Beyond Consultation

Introducing Tracey Bridges Have you ever had this great idea that you were excited to share with your manager, CEO or team leader… and they just don’t get it? They're not onboard. They're not excited. And the idea disappears. In today's episode, we'll unpack some of what might be going on in those sorts of situations. We're talking power and influence with Tracey Bridges, Chair of the Wellington R...

Introducing Maria English Impact is an intriguing word, isn’t it? And you may face lots of challenges with trying to figure out your organisation’s impact. For smaller organisations, impact assessment is a “nice to do”. Costly. Time-consuming. Overwhelming. And so we rely on our hunches. Larger organisations face different challenges. Sometimes the measures we set up become the targets themselves...

If you confuse, you lose What if we told you that the way you describe your work is putting people off the very changes you are working towards? Phrases like: Radical transformation Community innovation Codesign Pulling levers Breaking down silos Tackling wicked problems Solving complex issues. These phrases sound impressive but they are problematic for 5 reasons. 1. They're vague.  They don'...

Introducing Alex Bonham Should we be separating  work and play when connecting with our communities? Our guest today, Alex Bonham, challenges the idea that local government can’t be fun. Originally trained in theater and comedy, Alex now serves on her local board and has done her PhD in how we can create more opportunities for play in a city - the topic of her highly interesting book! She’s a...

Introducing Liz Skelton What's your default reaction to conflict? I've been having lots of conversations this year with people who are trying to shift how their organization works with the people they serve and the ‘emotional rollercoaster’ is often mentioned. People who are in the dream jobs are feeling disillusioned and constrained by the conditions around them. If that sounds like you, then thi...

Introducing Craig Churchill Craig's journey into public sector leadership was not typical. He didn't come up through the community sector or the public sector. In fact, he was a transport and logistics expert helping to get goods around the country as fast as possible! Now he’s a regional commissioner for the Ministry of Social Development and a Public Service Commissioner under the Public Service...

Introducing Simon Wright When we make it easy for our communities to talk to us through quick surveys and online forms, are we losing the opportunity for important and hard conversations? Today’s guest, Simon Wright, unpacks the limitations of our consultation mindset. The limitations of technical or expert-driven conversations that miss the political and moral implications when engaging with comm...

Introducing Gael Surgenor How do we continue to take an experimental approach while working on opportunities that are looking 30 years into the future? What if you find yourself in an existing program of work that has stalled? Resetting existing work has been a bit of a theme for Gael Surgenor throughout her career. When things are a bit murky, nobody quite knows what to do. And those are ideal co...

Introducing Harvey Brookes Harvey is the lead agitator and coordinator working behind the scenes on the Waikato Wellbeing Project - a collective effort to improve wellbeing in one region of Aotearoa New Zealand. Setting up a project of this type is a learning exercise in and of itself. Harvey and his team have been generous in sharing their lessons learned along the way - openly and honestly. One...

Introducing Amy Hubbard How do you convince somebody from finance, legal or engineering that they need to involve the community at the start of that big new project? Amy Hubbard from Capire Consulting Group has lived and breathed community engagement since she left university. As a result, she has a wealth of stories that are just sitting there, ready to pull out for the right person at the right...

Introducing Andrew O’Keeffe It was only 250 years ago that most humans changed their habitat from hunting and working together in villages, to working in offices and factories. But those human instincts from the Savannah, from the bush, from our villages still exist within us. Andrew O’Keeffe has taken the science of human instincts and looked at how to apply them within organizations. He strives...

Introducing Liz Weaver In late 2019, we spoke to a dozen local leaders about the various collaborative groups they were involved in. They all agreed that the groups were operating reasonably well. At the same time, we spoke to lower-level people in those same organisations. And they disagreed. They described the groups’ frustrating bureaucracy, their lack of impact, and the lack of community invol...

Introducing Michelle Feenan What does it take to build an engaging organisation? An organisation that is driven by the needs of the people you serve. Where everybody is working in a coordinated way to listen, respect, understand, and partner up with your community. Today's guest is Michelle Feenan, who has written the course on exactly that. She's full of stories and powerful questions that will g...

