What Have You Heard from your Stakeholders Lately?

Among others, district administrators, board members, teachers, staff, parents, students, and community and taxpayer groups all represent important voices to be heard as planning processes evolve.  Often, external stakeholders have little understanding of (or desire to understand) budget deficits or hard decisions that must be made.  Also, people tend to be oriented to specific issues rather than about the system as a whole.  A debate can quickly become about protecting “my issue” or “my school.”  Supporters show their support by remaining quiet, but districts need them to be organized and vocal. As districts reengage diverse groups of stakeholders to seek input regarding priorities, several key questions should be addressed:

• What are the attitudes around the options for solving the budget deficit?
• What role is the stakeholder willing to play to support the district in the previous question?
• What operating priorities can be identified that would translate into revised communications (for example, breadth or depth of how student achievement is viewed)?
• What specific issues is the stakeholder most engaged by?

Where are the opportunities to engage supporters proactively to get them more educated and engaged (including such groups as the business community, civic organizations, other municipal government leaders)?

In turn, all key stakeholder groups need to be appropriately informed about ongoing district decision making to build awareness and buy-in regarding key decisions.  Messages need to be coordinated and reinforced, and conflicting agendas need to be taken into consideration for an effective communications strategy.  Stakeholder groups have varying perspectives and concerns and will respond differently to key messaging.  Key questions to address regarding messaging should include:

• What messages resonate with key stakeholder groups?
• How should messaging vary by stakeholder group?
• What channels can be used to most effectively deliver key messages?
• When and how often should FCPS reach out to key stakeholders?

What District Leaders Can Do

How should districts go about this type of research and communications activity?  Often, organizations will conduct broad surveys to measure overall satisfaction of a diverse group of stakeholders.  Unfortunately, satisfaction studies are often designed to affirm current management practices and strategies rather than unearth opportunities to better serve stakeholders.  DMC recommends evaluating stakeholder input through a dedicated audit process.  Communications audit research should be designed to seek out actionable information about what to do differently.

DMC recommends using both qualitative and quantitative research methods to arrive at actionable insights.  These efforts should be complementary.  In recent efforts with districts, DMC has used a variety of approaches and sources to arrive at new insights regarding district operations and key messaging, including quantitative online and telephone surveys, interviews of key individual stakeholders and groups, organized focus groups, and complementary internal questionnaires.  Ultimately, audit processes should use both qualitative and quantitative methods to reinforce outcomes and insights.

DMC Research Tips

In our work on communications strategy and stakeholder engagement, we have learned that districts need to take careful steps to maximize their efforts.

• First, districts should always pilot all qualitative and quantitative research with extensive tests for 1) question style and structure and 2) execution logistics and technology. The power of email and the internet allows for unprecedented ease of data gathering, but requires vigilance for not making small mistakes that can invalidate the success of the effort.
• Choose your sample (your target respondents) carefully.  Over time it makes sense to manage these lists to not over-survey people.
• Always send test emails and complete test data extractions:  once your survey is out it needs to be working flawlessly.
• Questions should be well-defined, specific, and quick to answer.  An ideal survey should take well under ten minutes to complete.

Also, regular audits should uncover insights regarding high-level priorities and possible service enhancements.  Just as importantly, they help establish a baseline for performance. Defining and tracking success over time may require different measurements at different levels of the organization.  Incremental service changes can be the foundation for dramatic shifts in public perception. Even seemingly minor tweaks to a stakeholder’s experience can drive significant change in perception.

In summary, stakeholder engagement on understanding key programmatic and operating tradeoffs is critical for creating a fiscal plan that reflects community priorities.  Districts should reevaluate their communications and community outreach protocols and harness opportunities to listen and reflect on stakeholder opinions and priorities.  Operating and programmatic considerations may surprise district leaders, and communications strategy should be adjusted accordingly.