In this first blog I’ll disclose some things about me within some thoughts about communications and hopefully do it in a way that informs, provokes and holds your interest.

You could assume all sorts of things about me based on my demographic profile alone…
X Generation, middle class, private school educated , female and the third child in a conservative family. But if I told you that I’m left-wing, an environmentalist who participates in climate rallies, parachutes from planes and swims with turtles, you’ll make a whole other set of assumptions about my life.

But would you know how to engage with me and get my support with an idea or project you want to get underway? Will I support or reject the recreational tourism project up the road, will I protest against the toxic waste dump 50 km away? You really won’t know until you actively engage with me.

The point is this … by effectively engaging with people on their terms, listening to and assessing their opinions and understandings in relation to your mission, project or idea, you get strategically useful information.

Engagement accesses information relevant to your mission.

As a communicator I explore people’s motivations, their opinions, understandings or disposition to ‘things’ – a cause, issue, organisation, or project. By building relationships and influence, the outcomes reliant on people’s opinions, understandings and behaviour can be enhanced or adapted in ways that generate mutual benefit and progress an organisational, program or project mission.

We all feel more in control and less anxious when we believe we can predict other people’s behaviour and know where we stand with them.Effective stakeholder consultation and engagement enables mutual information exchange which informs the communications strategies we develop – why we use the tactics we do, when we do, and with whom. It reduces the risk of embarking on a mission which relies on building positive relationships and working effectively with people to get their involvement and support for its ambitions. We better understand where we stand with them.

Does age really impact strategy?

Generational theorists argue that shared life experiences generate shared assumptions, attitudes, and beliefs, and even cohesive ‘group identity’. Such theories assert that values and behaviours forged in youth endure as generational traits and even work patterns.

Ascribing identities to whole generations certainly reduces the complexity of real life human diversity by creating discrete and more predictable marketing targets so that information, ideas and ‘stuff’ can be packaged, sold and consumed accordingly. However, ‘ageism’ is a system of stereotypes, policies, norms, and behaviours that discriminate against, restrict, and dehumanize people because of the assumptions we make about them based on their age which blind us to real variation in individual existence and need.

The reality is that engagement preferences, information –seeking behaviour, internet literacy and access and social media activity differ markedly across generations. Social media communities are good places to engage with stakeholder information, but as small government and many businesses confine their previously printed or phone communicated information to websites (with huge cost savings compared to having person-to-person engagement), the reach and efficacy of online communication and engagement is being questioned.

By adopting ‘one size fits all’ approaches to engagement which don’t account for variation in access, need and preference, we indirectly discriminate against those who obtain information differently or are ‘hard to reach’.
They’re excluded and their voices unheard.

Age, income, internet access, literacy and user preference are factors which exclude many people from engaging online. Older people told Council On The Ageing (COTA Magazine, Feb–March 2016) they preferred face-to-face communication as it enabled meaning-making exchange, explanations and professional-level advice.

Authentic and inclusive engagement creates genuinely shared understandings between you and your stakeholders.

Engage with diversity … people of all generations may influence your mission.

By practicing communications in different communities and cultures I’ve learned to work with diversity – including diversity in the availability and access to traditional and online communications media.Effective engagement gathers relevant, strategically-useful information through inclusive processes. This means considering your stakeholder’s communication preferences and access to media when establishing the terms of engagement. Amongst other factors, stakeholder age can determine the mix of human to human, traditional and digital communications media engagement tactics you need to deploy to ensure those impacted by your mission are included.

Customized, stakeholder-focused approaches to engagement link your organisation, program or project and its stakeholders through genuine relationships and understanding as determined by your unique mission and strategic plan or project objectives. A strategic engagement plan creates purposeful interaction with all those who enable it to reach strategic goals – it’s not a ‘one size fits all’ template, nor does it use one dominant medium to reach all stakeholders.

Don’t assume but do consider…

When seeking engagement with the people who could help or hinder your progress, making assumptions and using ‘one size fits most’ engagement approaches is risky. Effective, authentic engagement uses wholly-inclusive tactics to reach the diversity of those people impacted by your mission.

…engage with age.

ADAPT Strategic Communications builds strategies’ to sustain stakeholder engagement and achieve measurable objectives using effective, ongoing, open and authentic communication tactics and collaboration processes.
Nicola Wright is a communications professional who works with projects, programs, and organisations committed to creating social and environmental value.

Find her on www.adaptstrategic.com.au