Change strategy

We asked groups of staffs of provincial Environmental agencies and school principles in Guiyang:

Choose in your group one environmental problem and then:

• Identify a desirable alternative behavior
• Identify factors that will promote this desired behavior
• Identify existing values that could be used to promote this desired behavior
• Identify and explain good communication strategies
• Identify target population segment and message content for each segment
• Craft message
• Identify delivery mechanism/medium/media
• What other persuasive strategies could be used to address the problem? Think about:
• Social influence
• Use of commitment
• Removing material barriers

The illustrations are some of the templates filled in by the various groups.

    

Problem analysis

We asked groups of staffs of provincial Environmental Agencies and School Principles in our conservation psychology workshop in Guiyang:

• Identify up to four key environmental problems in your local area, including around your school. For each problem:
• Identify and explain the behaviors that lead to those problems?
• What factors motivate such behaviors? Why do people behave the way they do vis-à-vis that problem?
• How does existing cultural values shape these behaviors?
• What other reasons for the existence of such problems?

The illustration summarizes some of the group work.

Story template

How to tell a love story about nature is the basic message of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication for those who have to reach out to the non-converted. Somehow not many communicators read and internalize the materials on the CEC website. During recent communcation training workshops I noticed that it is important for people to internalize the love story concept by first practicing what is a story. Then analyzing what the story elements are of the cases in the CEC video are. And then drawing how they would frame their own success stories. Recently representatives from a African coastal community came up with a strong story based on the template which they were asked to fill in only with drawings (no text). In the first part they visualized the issue and main characters, in the middle they framed the emotional trigger that motivated for action, the climax showed credible and realistic activities that widely resonate and deal with the iussue; the end visualized the positive change for community and natture and contained a call for a wider audience to join them in their efforts.

PARTICIPANTS GO WILD on conserving Soaring Migratory Birds

One of the products of our workshop in Amman, realised in a few hours by Gabriel Mikhail from Egypt and Walaa Awwad from Palestine.

Storyboard for the video clip. Participants in the workshop were CEOs and communication officers of Birdlife partners from twelve countries in the Middle East and Africa.

Communication planning template

How to discuss and create a basic communication strategy at the flip side of a coaster or beer mat? For a 90-minute breakout session of a group of 30 civil servants during a NBSAP mainstreaming workshop, I advised a colleague to use this template. Have people working in groups of 4-5 (make sure each group speaks the same language). Assign in advance audiences for each group to do the planning for: communicating the NBSAP to key actors in their own ministry, in other ministries, in non-governmental sectors of society, and among the general public. Work for 50 minutes on the 8 steps of the template. Metrics refers to how to measures success; timeline refers to when the desired behaviour should be realized. Budget refers to what financial means you have now or you can definitely mobilize within the short term. Only then it is useful to plan communication interventions, tools and messages. Realistically you come in that stage to the conclusion you may need some help of creative thinking of communication experts. The first steps are strategic planning in the day to day domain of civil servants. For the last step - especially when reaching out to groups outside the government - they may need special communication expertise. After the group work, groups can exchange their results and work for 15 minutes to provide feedback on the results of another group. The last 15 minutes can be used to ask participants what the main lessons were they learned from this communication planning exercise. Collect and type up their learning, type up the results of the work on templates (maybe give some extra advice) and disseminate that after the workshop by email to all participants.

capturing learning about change

During the workshop slowly understanding emerged on how marketing communication can contibute to behaviour change of wildlife consumers. To provide participants with some conceptual frameworks that could help clarify this learning, I prepared a presentation with these three visuals as key elements. Around them I organized the content of the work we achieved. I offered the PP-report is as aftercare to the organizers.

Facilitation modalities

Bringing people together to make a joint next step. That is in general often the objective of a conference. In one week time I attended two similar conferences. They had the same theme: ecosystem management and human well being. However they were different in focus and process. Both had framed the theme in a catchy way: 'Nature - What's in it for me?' and 'The Great Escape - There is NO Planet B!' The photo at the left shows the power point lecturing approach of the first conference; the two photos on the right show the interactive round table approach of the second one. The first conference aimed to take stock how IUCN members in the UK are contributing to this program area. The second to start a dialogue between IUCN members and the Dutch development community. Both had official parts with ministers, and ample room for networking. Exciting innovation of the second was a session with opportunities to contribute through twitter. Exciting during the first one was a dinner where a new multimedia project was launched 'why a wilder Britain is good for you'. The last difference was the facilitator: an insider in the first conference, a real outsider in the second one. Normally I prefer an outsider, assuming (s)he has empathy with the audience and affinity with the subject. I look forward to see the impact in terms of next steps of both conferences. I wonder what national committees could learn from each other about organizing conferences.

