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"Consent-Building" In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, I (Hans Bleiker) was doing PhD research at MIT, in an effort to figure out how public agencies with important but difficult missions could be both RESPONSIVE to the publics they were affecting and, at the same time, remain RESPONSIBLE to their missions. During that research, I stumbled across two fascinating findings. The first finding is a real pain in the neck "truth" that most professionals working in public arena can tell you lots of horror stories about. Finding two on the other hand is NOT well understood, and it is absolutely STUNNING! Finding 1: Most public officials find that, no matter how thoroughly their proposals are engineered, it is frustratingly difficult to implement those proposals in the world of politics and hard-ball playing special interests. A frustratingly high percentage of their proposals get:
Finding 2: At the same time, I found a tiny percentage of public officials who have a totally different experience. Virtually ALL their proposals are routinely IMPLEMENTED, . . . without major delays! . . . Their proposals are:
but are IMPLEMENTED . . . We call THESE public officials and managers "Implementation Geniuses". They are phenomenally effective. At the time I first stumbled across a few Implementation Geniuses (in the late 1960s and early 1970s), I could not help but ask: What are their methods, their tactics, their strategies? What do they know, . . . what do they do, that the rest of us don't know and don't do? What about the rest of us who work in the public arena -- especially those of us who are professionals and NOT politicians, but who work in a decision-making environment where decisions ARE made POLITICALLY --? . . . Can WE, and other professionals, become "Implementation Geniuses"? Can we simulate their methods, their tactics, their strategies and have the same success in implementation? Well, ever since the early 1970s, we (Hans and Annemarie Bleiker), have studied Implementation Geniuses and their methods. And, we think we have them figured out.
Systematic Consent-Building: The key to the phenomenal effectiveness of Implementation Geniuses is their approach to what most people refer to as:
We, for simplicity's sake, tend to refer to ALL of this as "Citizen Participation" -- CP for short -- although it obviously covers much more than just citizen participation.
Implementation Geniuses' approach to this whole area of CP is FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT from what public agencies normally do. Note, we did NOT say that they do MORE public involvement and outreach. They don't. In fact, in some cases Consent-Building involves SURPRISINGLY LITTLE citizen participation. . . But, what participation and communication they do, they do DIFFERENTLY! That you can count on. You ask: HOW differently? . . . STRANGELY different would be my answer. Get this: they tend to hold FEWER public meetings than the typical public agency. In a nut-shell, here is their approach: Implementation Geniuses systematically develop "Informed Consent" with their various potentially affected interests. But, "Informed Consent" is a rather strange, complex thing. It is a complex arrangement between the public agency and its publics. The best definition we have come up with is this: Definition: Informed Consent Informed Consent is the grudging willingness of opponents to (grudgingly) "go along" with a course of action they -- actually -- are opposed to. Let that definition sink in for a moment. . . Read it again. "Informed Consent" is amazing! If you and your team CAN develop this kind of arrangement with the fiercest opponents to whatever it is your mission requires you to propose, you'll be EFFECTIVE. Your proposal will NOT be shelved, delayed, stopped, vetoed, etc. It will be funded and IMPLEMENTED! If you have made, are making, or will be making proposals that FAIL to get funded and implemented, you need to learn Systematic Consent-Building. . . So you can stop wasting your time coming up with stuff that doesn't get implemented.
For teh last 25+ years we (Hans and Annemarie Bleiker) have concentrated in our R&D work primarily on SYSTEMATIZING the methods, the tactics, the strategies that Implementation Geniuses use to develop "Informed Consent". Today we TEACH what we have learned about Systematic Consent-Building to people who have a need for Consent-Building skills. We have compressed into a sequence of short courses what we have learned about Consent-Building over the last several decades. Because we simply teach the Citizen Participation methods we see Implementation Geniuses use, and because Implementation Geniuses' approach to Citizen Participation is FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT from what most public agencies do in the area of CP, the public involvement methods you learn are pretty strange! . . . Well, it's pretty strange when compared to the public involvement methods most agencies use. . .
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For more information about Consent-Building, Citizen Participation,
and the Bleikers business (the Institute for Participatory
Management and Planning -- IPMP) please visit
our 
IPMP