Listen up! But only if you want to govern well

If you want to get your controversial projects implemented, or bring a community together, make sure you're listening effectively

Howdy! I’m Will Hampton and this is my weekly newsletter showcasing local government done right. If you’re receiving this, it’s because you’re a subscriber or someone referred you to Good Government Files.

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We’ve been talking about Listening the last couple of weeks, and the series continues today with an exposition on why you need to have a well-thought-out approach to public meetings, followed by a great example of listening done right. The first post in the series established we don't do nearly as good a job of listening as we do creating content, and last week we did a deep dive on surveys. 

So, why do any listening at all? Because you need to get your important, problem-solving projects and programs implemented. Solving a problem on paper isn't enough. You need to by-God solve them, i.e., get your sound, reasonable solutions built and operational. That requires public support, and that necessitates meaningful engagement with citizens.

Everything I know about citizen participation I learned from Bleiker Training (as noted in an earlier GGF post on budget engagement.) If you want to get good — and I mean really, really good, like totally kick ass good — at engaging the public, you need to sign up for their training. In my two-plus decades of experience, no one understands the why and how of effective citizen engagement better than Hans, Annemarie and Jennifer Bleiker, which is why the last post in this series will shine a light on their superlative process and philosophy. Every big, hairy, controversial project we undertook at the City of Round Rock, Texas — from regional water projects to animal control ordinance revisions to minor league baseball stadiums to transportation master plans — utilized their approach to engaging the public and resulted in the project being implemented. Every. Single. Time.

To give you a feel for how they think about engagement, I’ll share a handful of what, to me, are the top 5 most helpful Citizen Participation Principles, which can found in their Citizen Participation Handbook.

1. It is virtually impossible to solve big and/or complex problems without having adverse effects on at least some interests.

2. If members of the public perceive the decision making process to be fair, they will go along with a solution even if they are adversely impacted by it.

3. Professionals do not have a monopoly on coming up with good solutions to problems.

4. If the project staff does not readily provide all of the information that is relevant to the project, the public learns to rely on other sources for project-related information — and to trust others.

5. Professionals working in the public arena today are not given much presumption of professional expertise. Their recommendations are not accepted on faith. They have to prove why the course of action they recommend is the best course of action. Today, everybody is his own "expert."

© Bleiker Training | consentbuilding.com

Regarding Nos. 1 and 2, you need to reminder yourself — and your elected leaders— that it is inevitable that your big, hairy project is going to cause someone some pain. That said, if the engagement process is fair, i.e., you are listening well, those folks for whom the pain cometh will go along with your project. They may not like it, but they won’t keep fighting you over it. That’s the power of a well-thought-out and executed citizen participation process.

Regarding No. 3, it’s important to remember those closest to the problem you are trying to solve often have information you do not have, and thus might have insights in potential solutions you have not thought of.

No. 4 is all about courage. You need to share the potential negative impacts of your project just as readily as you share the positive impacts. If there’s any “bad news” about the project, the public needs to learn about it from you first. If you let others bring it up, you diminish your credibility. And it’s a Good Government Truism your ability to govern effectively is based in large part on your credibility. People must be able to trust you.

That last sentence in No. 5, about everybody being their own expert, is from the workbook I got in 1998, when I took the Bleikers’ introductory course. Needless to say, that dilemma has intensified in the ensuring years, but only in a huge way. Be ready to show your homework, early and often.

Plano’s Listening Tour

Let’s look at an example of what I believe is an exemplary listening project. In this case, the City of Plano, Texas, wasn’t looking just to build informed consent on a specific proposal or program. It was also looking to bring the community back together.

The short term goal of Plano’s month-long Listening Tour was to solicit input for the City Council as it worked to update its strategic vision for the community. The overarching goal was to heal wounds that remained from a couple of controversial land use projects that occurred a few years earlier that divided the community.

For those of you not familiar with the City of Plano, it has long had a reputation for being on the cutting edge of innovation. Its tagline is City of Excellence, and that’s a legit brand statement. They do a lot of things right in Plano, IMO, and the Listening Tour is one more in a long line of proof points. Full disclosure: I worked as a facilitator for some of the meetings as part of my consulting gig with Strategic Government Resources.