The fear to interact with stakeholders

Biodiversity experts from government and NGO have a similar fear to interact with stakeholders during an excursion in a workshop. You have to prepare them and push softly. They need to adapt to a new 'rationale', quite different from their normal professional interaction when they represent the law or gather scientific facts. Once they have overcome their initial 'cold water' fear, these interactions of probing into hopes and fears of daily life become meaningful. And afterwards they are perceived as the most successful parts of a workshop. Over the last 15 years I had exactly the same experiences in Latin America, Africa, Central Europe and now in Bangladesh. As facilitator you have to listen to all their objections and excuses in advance "why this part of the program is not appropriate and can disrupt already difficult relations". But keep in mind: perseverance will be rewarded!

Three examples of workshop preparation

The success is in the preparation. When a workshop is about public participation and you want to focus on impact it is good to articulate the demand. A workshop for staff of a sustainability institute is meant to update them on public participation and social marketing strategies. Telephonic interviews clarify the objectives of the management. An on line multiple choice test for staffs assesses current knowledge, attitudes and skills.
A UN workshop with representatives of government, academia, private sector and NGOs is meant to generate options for national policies and priorities for international action. A quick scan through telephonic interviews provides me with their views, perceptions and questions. This helps to brief speakers and to organize the various time slots.
A workshop of stakeholders in the conservation of a big mammal aims to formulate a communication strategy. Telephonic interviews with different participants about the issue, the role of communication, potential change agents, messages, current attitudes of major groups and perceived priorities provides insights of current knowledge, attitudes and skills and helps me plan the various timeslots.
The last questions always is: “what would make this workshop a success for you and what other good advice can you give me?”

Presentation: target groups and objectives

What does it take to do a good presentation during a conference? As part of my job to evaluate a multi-country project, my client takes me to a two-day Chatham House conference. His project is presented in the very last timeslot. Afterwards he is worried what the donors may think. He asks my opinion. My reaction: the good thing was to have a professional facilitator with a media back ground, short introductions from different countries, a panel discussion that included the donors and voting with a voting machine for the audience (200 participants). Form was OK, but the content can be improved a next time when you brief speakers to only make one point: lessons learned that are of interest to donors and participants in the international discourse. Even for a conference presentation: be clear on target groups and the KAP objectives for each of them.

Workshop as a mix of learning situations

To create optimal learning among professionals in a workshop a process is designed of individual assignments, working in pairs, in small groups and in the plenary group. Also a mix is created of timeslots that appeal to the rational parts of the brain and timeslots that focus on those parts of the brain that govern emotional intelligence and contain the brain's 'gatekeepers' that can open the doors to new ideas and approaches. Writing down one's learning at the end of the day helps to better remember.

Never change a winning team

Be careful with changes in the objectives and design of the workshop, when you are already half way. Recently - on the evening of the second day - I found the organizers and some of the participants by the pool of the hotel. For the last few hours they had been heavily discussing a complete re-design of the workshop. The face of the facilitator was getting desperate. When it was my turn to say something, I said: “Of course we have to be flexible, but never change a winning team! Our facilitator has spent a lot of time on the design of this workshop. It is better to provide her with some feedback on her ideas how to fill in the time slots of the last two days, than to try to restructure the whole workshop”. It all had started from the fact that the first two days of this workshop had been planned in much detail. The last two days on action planning, recommendations and agreements had been only roughly designed. As the steps of action planning and recommendations always follow certain principles, they can be designed in advance. This way you minimize the need for improvisation. Workshop flow and participants already give you enough to adapt to!

Briefings of facilitators and resource people

Clarity about objectives, a proper preparation and investing in ownership are success factors for a good workshop. The briefing is key. “Could you imagine preparing a three-hours session on strategic communication for sustainable development for a group of 10-15 participants to be run twice during the ‘training’ day (morning and afternoon) of our 4-day workshop?” Of course I had said: “yes!”. But until the last minute I had little clarity about the target group, the real issue and the objectives of the workshop. When I was contacted first I should have been more assertive and have used my checklist briefings to ask the right questions. The training sessions went all right, but in the end it was clear that the organizers had a different idea about communication objectives and strategy than I had: e.g. on the day after the training session they lead the group in action planning, asking them to define first messages and then look at target groups. Finally a next time I would advise them to give more time to develop ownership. You earn this time more than back through increased interest and motivation.

A letter to myself

How do we ensure that participants in a workshop remember their learning and apply it once back in their office? Recently one of my colleagues used a technique I had not used myself for some time. All participants had to write a letter to themselves at the end of a workshop: the three most important things they had learned and the three things they were going to do about it once they were back home. We had to put the letter in an envelope, close it, write our address and give it to the facilitator. She collected them and promised to post them after a month. Indeed a few days ago my letter was in the mail. I reread my key points of learning, looked again into my notes from the workshop and checked the three things I would do. And I made time for the things I still had not done. The posting below is one of them.

