Chapter 17: Stakeholder Participation

Right off the bat, I was intrigued that the authors told us that the least effective form of stakeholder participation was the public forum/meeting (p. 333). I understand why they are used so often to measure public opinion: it’s easy and it makes the org. feel like action has been taken – even if the representation at the meetings is skewed.

It is reminiscent of organization’s dependency on clips for PR to show results. It doesn’t really prove anything or show that something actually got done, but it does show that something is happening. I agree completely with the theme of this chapter. An organization needs to really empower their stakeholders. You can’t expect to be respected by someone that doesn’t feel they respect you.

Throughout the chapter it was evident that both authors had worked numerous times with stakeholders. Just like you and I are people with things to do, it is important not to be wasting our stakeholders’ time with frilly pointless meetings. While this public may not be a vast public, the line must be drawn between the stakeholder’s time and what we talked about in our class on the 23^rd, which was if there is no new information, give educate them further.

I was impressed that the authors were able to compile such a large number suggestions that could obviously help organizations. They really sifted through the “Shouldn’t this be obvious?” box to come up with a number of practical suggestions that are often overlooked and absolutely need to be understood by an organization before attempting to reach out to stakeholders. It’s easy for an organization to ignore or forget to respect the publics they are attempting to reach.

The forgetfulness can be especially difficult in times of stress for the organization. Just like stress can affect the decision-making of a person. It seems to affect organizations as well and can be especially susceptible to become the greatest constraint to effectively solving anything as discussed in chapter four.

I noticed that the chapter focuses greatly on risk communication with stakeholders and did not really go into whether there is a special way to communicate with key stakeholders in times of crisis. How different is this? The most helpful sections of the chapter were pages 305-6, Table 17-1 (p. 329), and the checklists on pages 330-3. The inclusion of the different types of groups that an organization could expect to have shed new light on different ways of communicating risk.

This chapter reminded me of the issue my campaigns class was asked to address for GRU last semester. In this case it was low-income stakeholders in the utility that were in a state of crisis as a result of increased cost of fuel, home efficiency and a number of other environmental factors that caused their summer bills to skyrocket.

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061103/LOCAL/211030341&SearchID=73270250354780

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061109/EDITORIALS02/61109008&SearchID=73270250354780

The major players were GRU, the City of Gainesville, the ACTION Network (a group of local churches representing the low-income publics), and the low income publics. The forum took place in October of 2005. The public was hostile and their hostility was targeted primarily at GRU for high bills. GRU, the city, and the ACTION Network handled it, quite literally, by the book – this book.

This meeting mostly resembled a formal hearing. All the higher-ups from GRU were there, the Mayor Peggy Hanrahan spoke and a number of ACTION Network members were there to discuss what was being done to help the community. All three major players public signed a covenant to do act on the issue and keep it at the forefront of their agendas. Additionally, they publicly agreed to reconvene in April of 2007 to determine progress that has been made. Finally, there was a question answer portion in the forum, as well, where the public was invited to briefly address the three groups. GRU took this as an opportunity to continue discussing what could be done to make the home as efficient as possible and offered bags of tips and other useful tools for improving home efficiency, including a DVD and strips of insulation to be used for cracks in windows, doors, and wall outlets/switches.

After reading this chapter, I thought it to be an excellent example of including and respecting the opinions of the stakeholders, while at the same time educating them. They publicly committed to the task of improving the crisis at hand and even skeptics were somewhat quieted by this. If GRU and the city pulls through in April, a public that has felt largely ignored by both will have felt heard and their opinions considered.