Let's assume that when government consults that they intend to find out what is going on and how to make it better. This is not always the correct assumption but let's give people the benefit of the doubt.
Remember that the key to getting the best answers is to work very hard at finding the best questions.
The key to finding the best questions is to find the best context.The way of finding the best context is to find it as a group. No one of us is smart enough to know how best to work through complex problems.
OK so what does this mean in practice Rob - get real will you! All right, let me put some flesh on these two points with a case study:
At the end of 2005 NPR could see that the business model for public radio was in jeopardy. Until the advent of the web it was simply this. In each community was a local station. It had a protected area and a protected place on the dial. It bought a special product, programs, from central producers such as NPR that could only be heard in their locale on their terms. The stations then went out to their listeners who had no alternative and asked them to contribute because if they did not, they would lose their program.
Everyone in public radio could see that as the web grow more powerful that all the assumptions behind this model would collapse. At some time in the future all the good content would be available any time and any place on the web. The local monopoly on region and dial would be lost and hence the economics.
How might this play out? What time did the system have? Would NPR cut and run and go direct leaving the stations to rot? What could be done?
Fear was rampant. No one trusted NPR. NPR thought it ought to support the stations but did not know in 2005 whether this was only a good intention or a reality. Small stations did not trust large one. Other producers did not trust NPR of other producers.
So what to do? Typically a government consultation process would have gone around the country and heard all the points of view and tried to make sense of it or worse tried to find a compromise. The result would have been that all the fears and local positions would have become entrenched and the system would have splintered. See how this can happen with say beef and hog producers? See how this is happening with Child Care Providers!
Instead a very different process was undertaken. A process whose intent was to bring the system together while it discerned what was true rather than fight over position.
NPR instead designed a process that would enable over 1,000 people in the system from the 300 stations, other producers and over 300 of their own staff to explore the underlying trends that affected them all.
Meeting in small groups all over the US, everyone explored from multiple perspectives all the forces that were confronting them. Then they all worked again to define what might be the 2-3 best ways of getting out of trouble and finding a new way of being. Out of all these meetings, a pattern emerged. Not a compromise, a pattern. Not a consensus but an agreement! Over 1,000 people developed a common view of their world and a common set of principles for how best to then deal with it. They knew that these were right because in separate meetings without prior knowledge, the same patterns kept re-appearing.
How did we do this? We set up a game. People love games and people give up their office persona in games. People learn from games. Games are fun! If you care to know in detail what we did this link will tell you.
This is a process called "emergence". Emergence is when the same pattern appears all the time. It is not based on negotiation but on common experience. It can therefore be trusted. As a result, NPR learned that its best interests were not to cut and to run but to work with the system. Most stations could see that this was no longer a "position" but a fact. Here is a comment in the Pub Radio Trade Magazine the Current made just as the process was ending:
The end of NPR’s New Realities planning project is in sight, which
must come as a relief to the network brass who have crisscrossed the
country for months, talking with hundreds of constituents about the
future of public radio.
Participants say New Realities ranks
among public radio’s most ambitious and inclusive strategic planning
exercises — focused, productive and well-organized.
By the
end of April, NPR will have held six two-day meetings, each with 30 to
60 station leaders and other stakeholders, to consider the future of
media and how NPR and public radio stations will fit into the lives of
listeners. They have often ended up in close agreement about their
mission, says Dana Davis Rehm, NPR’s v.p. of member and station
services and a leader of the New Realities process.
Trust is much better - not perfection - but much better and a schism was avoided. A common language has evolved. Alliances have formed - work is getting done - lessons are being shared.
So from my own experience of facilitating this very large process - what would I do if I was responsible for helping the government do the best job possible for our young children as they look at the Child Care Facilities Act?
Context is everything - you can't start with a solution - you have to discover the system and the forces in play. You cant tell people what this is - they have to have a process that enables them to talk it through so that they "discover it".
You have to find the best questions - best being questions that open up the perspectives not close them down
You have to design for allowing the truth to emerge naturally rather than to force an answer.
Think of what might happen if we approached our challenges in Agriculture this way? Or what about the Child Care Facilities Act?
If we went down this road we could take the fear and the position out of the process and find ways of helping us all.
But as long as we stay on the surface, as long as we pit one interest against another, we will have a mess.
Here is what we did in detail - as you read this - imagine your issue being dealt with like this
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