Is your engagement consistent or intense?

Long-term projects with multiple opportunities for members of the public to contribute to many decision points are often held up as the crown jewels of the public engagement practice. These intense initiatives are touted as demonstrating great depth and breadth of participation and influence. They are usually high-profile and with a large impact on the community so public engagement is kind of a given. They are the ‘sexy’ public engagement projects.

The challenge is that these projects can foster inconsistency. There is so much time and energy put into the ‘big’ engagements that we sacrifice the capacity and commitment to practice consistent engagement. And, as Rachel Botsman suggests, consistency is what helps build trust, a relational factor that is dwindling between citizens and their governments[1].

If our engagement capacity, commitment and expectations are centred on intense involvement of the public, we risk the ability to capitalize on some of the important elements of trust building that consistent engagement can help mediate[2].  These include[3]:

Competence:              demonstrated knowledge and skill to carry out engagement consistently

Integrity:                     sticking to a set of engagement principles

Benevolence:              the willingness to consistently act in service to others

Responsiveness:        demonstrated consistency in listening to and considering ideas and concerns

Transparency:             more opportunities to demonstrate openness

Botsman suggests, it is small, consistent actions that help build trust. When you look at your public engagement policy, does it account for consistent engagement or does it lean towards involving the public in big, intense projects? If it’s the later, don’t underestimate the power of the smaller initiatives. As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits put it, “Intensity makes a good story. Consistency makes progress.”

[1] Proof CanTrust Index 2018 – 2021

[2] Yang, K. (2006). Trust And Citizen Involvement Decisions: Trust in Citizens, Trust in Institutions, and Propensity to Trust. Administration & Society, Vol. 38 No. 5, P. 573-595.

[3] Ouattara, E., Steenvoorden, E., van der Meer, T. (2020) Political Trust as a Norm-Based Evaluation? A two-wave vignette experiment on norms of trustworthiness as an essential precondition of the evaluative model of political trust. Working Paper. University of Amsterdam, University of South Hampton, Harvard Kennedy School and Economic & Social Research Council.