How Well do Organisations Listen to Their Stakeholders.........?

.........I said, how well do.....oh never mind. If I'm like most organisations I'm probably not really listening to your response anyway.

I say this having read a great new report by Jim Macnamara (Prof of Public Communication at the University of Technology, Sydney), which provides some solid evidence that most institutions, whether government, corporate, not-for-profit or non-government, do pretty badly at listening to their stakeholders. 
The Prof finds that organisations "extensively talk the talk of two-way communication, engagement, dialogue, conversation, collaboration and relationships with their stakeholders". Yet his research shows that public communication is "overwhelmingly comprised of organisational speaking (his emphasis) to disseminate organisations' messages". 

In fact, Macnamara finds that on average 80% of organisational resources committed to public communication are focussed on distributing the organisational message. For some it is as much as 95% and the best case is 60%.
Interestingly, the study finds that even when organisations do invest in listening they mostly do it for "instrumental organisation-centric purposes - that is, to solve particular practical problems and serve the interests of the organisation". A bit like asking people to 'have your say on our draft plan for a new water treatment plant'. In this case the organisation has essentially done the work and made up its mind and is now seeking to check in with stakeholders, perhaps to tick a consultation box or to make sure they haven't missed anything critical (which they don't think they have). Despite being framed as 'listening' the communication is much more focussed on the needs of the organisation than of the stakeholder.

As someone who helps organisations collaborate with stakeholders on complex mutual dilemmas, I find this data disturbing, particularly as every company and government department appears to pride itself on its 'engagement with the customer'. Listening is so important for any collaborative effort. Many organisations say they want to work with their stakeholders, yet if they they invest most of their resources in telling, how is collaboration possible?

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by these findings. We all find it easier to educate 'them' than to listen hard with the expectation of learning something or even having our assumptions challenged. 

A common way in which organisations attempt to listen to stakeholders is to buy in a technical tool or some sort of communication solution. But Macnamara concludes that organisational listening can't be improved quite so simply. Real listening to stakeholders doesn't come from a technology but, as the Prof writes,  "from what can be described as an architecture of listening". What does that mean? There are, according to Macnamara, eight key elements:

1. A culture of listening
2. Policies for listening
3. Addressing the politics of listening
4. Structures and processes for listening
5. Technologies for listening
6. Resources for listening
7. Skills for listening
8. Articulation of listening to decision-making and policy-making.

That list makes sense to me and gels with my experience. In particular, I find the culture of listening to be essential. In my work, an organisation that seeks to collaborate with stakeholders must support that intention with a collaborative culture. I wrote in my last blog about the barriers to collaboration. The third and toughest is the ability to think and act like a collaborator. It isn't easy to do, which is why genuine collaboration remains an aspiration for many, rather than a reality.

I found this report very interesting and like the way it provides hard data that matches the experiences many of us have in this field. if you are interested in how you are communicating with your stakeholders I recommend you take a look.