Originally published 2 December 2021. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
No matter how brilliant your Consultation Plan is, your updated stakeholder map and your choice of creative dialogue channels, your Consultation may run into trouble if the rest of your organisation is not fully on board.
A recent tCI survey of our members came up with a range of comments about the risks being generated by lack of understanding and support. For example, respondents reported: ’need more internal buy-in’, ‘other teams seem to view our Consultations as a hassle or a delay’, ’senior management must gain a better understanding of the legal framework and timescales involved, which are driving our Consultation processes’.
So, how shall we improve our collective understanding of best practice Consultation across an organisation?
Here are five ideas:
- 'Managing up' is a useful transferable skill from management training that involves addressing gaps in awareness and setting up appropriate support from your manager to fulfil the process adequately;
- The Carrot of good Consultation is a powerful motivator: better decisions, enhanced engagement, early warning of emerging challenges, more effective implementation of the eventual decision, improved community confidence are all realisable outcomes;
- The Stick of challenges to your organisation from the media, politicians or the Ombudsman, up to the ultimate pressure of a judicial review can offer robust incentives to get it right;
- Continual Communications represent a pre-requisite for building wide understanding; that’s just as true internally as you inform, empower and entice or nudge colleagues to row in behind your objectives, surely theirs too; comms not to sell the line or secure a result, but to enliven the Consultation and drive participation;
- Exponential gains can be won by excellent Consultation over time; smart organisations understand this and strive to improve their Consultation and Engagement exercises; the big prize is enhancement of participative democracy, perfectly complementing the foundation stone of our electoral democracy.
tCI members frequently react to their own organisations’ sometimes imperfect understanding of their Consultation role; a recent survey produced some salty commentary on some management teams: ‘our clinicians are so highly trained in their specialism they think they know the answer to the Consultation!’, ‘we are constantly persuading others that our discipline is as important as theirs’, ‘we’re always trying to embed the principles of good engagement across the organisation, but they try to push it back to us’.
What is to be done?
One of the key tasks is to win support for your work across your colleagues - this necessitates robust message discipline (what’s in it for them?), clear narratives and positive outcomes for which you can jointly strive. Explain what you’re doing and why - ask how you can help them, offer ideas of how you can add value together!