We want to keep flying under the radar.

Is this a community relations strategy that you’ve encountered?

Sure, it’s a legitimate strategy. You follow the rules, meet the minimum requirements, do business without ruffling too many feathers and avoid attracting attention. You aim operate in communities unnoticed, so that you can get on with what you want to do without interruption.

Is flying under the radar an effective strategy?

Not in my opinion.

It won’t take you far, because if you aim to be invisible, it’s impossible to play a big game. Nor will it offer long-term security, because inevitably the spotlight will shine on you and reveal all… and then what?

When you hide, you forgo essential ingredients for building social licence, reputation, and trust.

Thinking that you can fly under the radar is a risky attitude.

The risky attitude trap

Over the years, working with clients on their social license journey, you start to notice patterns. Some organisational qualities help in the journey toward social license, while others are flashing warning signs demanding attention. Organisations that address these signs are more successful in strengthening their social license. Those that ignore risky attitudes also ignore significant social and reputational risks. And more often than not, it comes back to bite.

Other risky attitudes I’ve seen are:

• Alls well that ends well – when you fall into the trap of assuming that your stakeholders will routinely accommodate your needs and wants and overlook any missteps. You rely on goodwill, which might be fine until the stakeholder landscape shifts and goodwill dissipates. Challenge and refusal can be a rude awakening.
• Act now, ask for forgiveness later – when you are tempted into action knowing that you’ll make some mistakes and need to course-correct later on. The trap here is that you assume your stakeholders will forgive you. But you risk making mistakes that are unforgivable and destructive, and leave a legacy of distrust.
• Too busy putting out fires – when you are stuck in a reactive cycle, running from one issue to the next that there’s no time to invest in a proactive, strategic approach. The trap is that social license goes largely unmanaged, and you’re on the fast-track to your next issue… and burnout.

I’m taking a deep-drive into these risky attitudes today.

But… why?

What gives rise to risky attitudes?

Let’s explore two factors:

1. Social power. This is how influential the organization is in the community. If they have a lot of clout or the community depends on them for jobs, business opportunities, or funding, their social power is likely to be strong. If they have little influence or are new in town, their social power might be weak.
2. Social impacts and risks. Some organizations have strong governance and a mature approach to managing social impacts and risks, meaning these are likely to be well managed. Others might lack relevant policies, not invest in social studies, or have new and developing internal capabilities, leading to poorly considered social impacts and risks.

Now, here’s where risky attitudes can emerge.

If social impacts and risks are poorly considered and there is little power in the community, teams might be stuck in a reactive cycle, constantly firefighting from one issue to the next. The attitude of “we are too busy” means social license goes unmanaged, and is a sure-fire path to your next issue and employee burnout.

If an organisation has strong community power, they might believe they can rely on community goodwill when mistakes are made. This attitude of “let’s press ahead and ask for forgiveness later” can signal ethical concerns around abuse of power. You also risk the stakeholder landscape shifting and making an unforgivable mistake that leaves a legacy of distrust.

Organisations managing social impacts well but with little power might try to “fly under the radar.” This risky attitude can lead to less effort in local relationships and tough conversations, which will come back to bite. When the spotlight finds you, you won’t have built up the social capital needed to navigate rough seas.

Even organisations with strong social power and well-managed impacts aren’t immune to risky attitudes. Complacency can set in, and we fall into the trap of relying heavily on goodwill when make decisions and take action. When we don’t keep pace with changing community expectations, the attitude of “all’s well that ends well” can result in a reputational crisis when goodwill dissipates.

Perhaps one of these risky attitudes sounds familiar from an organisation you’ve worked with or past projects you’ve worked on? You’re not alone.

What risky attitudes can you challenge today?

Addressing risky challenges requires:

1. The courage to surface and call out these risky attitudes
2. The honesty to unpack the systemic issues behind why they are showing up
3. The tenacity to chip-away at these issues bit-by-bit to dissolve the attitude

When we tackle these attitudes inside our organisations, we strengthen social license, better manage social risk and live up to our social responsibilities. The pay-off can be huge. And, bonus – our jobs get easier too.

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The challenge is: Trust is hard-won, easily lost, and even harder to rebuild. Especially in the world today.

It’s clear we’re grappling with a trust issue – here in Australia and across the globe

⛈️ The recently released 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer reports on a shift from distrust to grievance across the world. In Australia, 62% of respondents held a sense of grievance against government, business and “the rich”. On a global scale, fears that leaders lie to us and that we will experience prejudice, discrimination or racism were reported at an all-time high.

