There’s a tremendous amount to manage before any project moves forward. The project team – including consultants, engineers, and contractors – has to be engaged. Legal filings, financing, regulatory compliance, and approvals and permits all must be in place.
But have you thought about the people who will be affected by the project: the community, its leaders, and its influencers? The success of the project often depends on clear and effective communication with the right people, in the right order. That can be the difference between a struggling project and a successful one.
Effective project communication incorporates every discipline – technical, legal, regulatory, etc. – to ensure what is said is both timely and factual. But community communication also requires a more nuanced approach.
I’ve learned from editors that words have meaning, and I’ve learned from lawyers that words can have consequences. Public communication balances clarity and perception to manage risk throughout the project.
Here are some tips on striking that balance:
Step One: Start with the basics. Building an apartment, remediating legacy contamination, testing for PFAS? It all starts with the basics. What are we trying to accomplish? What needs to happen and when? What regulatory steps must be taken? Then, ask: Who are the people we need to talk to, and who are the groups that may influence their decisions?
Step Two: Formulate the core messaging. This requires a team to gain different perspectives, including technical, legal, and business. The nuance between clarity and perspective requires an understanding of who will hear the message. An engineer on the project will have a knowledge base and a different language understanding than the retiree who lives next to the site.
Step Three: Identify the public spokesperson. This requires someone who is likeable, trustworthy, credible, and comfortable speaking with different members of the public no matter their technical understanding, while maintaining consistency of messaging. Don’t overlook this step: It’s easy for the public to mistrust a faceless entity. People need to see a person, build rapport, share their fears, and know their concerns are being heard.
Step Four: Plan your communications. Timeliness is as important as consistency. Delays work against you. Silence invites others to fill the vacuum. Anticipating questions and working out the answers in advance with your team ensures you stay on track. And giving the public a way to ask their questions through email, phone, or website helps to remove the walls separating the project from the people.
Step Five: Build credibility. Deliver on your promises and keep people informed if things change. No one trusts someone who can’t deliver on their promises or who reacts defensively. Credibility and trust are built one conversation at a time. Building a foundation of mutual trust takes time but is a necessary part of the process.
About the Author
John McKeegan is Vice President for H&G Public Affairs, a Slice Communications company. A former journalist, he has been working for more than 40 years on projects both big and small. Through strategic communications, crisis management planning and one-on-one discussions, he has helped clients to bridge the understanding between a project’s goals and the public’s expectations.