen to them and help them achieve THEIR goals, rather than preach to them about YOUR goals.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ARGUMENT AND DIALOGUE

Argument is generally fuelled by passion, emotion and with a lot of heat. Dialogue is rather more calm, calculated, thoughtful. The former is often people shouting at each-other whereas the latter is often people listening to each-other. I would suggest the former will be a win/lose battle, whereas the latter has more chance of compromise, consensus, collaboration and community toward a win/win outcome.

What are the tell-tale signs of argument versus dialogue? Few people would wish to have their argument put in writing for fear that upon scrutiny the rhetoric will look impassioned but unreasonable. Think about what a bully might say, and how they might feel if their racism, sexism, ageism or other irrational bias is put on display. There are plenty of people shamed by their comments on facebook, twitter, phone calls or emails.

Whereas dialogue will generally have more logic and empathy when written, and is likely to be more considered and persuasive. So I’ll very often look at whether a meeting has a report, agenda, minutes, notes or follow-up to identify whether the objective was gathering information and view points or just a verbal jousting match with no outcome except the desire for a re-match.

Did the last project, change or communication you were part of resemble an emerging plan or a brooding battle?

BE CONSISTENT

The advantage in Approach A above is that it does allow you to develop a consensus and be consistent in your messages. Approach B will often require you to amend, change tack, review, revise and do all the things that suggest that you are inconsistent, unreliable, and potentially not to be trusted.

People follow Leaders who are consistent and stable, like a beacon showing the way. They are less inclined by someone who jumps around, changes story, and appears disorganized, ill prepared and unprofessional.

Did the last project, change or communication you were part of start small and steadily build into something credible or start big an dissolve into pieces upon its first challenges.

SUMMARY / CONCLUSION

1.      Have a plan: think ahead, about (hard) facts and figures, and (soft) thoughts and feelings
2.      Know your audience (their interests, bias, fears) and who or what influences them
3.      Be clear about your role, and their role: who plays what parts in this performance
4.      Plan what you say (substance),how you say it (style) and here you say it (location)
5.      Repeat the same message for consistency, tailored to each audience for their understanding
6.      Listen, watch and learn from feedback, if necessary revise, adapt and adopt changes
7.      Appeal to the majority, don’t try to convert the extreme
8.      Acknowledge and manage dissent, don’t deny, defend or denigrate opposition






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THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of www.ciChange.org and curator for www.TEDxStHelier.Com . He is Programme Manager for the commercialization of Jersey Harbours and Jersey Airport, and prevously Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest, and Project Manager for the Incorporation of Jersey Post. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower with a passion for teaching and learning and is a Tutor/Mentor on the Chartered Management Institute courses. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

Email: TimHJRogers@AdaptConsultingGroup.com
Mob: 07797762051 | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype timhjrogers