Why your decision won’t stick

⚠ RANT ⚠

Companies. Governments. Service providers. Leaders.

If you have made a decision, a plea.

Do not:

📭 Print and hand deliver glossy postcards to your residents, staff or community, asking them to complete a survey to confirm your decision.

🗣 Invite people to come to meetings to share their views and ideas, record the ones that confirm your decision and shelve the rest.

If you want your people, your community, your customers to support the decision your organisation is considering—not made—give them a genuine say in it.

If people feel part of the decision-making process, they are more likely to support the final decision.

Here’s a few I’ve facilitated conversations about.

🤔 What do we need to do differently to make sure that the people who use our services have a say in them?

⚖ How do we balance financial priorities, investments, resources and community and customer expectations to shape the next decade for our city?

🤔 Should we change our name?

⚖ What’s needed for a better escalation of care system for hospital patients?

🤔 What needs to be in a personal action plan for people living with X disease?

⚖ What’s the right pace for us to return to surplus and repay our debt?

🤔 Should we partner with organisation X?

⚖ Does our strategy need a spring clean, a renovation or a complete rebuild?

🤔 Do we sell that building and boost out budget, or hold onto it?

⚖ How does a live music scene thrive alongside residents and businesses?

🤔 Are we the right organisation to continue delivering this mental health program?

🤔 How should we alloate our playground budget in our region?

⚖ What is important for our team to work on in the next quarter?

🤔 What can we change, or do, to improve our meetings?

Just a selection of the hundreds of decisions influenced (or not) by groups I’ve facilitated.

Let’s talk about the ‘or not’.

I’ve fielded a few calls of late from organisations who need to ‘revisit’ their decision because it is not sticking.

They say that they can’t get started. There’s resentment, passive resistance, outrage and even sabotage.

I go with my gut.

‘Who did you talk to about your decision?’

‘When? How?’

‘What influence did they have on the decision?’

‘What’s that? It was already made?’

‘How many workshops did you have again?’

‘Uh-huh.’

— — — — — — —

It feels like it’s time to resurrect the ‘anti-engagement spectrum’ from pre-pandemic 2018.

I created it after a fun chat with community engagement facilitators and practitioners.

It made it onto a t-shirt.

Don’t get too comfortable. The word ‘community’ doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.

✔ Staff are more likely to support a strategy if they’ve contributed to it.

✔ Teams want a say in their work plan.

✔ People who use health services know what will work for them.

✔ Students will use a library that they helped design.

It’s my bread and butter guiding groups to have productive conversations so that organisations can make constructive decisions that stick.

I’m happy to help organisations revisit any.

But try a little harder with the people affected by your decision the first time and you’ll save a lot of time, money and effort.

And keep the trust you’ve worked so hard to build.

— — — — — — —

What decisions are you working through right now? You’ll need to start planning now if you want to ask people what they think next month.

If you want to ask them in two weeks, give me a call now: 0438 013 115.

Thanks for reading this far.

Stay (fl)awesome!