Originally published 9 January 2015. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
Picture the scene!
We spend a couple of days in a restored thirteenth century barn that’s now part of a hotel in Bedford. Assembled are almost twenty of the Institute’s Associates for an annual update in our New Year Conference – an important opportunity to consider recent developments and the ever-changing world of public engagement. (That’s literally true – our Chair, Quintin Oliver is recently back from Beijing!)
The Agenda included a properly-organised role-playing exercise. It was used to help us all learn how best to deliver Consultation Risk Assessments for Institute clients.
These Workshops are relevant for a wide range of organisations, but in this instance, we chose an NHS scenario, specifically the potential closure of a Walk-In centre. Our Associates did their best to play the parts of GPs, Hospital Consultants, Nursing officers, Managers, local Councillors and even patients. Together they worked through our methodology for evaluating the risks inherent in a forthcoming consultation. It worked pretty well, but of course, it is a simulation, and the aim is to learn how to consider different types of information and make reasonable judgements.
So when can role-playing be helpful to those who run or manage a consultation?
Here are three situations where it may be a useful technique
Stakeholder Identification and Consultation Planning
It is one thing to guess who may be relevant to any dialogue. But it’s another to imagine what will be in the stakeholders’ minds. Role-playing lets us make intelligent guesses – opportunities to imagine what might be important to those who may be impacted. Of course in some ways it’s an impertinence, for how can any of us truly understand the views and preferences of organisations and individuals we may not know? But it’s very therapeutic. There’s an old phrase that many have heard that says “Never judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes.” When planning a consultation, we need to anticipate those with whom we may need to engage – and select the most appropriate dialogue methods. Role-playing can be a valuable exercise and a real opportunity to figure out who may need what… and how to afford it.
Options development and preparing Consultation narratives
The whole trend towards co-production is a form of role-playing. Essentially we are inviting customers, service users and others to play at being Managers and to help re-design products and services. Elsewhere, some organisations have found through experience that it’s best to build a culture of internal challenge. It means setting up two or more teams to examine the most difficult or contentious issues, and to study the different approaches taken. In a military context, we have heard of the idea of ‘Red Team/Blue team’ and for some of the biggest, more far reaching consultations, we are beginning to see the concept applied to the trickiest issues. Another variant is to set up a ‘Challenge Group’ – maybe to role-play potential recipients of a consultation narrative or to anticipate the response of stakeholders.
Training and Skills development
No amount of theory can teach people how to take difficult decisions and have to take account of the detailed circumstances that surround them. Hence the popularity of management games, which the Consultation Institute has offered through its Masterclasses for ten years or more. By encouraging course participants to forget about their own jobs – if only for a day, it is possible to lure them into another world and to another persona. Those who have attended one of the ‘Bloombridge’ courses have had to role play a consultancy firm advising on a major housing development. In the new Masterclass on local authority Budget consultations this Spring, attendees will have the task of devising how to engage citizens on their least favourite subjects – money or budgets! We look forward to encouraging Councillors to role-play the jobs of Council officers, and for the officers to stand in the shoes of elected members!
All these exercises are about understanding perspectives other than our own. Nothing could be more important for those involved in public engagement, for that essentially is its core challenge. To listen well, we have to understand the journeys that our fellow-citizens have travelled, and find ways to hold a dialogue with them. In a world of visible intolerance, that ability to engage and empathise becomes even more critical, and in a democracy, an essential safety-valve that helps produce reasonable decisions and defensible choices.
TRIGGER POINTS
- What scope have you in your organisation to use role-playing? Would it be helpful?
- Why not consider setting up a ‘Challenge Group’ the next time you have to prepare a Consultation Paper on a contentious subject?
- Many of the Institute’s Associates are available for Quality Assurance and Risk Assessment assignments; details are on the website and availability can be discussed with the Institute.
- Try out a bit of role-playing by attending one of the Institute’s Masterclasses! Consultation Before & After is about a housing development. Managing & Measuring Public engagement is about problem solving once a new community becomes established. And the latest Masterclass builds on the first two and is called Engaging on Public Service Budgets. For dates and venues, contact Catherine Summers on 01767 318350.
This is the 271st Tuesday Topic; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement.