How to stop the dog pooing on the carpet and other lessons I’ve learned from my wife

This blog is about the largest and most sophisticated public engagement I have ever managed. It was back in 2018, so not that long ago, and the stakeholders were 250 kids and their parents. That’s about 150 families in all.

OK, so that’s not exactly the world’s largest ever stakeholder group. And, yes, in case you’re wondering, it was the only public engagement I have ever managed.

The primary school my step-daughters attended had to consult publicly on what should be included in their three-year strategic plan. I won’t divulge the school, because . . . well, you’ll see at the end. Not everyone exactly covered themselves in glory.

But, let’s start at the beginning.

In theory, my wife ran it. The public consultation that is, not the school.

But in reality, when my wife adds something new in her life, like getting a dog or being appointed to the School Board, even though she insists she’ll do all the extra work that entails, somehow it never really works out that way.

Something about working full time and raising three kids, one with special needs, means that life always just seems to get too busy, and it’s easier on everyone if I just take the dog for a walk so it doesn’t poo on the carpet.

And, in the case of the school board, when she volunteered to run the public consultation on the strategic plan, it was just easier if I did it.

The Principal and everyone else on the board said that no one ever responded to questionnaires, so it wasn’t really worth the effort, and they should just do the strategic plan themselves.

But my wife — bless her — set out to prove them wrong. Everyone has a right to be heard. It is a point of principle for her. So, if she believes that everyone has a right to be heard, then I jolly well better make sure they’re heard.

So, I put together a process to consult. That’s what the International Association for Public Participation Australasia (2015) would call it too: “consult”.

Not that I was aware there was any other level, because, back in 2018, I didn’t know that e-engagement was a “thing”, that there were courses about it, or books, or values, or any of that stuff.

But now I think that the IAP2 categories of Involve, Collaborate, and Empower (International Association for Public Participation Australasia, 2015) are pretty awesome ideas. It’s just that — in this case — they wouldn’t have worked even if I had known about them. You’ll see what I mean later.

So, given that I didn’t know anything about e-engagement, let’s step through the IAP2 values (International Association for Public Participation Australasia, 2015) and see how I did.

1 Public participation is based on the belief that those who are affected by a decision have a right to be involved in the decision-making process.

Actually, that’s a big tick against the first of the values.

That was a big thing for my wife, which is why I was dragged into it in the first place.

Tally: 1 out of 1

2 Public participation includes the promise that the public’s contribution will influence the decision.

I can tick that one too. That was definitely my wife’s intention for the process, therefore it was mine as well.

And that’s why she got input from stakeholders before the plan was written, so that the opinions of the school community could influence the strategic plan.

Tally: 2 out of 2

3 Public participation promotes sustainable decisions by recognising and communicating the needs and interests of all participants, including decision makers.

And we can tick number three too. The engagement definitely recognised and communicated the needs and interests of all parents and the students. I can vouch for that, as I was the one that spent hours and hours trawling through the responses and the comments, looking for themes, and turning the results into a report.

The teachers could also provide their own feedback, but I’m not sure if any of them did. And the principal — well, he had direct input into the creation of the strategic plan, so we were less concerned about capturing his input in the consultation stage.

Tally: 3 out of 3

4 Public participation seeks out and facilitates the participation of those potentially affected by or interested in a decision.

Yup, that one too.

From a total of 150 families at the school, we had 73 responses from parents (64 online and 9 on paper). We even had the survey translated into Te Reo Maori courtesy of a bilingual board member, and we had a couple of responses in Te Reo.

And, at the school disco, we hunted down parents demanding to know if they had done the survey, and if not, thrust a paper form and a pen into their hands. (OK, maybe not that viciously, but we did encourage them if they hadn’t done it online).

And my wife got friendly with the school administrator, so she sent out constant reminders in the school newsletter and emailed links to the survey.

The kids were supposed to have the opportunity to give feedback through class, although it didn’t quite work out that way. The teachers were supposed to get all the kids to answer a simplified questionnaire. Some of the teachers were great about it. Others didn’t see the point.

And my wife interviewed the senior level kids as a group so they could provide anonymous feedback directly to her.

Tally: 4 out of 4

5 Public participation seeks input from participants in designing how they participate.

Yeah, not so much. Actually, not at all. Didn’t think of doing that. It’s actually quite a good idea.

Tally: 4 out of 5

6 Public participation provides participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way.

No, I didn’t provide them with any information.

In this particular case, I don’t think they needed it. They would have all the information they required through their own personal experiences, because that’s what we wanted to know about.

So, let me change my response to: “We provided them with all the information they needed that they didn’t have.” Is that good enough?

Tally: 5 out of 6 (or should that really be 4 out of 6?)

7 Public participation communicates to participants how their input affected the decision.

Ah, now this is where it all starts to fall apart.

The plan — at least, my wife’s plan — was that the contributions from the school community would form the basis of the strategic plan.

But it didn’t turn out that way.

The Principal was quite happy with the positive things that people said about the school, but he didn’t want to accept to any ideas that weren’t his own, and he absolutely refused to listen to any criticisms of him, the school, or the teachers.

And none of the board — except my wife — were prepared to stand up to him about it, and not even my wife was able to get him to listen.

So, in the end, the whole thing was a great big colossal waste of time.

Tally: Fail

My Big Fat Learning

The lesson I took from this is just how important the decision makers are in having the courage to let go, to be open to feedback (both positive and negative), and to really listen.

A friend of mine once told me that teachers are notoriously bad at accepting feedback. They’re so used to being the top dog in their own classroom, they don’t take kindly to someone suggesting that things could be done better. And maybe Principals are just teachers with a larger domain.

But, to be fair to teachers (and Principals), I think that’s actually just the nature of being human. It takes a lot of courage to make yourself vulnerable to hear that there’s a better way to do things, and many of us aren’t good at doing that.

But unless decision-makers are prepared to do that, to really listen, it doesn’t matter how well-run the engagement is, or how well it follows the IAP2 processes and values, it won’t have any impact.

I’ve come to this point last because it was last step in my process. But I think it really comes first. The first step is to ensure that the decision makers — and anyone else who has power over the process and the outcomes — has a genuine desire to hear from their stakeholders and to act on what they hear.

Without that, there’s no point even starting.

References

International Association for Public Participation Australasia, (2015), IAP2 Quality Assurance Standard for Community and Stakeholder Consultation. IAP2 Australasia. Retrieved from https://www.iap2.org.au/resources/quality-assurance-standard/