I can’t describe the process any better than what the City has on its website: “The Listening Tour was similar to a focus group. Over 20 in-person and virtual sessions were held throughout the month of February 2022. The sessions were led by an experienced facilitator, who took the group through a focused discussion on community-wide topics. Each session covered the same topics. Residents enjoyed intentional time together, exchanging ideas in a community conversation about its future direction, with City officials listening and hearing too.”

There is a lot to love about Plano’s approach. Here are my takeaways:

• The meetings were held at community facilities in all sectors of town, from churches to recreation centers to schools. They also did virtual meetings on Zoom. Key point: They didn’t make folks come to City Hall. They met residents where it was convenient for residents. You need to care enough to go to where the people are; don’t always make them come to you. Does that make for more work for city staff. Yep. And it’s absolutely worth it.

• There was no speechifying by elected officials (or staff), other than a quick welcome. They then turned the meeting over to the facilitator, sat in the back of the room, and listened. Period. They did not engage during the meetings. They were there to just listen. They were not the focus of the meeting. Residents were. And that was powerful.

• Facilitators would introduce the questions, which residents would discuss in small groups. Then the groups would report out what was discussed. The facilitator would use a flip chart to summarize the key points. So folks could literally see they had been listened to, in real time. And that was powerful.

• It was clear to attendees what would be done with their input. At the beginning of the meeting and at the end, facilitators would explain the input would be summarized and reported to the City Council, which would then use the input as it crafted an updated vision for the city at its annual retreat that summer. This last point is a fundamental of citizen engagement done right: Let folks know where their input fits in the overall process.

Here were the nine questions asked at each meeting.

1. What Do You Love the Most About Plano?

2. What Are Some Things About Our Community We Hope Never Change?

3. What Are Some Things We Could Do Better?

4. What Kind of Reputation Do We Want to Have as a Community? What Can We Do to Earn/ Enhance It?

5. What Are Some of the Pressing Needs of the Community That We Should Address?

6. How Can We Set the Kind of Example That Will Inspire Others to Work With Us for the Good of the Community?

7. What Are Some Things Hindering Us from Working Together More Effectively?

8. Ten Years from Now, What Would We Like Our Community to Be or Have that We Don’t Right Now?

9. What Words Describe Your Hopes for Plano?

The first and last questions were answered via Mentimeter, which allows attendees to respond to questions in an app or via text message. It immediately provides a word cloud of the responses. Here are the combined responses to the first question.

Here’s the word cloud from the last question.

So the meetings began and ended on upbeat notes, which was a great way to bring folks together — again, that was the big picture goal of the Listening Tour. It also was a reminder that we tend to agree on more things than we disagree on. But they weren’t all softball questions. Just look at question 3. “What are some things we could do better?” Trust me, folks weren’t shy about answering that one at the meetings I facilitated. But it didn’t turn into rant fest. Everyone remained respectful, even when there was criticism of the City.

What was really cool to me, once the tour was over, was seeing the most popular answer to question 6, which was about what the city could do to “set the kind of example that will inspire others to work with us for the good of the community?” The answer was, more sessions like this! More public engagement. More listening.

And, sure enough, being the City of Excellence, Plano has done just that. Shannah Hayley, the City’s outstanding comms chief I introduced to GGF readers in this post, shared the deets.

“Post-listening tour, we launched a series of roundtables to listen more,” Shannah said. “Our Neighborhood Services team held an extensive series of roundtable sessions with various community groups to gather input/feedback on critical needs and potential opportunities.”

But wait, there’s more!

“Mark Israelson, City Manager, asked our team to expand our long-standing Neighborhood Leadership meeting from its base attendance of HOAs/Neighborhood Associations/Crime Watch Groups to include community partners, including non-profits, faith groups and our business chambers of commerce,” she said. “We held our first “Community Leadership Meeting” last month to start conversations. We had a series of questions, asked by facilitators at each roundtable. We’ve evaluating what we heard to determine next steps.”

Here’s the full report on the Listening Tour, as well as a video of the results being presented to the Plano City Council.

Next week, we’ll showcase another compelling story of listening done right. This one focuses on what happens when you commit to treat residents with respect and bring multiple resources to bear to improve lives in a low-income neighborhood.