⛈️ The 2024 OECD Trust Survey found that trust in the Australian federal government was 46% in 2023. Overall trust in Australian public services is 58%, according to the 2023-24 Survey of Trust in Australian Public Services.

⛈️ Perceptions of government integrity are low in most countries, according to the 2024 OECD Trust Survey. Only 25% of respondents in Australia find it likely that government would refuse a corporation’s demand that could be harmful to society as a whole, lower than the average across OECD countries (30%).

For people working with communities, building trust is part of the job. Research and experience show that done well, community engagement can help bridge the trust gap. Done poorly, it can create further distrust and division.

So how do we do it?

How do we build and rebuild trust?

And what can we do when trust is difficult?

To rebuild trust, consider going back to basics

Strive for:

• CONNECTION – be present in-community to build relationships and understand and address concerns and issues, elevate the community voice within your organisation, and be accountable to all stakeholders
• CARE– genuine care, honesty and kindness in what you say and what you do
• CONSISTENCY – keep at it day after day, month after month, year after year as trust takes time and effort to build

Wondering where to start?

Rebuilding trust calls for a brave CONVERSATION – with ourselves, and the people in our organisation and our communities.

We have lean into the tension that comes with mistrust, to be able to move through it.

If you’re wondering how to get started, check out my know, think, feel, say, do reflective framework to start rebuilding trust (pdf).

The post How do you regain someone’s trust? appeared first on Blue Tonic.

This is no small task… especially given the worldwide trend toward increasing levels of distrust and polarisation.

The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer suggests that not only have trust levels at their lowest levels in Australia, but our social fabric is weakening and we are on a path to polarisation. Business is the only institution that is seen as competent and ethical; 75% of respondents saying they trust their employer to ‘do what is right’ – more than any other institution including government, NGOs and media. Australians also expect business leaders to take a stand on social issues (eg treatment of employees (91%), climate change (78%)) and meet their obligations (eg pay a fair wage (89%), pay fair corporate taxes (83%), ensure their home community is safe and thriving (79%)).

Developing trusting stakeholder relationships requires a level of vulnerability by all parties. For example, when discussing a project proposal, companies are vulnerable to the reaction of stakeholders to the information they share about the project; whilst communities are at the mercy of the quality of a company’s communication and engagement process. Importantly here – as the owner of the project, the company holds almost all the cards. To develop stakeholder trust in this situation, we need to address the inherent power-imbalance so that all parties feel some comfort around their vulnerabilities.

So, how can we address this power imbalance to build stakeholder trust?

Here are three strategies to consider.

1. Tell them everything

All projects have negative impacts and risks. And potentially impacted people have a right to know and understand how they may be affected. It’s our responsibility to respect the rights of the communities that host projects by addressing the tough topics and having the tough conversations as uncomfortable and risky as it may seem. Done well, stronger relationships will result.

Half-truths, omissions, disinformation and rumour undermines credibility and leads to community angst and opposition. Without credibility, you won’t have trust. The antidote: Radical transparency.

Carefully consider your communication strategy and move toward full disclosure, delivered in a way that not only equips people with all the information that they need to understand the project but also contributes to healthy debate and discussion.

2. Listen and take positive action

Really take time to listen to the issues and concerns of your host community. Understand that these are legitimate points that are important to them, and seek to fully appreciate the matter at hand without judgement or agenda. Consider: if you were in this situation, how would you feel?

When responding, rather than simply reassuring or justifying, consider what else can be done to remedy or address the issue. Some actions may be big and some may be small, but some kind of action is always possible. You have the power to make a positive difference on issues and concerns affecting your community – when people feel heard, understood, and see their concerns are taken seriously, trust grows.

3. Give some of your power away

Many aspects of your project may be fixed and not up for negotiation with external stakeholders. There are likely to be some aspects, however, that are flexible or where you are open to ideas, suggestions or direction from others. Get clear on these negotiables as early as possible, and consider how you can genuinely involve stakeholders and the community in the related decisions. The International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Public Participation Spectrum is one framework for thinking about this.

Stakeholders and communities that have greater say in the decisions that affect them are more likely to accept the decisions that are made, and those decisions are more likely to provide lasting community benefit. Relinquishing some of your decision-making powers is a small price to pay for such an outcome.

The post To trust or not to trust, that is the question appeared first on Blue Tonic.

Infrastructure projects are hosted by communities, for societal benefit – so for the business case to stack up, by definition our projects need to deliver not just economic value, but social value too.

So, I have to ask – is your infrastructure project really realising its greatest social potential?