Introducing Adam Kahane Our guest today has written five books on facilitation and has worked in environments where the stakes were very high -  like post-apartheid South Africa or in Columbia after 52 years of civil war. Adam has been on my wishlist to interview ever since I read his first book soon after leaving university. Although you may not be working in the same kind of high-stakes env...

Introducing Max Rashbrooke Here in Aotearoa New Zealand we’d like to think that we live in a classless society. That anyone can “make it” and that opportunities are equal. But today's guest, author Max Rashbrooke, has made a career out of unpacking uncomfortable myths such as this. He shows that there are indeed different classes in Aotearoa New Zealand, and that this affects how citizens engage w...

Introducing Kataraina Davis Recently, I went back and looked at our podcast stats to see what episodes are most popular. Between the top two episodes, there's a pretty clear theme  - you are hungry to learn more about Māori ways of being and engaging. Our guest, Kataraina Davis, comes highly recommended. She is involved with a programme called Te Kaa that helps people to understand Māori valu...

Introducing Henry Pavey In theory, collaborative partnerships should move mountains. You share information. Coordinate your activities. Unlock new resources. Share power. You see the whole system and respond - together. But often these partnerships start with a roar… only to peter out as enthusiasm drops and true collaboration falls through the cracks. Today’s guest, Henry Pavey, has made a career...

15 March 2019 was a dark day in Aotearoa New Zealand, with a terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Today's show is with Chris Mene, a community engagement practitioner with deep experience engaging communities following trauma.  He played a big role for over 10 years in Christchurch following the earthquakes. His police background has been invaluable in that battleground c...

Introducing Dr. Toby Lowe FULL VERSION AVAILABLE HERE  Our latest episode, number 29, is with Dr. Toby Lowe on Human Learning Systems - and the show is almost an hour long! So if you're a little bit strapped for time, then we have cut up this shorter episode for you. What I wanted to do with Toby was explore what it might mean to embrace human learning systems here in Aotearoa New Zealand. So...

Introducing Dr. Toby Lowe BONUS SUMMARY VERSION AVAILABLE HERE  Today's guest is Dr. Toby Lowe, who is going to give you a choice about what kind of public service world you want to believe in? He is the lead voice behind what is fast becoming a global movement called The Human Learning Systems Movement. And it's all about making a different choice when working in public service. It’s about r...

Introducing Dr Tatjana Buklijas and Dr Jenny Wigley Deliberative democracy is a topic that has come up more than once on the Beyond Consultation podcast. To look at how deliberative democracy might be applied here in New Zealand,  we have not one, but two people here to share their experience working on the Complex Conversations Project that is funded by the Ministry of Business Innovation an...

Introducing Megan Courtney I first met Megan when I moved to Nelson five or six years ago. We caught up for a cup of coffee and I was a little bit in awe of some of the stuff she was talking about. She's one of the core members of Inspiring Communities and has been with the organisation since it started 15 years ago. In this episode we talk about the changes she’s seen in community-led development...

Today’s topic was inspired by two things that happened on the morning of recording this episode. First, our original guest opened up about not being up to the recording session. Life was just too much at that moment. Second, I was reading this fantastic report called Wellbeing Inspires Well-doing. The report looks at how changemakers’ inner wellbeing influences their work. These two small things m...

I first met today’s guest when we were fellow actors in our local drama production, but she is much more than a former theater colleague. Deputy Mayor of Nelson City Council, Judene Edgar, really epitomizes what it means to be committed, to going beyond consultation. Her CV is really lengthy (which we discuss), but safe to say that Judene has perspective from so many different angles! In this epis...

Leanne Hughes interviews our host Paul McGregor A year into hosting this podcast, I realise that the process has taught me so much about being a better communicator, facilitator and consultant. Recently, it also led me to being interviewed for Episode 179 of the the First Time Facilitator Podcast with the energetic Leanne Hughes . If you are feeling tired or drained within your role at the moment,...