We’ve all heard of greenwashing, where companies pretend to care about the environment but don’t really. I’d like to add a new word to the dictionary: consultwashing — where companies ask stakeholders to tell them what they think and then do nothing about it.
I worked for an S&P 500 company that was restructuring its European business, which meant some employees were at risk of redundancy. They consulted with the different employee representative bodies in each market, but gave them only 24 hours’ notice to provide input before the restructure announcement was due to go out. That’s not consulting people — that’s rubber stamping.
In my experience, some of the value of change projects is often lost because the people side isn’t handled well. This might be because of insufficient training and communications before and after the go-live date, or because leaders or project managers are unthinking about how the change might affect people — which can in turn impact morale and service standards.
Here’s my take on levels of consultation:
1) None or virtually no consultation
This is the traditional top-down management and messaging approach for people to do something by a certain date. It doesn’t appeal to the heart, isn’t inclusive, leaves your team disempowered and so they are less likely to go the extra mile for you.
You’re also missing a trick because you are not tapping into the knowledge and experience of people who know your organisation well. Lastly, you are more likely to experience negative media stories, protests or strikes as people feel they are not being heard.
The only time this could be appropriate is during a short-term crisis. If there is a fire that needs putting out, you focus on putting the fire out — not the employee satisfaction survey.
2) You ask for input and don’t make the results public or don’t do anything with it
This is consultwashing. By encouraging people to get involved and then ignoring their input, you make people disengage from your project and make it less likely to be a success. This is worse than not asking for their input at all.
3) You consult, consider the comments received, potentially make changes to your plans and publish the consultation feedback
I worked with a major UK supermarket retailer recently who had a well-developed change management process. They allocated a month for group and individual consultations, with the questions raised in the group consultations posted on their SharePoint site.
There was transparency and honesty, and any people-related change in the company was handled in the same way. For me, this is the baseline for stakeholder consultations.
4) You pre-consult
There is a legal requirement to pre-consult with stakeholders in the UK if you are planning to build or substantially change an infrastructure project, and I was involved in a pre-consultation for a proposed power plant.
The Japanese have a word for this: Nemawashi — where you engage with stakeholders before you have firm plans, get their input informally and then consult with them formally on the final proposal.
In the case of the power project, we changed the design of the plant so that it was less visually obtrusive following the pre-consultation, and presented the new design at the consultation phase.
5) Ongoing consultation and recognition
Most companies do regular pulse and employee satisfaction surveys, but there is a lot more to it than that. This is about looking at how your employees can be empowered to help shape changes to the organisation, rather than having change done to them.
For example, I designed a continuous change programme for a bank where employees received free shares and increased bonuses for achievement of business change objectives.
They had a recognition scheme where anyone could nominate anyone (rather than just managers recognising people), with potential spot cash awards for colleagues going above and beyond. They also had a suggestion scheme and received tens of thousands of suggestions from employees every year for ways to increase turnover, improve service and reduce costs.
Employees could receive up to £20,000 for a suggestion, but it wasn’t just about the money — it was that everyone was involved in organisational change, and everyone benefitted from it.
It’s a common mistake to assume there’s not enough time for stakeholder feedback, but if leaders build consultation time into their project plans, it will increase the value delivered and stakeholders will be happier and more engaged.
What have been your experiences of consultation where you work?