Regulators, investors, communities – and even our own employees – expect and demand that governments and companies prioritise people and planet in their decisions and actions, and you can bet that they’ll hold you to account.

If our projects fail to deliver on their social potential, the opportunity for social value creation is lost and the fallout can cost us time and money and affect our reputation and relationships.

Indeed, community opposition has resulted in the delay or cancellation of roughly $20 billion of infrastructure projects over the past decade, according to the Infrastructure Australia’s 2019 Australian Infrastructure Audit. Not keeping pace with changing community expectations and poor engagement practices were identified as the most significant issues facing the sector.

COMMON SOCIAL AND STAKEHOLDER PITFALLS

All too often, here in Western Australia, I’ve seen the approach to managing the social aspects of projects fall down as a result of:

• Bring driven by compliance, rather than leading international practices
• Prioritising the management of risks, issues and negative impacts of projects on surrounding communities and the environment, over the opportunities
• Locking in the major project decisions and firming up the scope and concept before engaging with stakeholders and communities, missing the opportunity to meaningfully engage to co-design solutions that offer greater social value
• Focussing on manage stakeholder relationships and rolling out a project communication, as opposed to meaningful engagement for better project decision making
• Reactive approaches that respond to the issue or initiative of the moment, but fail to holistically and equitability consider all possibilities.

FOCUSING ON SOCIAL VALUE

Simply focusing on social license to operate and building community tolerance for infrastructure projects is no longer enough. If you are after project acceptance or support, you must deliver social value.

Social value is the positive worth that your project creates for the economy, communities, and society. It broadly considers and encompasses all the interdependencies between the project and people – and as such transects many of aspects of Infrastructure Australia’s Sustainability Principals (2021) in the areas of social, economic, environmental and governance.

A focus on social value calls for understanding the social impact of your project, maximising the positive impact that you have and quantifying the outcomes. This requires systematic analysis of every aspect of your project to understand the change that it creates for people, and ensure the change creates lasting positive consequences for people.

Make no mistake: delivering social value is not a lofty, intangible ambition – it can be planned, measured, monitored and managed to great effect.

It is however a journey that requires ongoing and widespread organisational commitment. The best time to start social value creation is early (cue: business case), reviewing and adjusting as needed across the project/asset lifecycle.

GETTING STARTED ON YOUR SOCIAL VALUE STRATEGY?

There are other countries much more mature in their approach to social value creation in infrastructure – so draw on their approaches, frameworks and lessons learned when designing your social value strategy. For example, the United Kingdom’s Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 provides a legislative imperative for wider social, economic and environmental benefits to be secured through the public procurement process.

If you’re looking for inspiration, the UKGBC’s Framework for Defining Social Value (2021) is a great starting point for thinking around defining and delivering social value for infrastructure projects.

You might also like to map social value outcomes against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and consider which outcomes materially contribute to the achievement of relevant SDGs, and assess where there may be other sustainable development issues that could influence value creation.

But whatever your approach – be sure to work closely with the people you are trying to deliver social value for. The more the community is involved in the process the greater the likelihood of creating positive social value – not only are their contributions are very valuable, but also because involving communities in decision making has a direct impact on wellbeing.

If you’re taking steps to enhance the social value of your project, I’d love to hear about them.

The post Is your infrastructure project realising its social potential? appeared first on Blue Tonic.

Strategy brings together the pieces of the corporate puzzle that we need to achieve a picture-perfect vision for an aspect of business. However, 90 percent of businesses fail to reach their strategic goals, which researchers believe is due to a gap between strategic planning and execution.

There are many reasons why strategy fails to deliver the expected results. However, if your strategy overlooks pivotal elements during the planning process, it could be implemented perfectly and you’ll likely still end up disappointed with the result.

As a senior consultant in corporate public affairs, I’ve reviewed countless strategy documents over the last decade. Many of the strategies I see are good, but even the great strategies tend to have a gap or two. Avoid the six most common strategy traps that I see by reflecting on these questions and taking corrective action when you’re preparing or updating strategy.

Trap 1 – Poor strategic alignment

When times are tough, everyone feels better with a strategy in place. But unfortunately for you, this probably means your strategy is one of a gazillion in your company. Finite resources are pulled in many different directions, and if you don’t clearly demonstrate how your strategy helps achieve your company’s vision and how its uniqueness complements other strategies, plans and priorities then it risks being overlooked.

Evidence of strategic alignment, that ‘golden thread’ that links this strategy up with the rest of the company, is often a missing piece of the puzzle. Without it, your strategy risks being seen as a remote island of the company continent.

