Deliberative engagement aims to build trusted decisions. That’s only achievable if the people impacted by the outcome have access to information about the process.

This isn’t as easy as telling your communication team to send out a media release or publishing a few social posts telling your community the panel or jury is happening.

Your communication approach needs to be thoughtfully planned, aligning communication and engagement efforts and ensuring deliberative principles aren’t compromised.

WHY IS COMMUNICATING WELL SO CRUCIAL?

Your communication approach matters. Here’s just a few examples of why.

The whole point of deliberation can be lost if your communication approach is ineffective. For example, people will only feel represented if they know they’re being represented and transparency can only be achieved if you’re actively telling people what’s going on.

Awareness helps you to achieve a high response rate to the EOI for the panel or jury. The bigger the ‘pool’ of people responding to this invitation, the more likely your deliberating group will be diverse and representative (more closely meeting demographic targets).

Deliberation is often undertaken around difficult problems that may have communities and decision-makers ‘stuck’. There can be sensitive issues, emotions and a lack of trust at play. That means the way you talk about the engagement process and what information is shared when, is important.

Where deliberation is principled and done well, there’s also a positive story to be told. If decision makers are offering real influence through a process with integrity and actively doing decision-making differently, that’s something your community, staff, customers (or whatever group is impacted) might want to know about.

COMMUNICATION FOR DELIBERATION - DOS AND DON’TS

Communicating for deliberative engagement can feel a little different to the day-to-day communications undertaken by most organisations. Here are some examples of key do’s and don’ts to get you started.

do co-design early with your communication team

We often see communication teams brought in too late in the planning process. Ideally, co-design a communication plan with this team during the engagement planning phase. The communication strategy must align with deliberative principles and key milestones of the engagement delivery.

Communication teams are almost always dealing with multiple competing demands and may be having to react to day-to-day issues. They need time to resource themselves properly and to do this they need to be brought into your planning process early so they can understand the breadth of what is needed, and the complexity of what is being communicated.

don’t wait for issues to arise later

One of the keys to success is agreeing on protocols as to how you will work together. Don’t leave it until the delivery phase to have the hard conversations you need about tricky issues such as roles, approvals and expectations.

Simple steps that are normal for a deliberative process such as the expectation that you will immediately publish the deliberating group’s report, can seem different to normal business-as-usual practices for your communications team.

do be brave and open

When you’re building trust and upholding transparency, it’s essential that you’re brave in the way you communicate with your community.

This means you will be encouraging conversations around dilemmas, sharing the problem and inviting multiple perspectives. It can also mean acknowledging past missteps or challenging conversations with your community - particularly where historical mistrust is present.

Essential to the whole process is also sharing information openly - often more information than the organisation usually gives the community access to.

don’t take on a promotional tone

Avoid anything that sounds self-congratulatory, promotional or like you’re ‘selling’ something. And if you are trying to (or even being perceived as trying to) influence the outcome, you’ve gone the wrong way (turn back!).

Communication needs to take on a more genuine, story-telling tone where you transparently and factually document the process.

While it’s important to have your decision-makers speak about the process, it’s also advisable to share participant perspectives where possible and ensure the community is acknowledged as your valued partner.

do develop visual, engaging and accessible content

Deliberative processes are inclusive. That means everyone impacted needs to be able to access and understand information about the process.

Consider content that explains complex parts of the process or information visually, use multiple channels to reach diverse groups and make everything as accessible as possible.

don’t set and forget

Be responsive to community questions and requests for information and continually review your messages and activities. You need to flex your approach around the needs of your audiences, and ensure you are getting back to people as quickly as possible.

This process is about bringing your community closer to your organisation and decision-makers - don’t make them feel ignored or shut out by poor comms!

WANT TO CODESIGN A COMMS PLAN THAT SUPPORTS YOUR ENGAGEMENT?

We design deliberative processes that are principled, best practice and achieve positive impact for organisations and their communities.

In the planning phase, we facilitate codesign sessions with project teams, decision makers and sometimes stakeholders, which help build a clear, strategic engagement framework.

The codesign process can be further enhanced through delivery of a strategic communication planning workshop, which will help you to build a communication approach that aligns with and supports your engagement process.

WANT MORE?

Interested in deliberative practice? We have resources for organisations and engagement professionals at every stage of the deliberation journey.

From a simple deliberation ready test through to a local government deliberation guide and our book Facilitating Deliberating - A Practical Guide, we are here to support you to enhance your practice and help you to do decision-making differently.

Plus we have a huge range of videos, downloads and publications - and they almost all FREE! Hooray. A great place to start is a deliberative democracy resource hub.

LEARN WITH US

We can build your capacity for deliberative engagement, including getting your team deliberation ready. Get in touch to discuss your upcoming projects and skills gaps, and we can help you to prepare for a successful process.