Alternative methods for information transfer

When organizing a training workshop, formulate the outcomes and focus on methods to create learning experiences to generate the outcomes. Outcomes are formulated in terms of desired knowledge, attitudes and skills. Preferably based on demand articulation in advance. Professionals learn little from presentations. Learning increases with the degree they are in control of their own learning process. To create learning experiences one has to think in alternative methods for one-way information transfer. In some recent workshops I used:

• Story telling in small groups about what worked
• Multiple choice or quiz questions about basics
• Group brainstorm to outline concepts, definitions, principles, strategies
• Brainstorm on aspects of issues at four flipcharts (carrousel)
• Group interview with the resource person (“how-to” questions)
• Group work on specific issue or question and plenary presentations
• Conversation café.
Group learning can be enriched through feedback by the facilitator and resource persons. The facilitator has to bite his/her tongue and only adds some extra wisdom where the group – though its peer exchange – has laid the foundation for the next ‘zone’ of learning. A workshop blog can help to generate reflection, trigger new questions and add to learning beyond the oral exchange and time limits of the workshop. When initiated by participants it also can become a driver of further knowledge networking when everyone is home again.

Evaluation CEPA workshop

The workshop had four time slots for exchange on CEPA: mainstreaming biodiversity into other sectors; CEPA and media; how to integrate biodiversity into education; how to prepare for the International Year of Biodiversity. Asked what was most meaningful, participants noted for each session their personal learning points. They then shared their learning: e.g. strategies to collaborate, principles of change, building relationships between journalists and civil servants, framing messages, concept of biodiversity, shelf-life of stories, use of intermediaries, packaging, using festivals such as carnival, use of intermediaries, scheduling of events, planning of IYB process, KAP research and objectives, zero-measurement before awareness campaigns. We ended with group photos and exchange of contactinformation.

Workshop evaluation

Evaluating a workshop implies checking to what extent the objectives are realized and what we can say about TMQ from a project management perpective. In our case we met our objectives. Time - although we received the financial support only a week before the workshop, we delivered all the planned products in time. Money - we stayed within the budget. We are now negotiating to use the left over for next steps. Quality - in ten days we will hear from our donors how satisfied they are. Our partners are. From our own professional point of view we are satisfied: a next time we may be better prepared for too much interest, have less introductions and more interaction. The video seems very useful. Publicity was good: on the web before and after the workshop, in official speeches in the congress and in an article in Le Monde.

Web-based workshop reporting

A web based video report is very different from a hard copy presentation. The screen decides how we read. On a page you might put the contents in a strict order, each item below the other and starting from the left margin. On a screen the eye goes diagonally. So a table of contents can look very differently. I learned it is better to make the presentations of each speaker separately available: the ten minute time slots are easier to download. And again visual langauge is all about simple images, associative bridges and rythm. Soft and quiet music can help with moments of rest, after moments of concentrated listening. A blog is another form of reporting. The Woodrow Wilson Institute's blog The New Security Beat gave a very journalistic impression of our workshop. It also added a podcast with their own interview with one of the organizers.

Workshop reporting

How many people read a workshop report? It depends very much how the information is presented. Sometimes it helps if the report contains short testimonials about the major issues or points made, accompanied by a photo and contact information of the speakers. Sometimes people like to find power point presentations on the web. In a few cases people would like to have the full texts of introductions. In written reports much of the dynamics of the workshop gets lost. A video report can help, especially if it has a short summary of the whole process, that triggers interest to surf towards more information. This is what we tried to accomplish with our video report. Note the pace, rythm and transitions of the visual language: very different from paragraphs and chapters in written communication. This is fundamental to keep the attention.

Workshop aftercare

A workshop is a means towards an end. In our case by bringing together the two worlds of environment and security in a roundtable workshop we aimed to generate one or more joint ventures . We therefore had planned a reception after the workshop. Here informal discussions on next steps took place. Video interviews on what had been most meaningful and what next steps we should take, may have stimulated those conversations. In the end there were ideas for a joint workshop during the next WCC where experts from both worlds would play a war games and deepen scenarios. There were ideas to put the issue on the agenda of NATO, to develop distance education courses on the ecosystem approach and sustainable development for peace keeping troops. And to influence the Copenhagen UNFCCC COP. This week we will send a thank you note to all participants with a link to the video report of the workshop. And the invitation to share with us last thoughts on the workshop and next steps. In the meantime we have made appointments for meetings with donors and partners to realize the various joint ventures.