Ask yourself:

• Is it clear how this strategy fits into the bigger picture of what the company is aiming to achieve?
• What other strategies, policies, plans, or documents already exist in the company, do they relate to this strategy, and how does it all fit together?

Avoid the trap:

• Map out how your strategy supports your company’s vision, mission, purpose and values, and how it correlates with other key strategic documents.
• Bonus points if you can draw a thread from your strategy to industry-leading frameworks or approaches too.

Trap 2 – Don’t assume, know the facts

“If you are searching for keys and you assume that the keychain is green, your mind will ignore everything except green.” – Shunya.

At the best, assumptions hold us back from realising the true power of strategy. At worst, they can make a complete fool out of us. It’s easy to assume; it takes courage to question and unearth truths. Actively critique your strategy for knowledge gaps, universally accepted truths and biases within yourself, others and your organisation. I’ve seen assumptions worm their way into every nook and cranny of strategies, so review your entire body of work and fact-check the stories you tell yourself about your operating environment, your company, and your stakeholders.

Ask yourself:

• Do I know that for a fact, or am I assuming it?
• Have I actively sought out assumptions and inherent biases throughout the planning process, and challenged these?
• Could I comfortably defend that claim within my company or in an interview with my favourite hard-hitting investigative journalist?

Avoid the trap:

• Identify all your assumptions and then test them. Make sure you can back up your assertions with data and evidence.
• Where assumptions are unavoidable, list them out explicitly and actively review their validity during strategy implementation.
• Value diversity and inclusion in your planning processes to help individuals avoid their own “blind spots”.

Trap 3 – Stuck in silos and echo-chambers

You wouldn’t expect that one person alone could implement your strategy successfully, so don’t try to prepare your strategy in isolation from others. A common area strategies fall down is in the inclusion of the right people in strategy development.

Great strategies challenge the status-quo, with blue-sky, out-of-the-box thinking.

If you’re finding everyone you consult with tends to have similar opinions and generally supportive views about your strategy, you might actually have a problem. You could be developing your strategy inside the vacuum of a silo or eco-chamber. Transformative strategy cannot come from hearing the same-old thoughts and insights from similar people from within your team, your department, or sometimes even within your company.

Research in the Harvard Business Review shows that 71 percent of employees in companies with weak execution believe strategic decisions are second-guessed, as opposed to 45 percent of employees from companies with strong execution. If your strategy has not had a healthy dose of criticism, scepticism, and challenge – start by taking look at your stakeholder governance. Stakeholder engagement can be your strategy’s secret ingredient for success, or its downfall.

Think carefully about all the people that your strategy might impact and those who could impact your strategy’s success – these are your stakeholders. Have you sought them out, listened to their views, and made adjustments to your strategy as a result?

Involving your stakeholders helps them buy-in to your strategy, which is integral to its overall success. Stakeholders engaged in the strategy development process are more likely to understand what is trying to be achieved and why, accept the outcomes and their roles, and take action.

That same research showed that clarifying decision rights and making sure that information flows where it needs to go are the most influential factors in the successful strategy execution, so stack the cards in your favour by building stakeholder understanding and support early on.

Ask yourself:

• Whose hearts and minds am I trying to win through this strategy? Have their voices been heard in its preparation?
• Who has a role to play in implementing this strategy, and have they had a seat at the table to participate in its development?
• Has the strategy been challenged, and the writing process been challenging? It should be!

Avoid the trap:

• Understand who your key stakeholders are, and offer them a seat at the strategy development table. Aim to harness diverse viewpoints to create robust strategy.
• Have a rigorous, agreed plan to bring stakeholders on the journey with you, including adequate time for authentic collaboration and meaningful contribution.

Trap 4 – Can you evaluate that?

“If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.” – H. James Harrington.

For all this talk of strategy success, a common area I see strategies fall down is in the quality of their measurement approach. After all, if you’re not making evidence-based decisions during strategy execution, the odds of succeeding are really not in your favour.

There are a few key things that I personally look for.

To start, it must be very clear about what success looks and feels like in your strategy objectives and key performance indicators. You must be able to measure each of these easily and regularly, and by using more than data source. Plan to gather both quantitative and qualitative data as evidence of the outcomes being achieved, seek a balance of financial and non-financial measures, and consider how you can communicate this in a simple report.

Evaluation is not a task to be left till the end of your strategy term, or even a year down the track. Yes, it’s important to formally and periodically review your strategy collaboratively with your stakeholders. But it’s equally important in today’s dynamic and rapidly evolving business environment to be focused on continuous improvement. To do this you’ll need regularly updated data and evidence to inform frequent discussions on how the strategy execution is going, lessons learned, and tweaks to be made.

If this is not your usual approach to measurement and evaluation, it can feel like a lot. I get it. My hot tip is to KISS – Keep it Simple, Stupid. You might, for example, decide to keep a narrow focus and limit your strategy to a set of three highly impactful objectives. You could look for opportunities to piggy-back off existing processes for data collection or research by using or modifying these to meet your measurement requirements.

Ask yourself:

• How can I easily measure that?
• How could I validate or confirm that data set?
• What evidence would I need to present to convince the sceptics that this strategy is working, and how would I do that?
• Do I have the resources to pull off my measurement and evaluation approaches?

Avoid the trap:

• Start from a place of success. Really visualise what success looks and feels like, and use a reputable framework to define your objectives, KPIs and success measures.
• Look for a simple path to measurement integrity, and be clear about the processes and actions required to monitor, evaluate and continually improve your strategy.
• Deeply understand your current state of play and how the company is performing right now. Prepare a baseline and use this intelligence to inform all areas of your strategy during the development phase. If a measure of success is too difficult to baseline, change it to something that’s going be more practical and meaningful.
• Design a simple scorecard template that can be easily updated and is supported by your stakeholders as a measure of how successfully your strategy is being implemented as well as the results being achieved.

Trap 5 – The devil is in the detail

Should your action plan sit within the strategy, as a separate document, or within a suite of documents, tools and templates? The level of detail you should include in a strategy is hotly debated.

Personally, I don’t mind where your detailed action plan sits – but I do want you to have it. Because if you are not clear about exactly what needs to be done to achieve the strategy, down to the smallest of details, you’re going to get stuck.

Ask yourself:

• What exactly needs to be done, when and by who?
• How much will this cost?
• Will I be able to deliver this based on the resources available to me?
• Am I focused on the areas that matter most, and that will have the most impact?
• What might go wrong, and how might we deal with that?
• When issues arise, how would they be escalated and what process would we follow to manage and resolve them?
• How will we monitor and track our progress?

Avoid the trap:

• As a minimum within your strategy, map out your strategy priorities, delivery phases, and broad time horizons. Lean on these when building out your actions.
• Have a detailed action plan for at least the first work phase (and keep it looking 3-6 months), and have a real-time tool to manage and track delivery. The level of granularity should be detailed enough that your strategy implementation can be managed like a project by a single person, but not so detailed that you are disempowering those who are responsible for the tasks.
• Ensure your action plan is flexible and achievable by involving those who will be responsible for taking action in the creation of plan. Understand the inter-dependencies of tasks, lead times required, and how you can pivot if needed.

Trap 6 – To read is to understand… or not

You and your team have poured blood, sweat and tears into your strategy. It is a foolproof plan that’s going to get your company to where it needs to go. If only people would just read it, right?

I’m sorry to say, most people will never read your incredible strategy document in its entirety… or perhaps even at all. And this is totally ok. Because not all parts of it are relevant to all of the people who you need to sit up, pay attention, and take action to help you reach nirvana.

With the complex work of strategy writing done and no doubt a lengthy document sitting in a computer folder, you now need a version of your strategy document that is short, sharp, concise and easily consumed by all. As a minimum, distil strategy documents down to a simple one page summary, a roadmap, and some killer visuals.

Turns out, 95 percent of employees don’t understand or are unaware of their company’s strategy. The onus is on you to at least take the initial steps required for good communication by translating your strategy into simple formats and messages that are easy to digest and share. Don’t underestimate the power of creating early a simple base upon which to build the communication needed for strategy execution.

Ask yourself:

• What are the fundamental, core concepts of your strategy? What does it boil down to?
• What is it that I need people to know, think or do?
• How can I make this content easy for people to understand, and hold their attention? What different formats and mediums would be best for my key audiences?
• If I put myself in their shoes, what would I… [think/say/question/do]?

Avoid the trap:

• Start with an expectation that people will not read your full strategy document. Instead, lead with a succinct, easy-to-digest, highly visual summary that gets the key messages and core content across.
• Create a strategy communication plan before you leap into execution, and focus on ensuring the right people receive the right information in the right way at the right time.

The odds are against you in strategy execution – so set yourself up for success in the strategy planning phase. What tweaks can you make in your planning process to generate the biggest ripples in your strategy performance?

The post Six common strategy pitfalls and how to avoid them appeared first on Blue Tonic.