Who can help me influence them? Mapping the players and pressures in a system of behaviour

Strands of work on stakeholder engagement and behaviour change have been woven together in a couple of different pieces of work I’ve been doing with public sector clients recently.  I’ve ended up developing some new frameworks and adapting some existing ones to help people clarify their aims and plan their campaigns. If you want to influence someone to change their behaviour, there are models and approaches which can help.  For example, the six sources of influence help you identify the right messages and pay attention to the surrounding context which supports and enables – or discourages and gets in the way of – the desired behaviour.

When you are working for a public body (the NHS, a Government department) and you are trying to influence the behaviour of people who you have at best a distant relationship with (mothers, or people who buys cars) then you will go through a multi-stage process:

1. Should we be trying to encourage this behaviour change, which we see as desirable?

2. If yes, what role(s) should we be playing (legislator, educator, convenor, funder etc)?

3. If yes, what are the most effective ways of influencing the behaviour?

Should we encourage this behaviour change?

Given current discussions about social engineering, this question is important.  It might seem entirely obvious and uncontroversial to us that wanting to promote energy efficiency that more efficient light bulbs should be promoted.  So obvious that we don’t stop to consider possible unintended consequences or misunderstandings.

So an important early stage is to engage stakeholders in helping to inform the decision about whether to encourage a particular behaviour change at all.   For this, classic stakeholder identification and mapping techniques (e.g. see figure 1 in this paper from WWF) will help ensure that you hear from more than the usual suspects.

Stakeholders can share perspectives about the policy goals, identify which behaviours might help to achieve them, and whether action to encourage those behaviours is a good idea.

What role should we be playing?

Some public bodies draft new legislation and regulations, others deliver services.  Some enforce regulations and others provide advice and public education.  Some bring other organisations together, convening conversations and partnerships.  Others commission and fund research.  There are lots of roles that public sector organisations could play in a given situation.  Which role or roles make the most sense, in meeting the policy aim in question?

Listening to the views of stakeholders in relation to that question is enormously helpful.  And those stakeholders may be professionals who work in that field of expertise - but removed from the coal face - or they may be practitioners on the ground whose direct experience can bring a dose of reality to the conversations.

A great example of this is the Low Carbon Communities Challenge, launched on Monday 8th February.  It will (amongst other things) draw on the experiences and insights of 22 communities which are being funded to install energy efficiency kit and renewable energy equipment en masse in their areas.  They’ll also be encouraging people to adopt low-carbon behaviours.  Each community will be doing something different, guided by its particular circumstances and enthusiasms.  Excitingly, each community will also be asked to identify the barriers to and enablers of progress, in particular what government could do differently to make this kind of low-carbon push as successful as possible across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I'm delighted to be a facilitator on this project.

What are the best ways of influencing this behaviour?

A cool analysis of the system of players and pressures which lead to the current patterns of behaviour is a good starting point, and involving a team (including some stakeholders) will help ensure that the picture built up is rich and complete.

In a workshop a few weeks ago, we used the classic ‘pestle’ headings to brainstorm the pressures and players which influence a particular behaviour which my client is interested in changing.  Let’s say that the behaviour is keeping one’s car well-maintained, so that it runs as fuel-efficiently as possible.  Specific behaviours include keeping the tyre pressure optimum, and removing the roof box when it’s not needed.

In the workshop, people identified players and pressures and wrote them on post-its, sticking them up under the headings of Political, Economic, Social, Technical, Legislative, Environmental and Other.  The headings and team-work both help to ensure that no aspect of the system is forgotten.

Once that was done, we stood back and looked at the results, and pictures were taken on a camera phone.  Then I invited people to bring the post-its to a big blank sheet of paper, and to begin mapping the relationships between the players and pressures, starting with “the most interesting” element of the system.  [The idea of asking for ‘the most interesting’ came from a book about coaching which I’ve been reading.]

One post-it was brought to the empty map, and was soon followed by others.  Lines of connection were drawn, and amid the chaos some patterns emerged.  Most importantly, the team realised that these behaviours were more like DIY and home maintenance than like ‘eco’ behaviours, so when targeting different audiences they should seek our market research which segments people according to things which are relevant to that kind of behaviour, rather than segmentations which have been developed with an environmental purpose in mind.

Mapping stakeholders for behaviour change

This brought us smoothly to looking at which stakeholders to engage as a priority, to add muscle to the campaign to  influence people to adopt (or reinforce) the desired behaviours.

Many of these stakeholders were ‘players’ identified in the earlier exercise.  Some were organisations and people who the team thought of as the system was being mapped.

As a variation on classic impact /influence matrix, and building on the ‘who can help me’ matrix which I use with organisational SD change champions, is this diagram.

Brainstormed onto post-its, stakeholders are then mapped according to the team’s view about their influence and attitude.

You then overlay the coloured ‘zones’ onto the matrix, and these are linked to typologies of engagement like the ladder of engagement.

The people and organisations which are the highest priority to engage with, are those who are highly influential and have the strongest opinions (for and against) the desired behaviour change.  In-depth engagement which involves them directly in designing and implementing the behaviour campaign will be important.

Those in the ‘enhanced’ zones need to be involved and their opinions and information sought.

Those in the ‘standard’ zone can be engaged with a lighter touch – perhaps limited to informing them about the campaign and the desired behaviour.

The workshops helped these clients to identify new stakeholders, reprioritise them, and consider more strategically who to engage and to what purpose.

Expecting eye-witness accounts from Copenhagen...

...at the AMED Sustainable Development Network Cafe Conversation on 26th January.  Details here.

What do we make of Copenhagen?

Here are some contrasting views, first a commentary on what went wrong, from the BBC's Richard Black with - as Bruce Nixon says -

"some interesting news of tectonic shifts in the international relations between countries which need time to digest."

Richard's analysis?

1. Key Governments do not want a global deal.
2. The US political system.
3. Bad timing.
4. The host Government.
5. The weather.
6. 24-hour news culture.
7. EU politics.
8. Campaigners got their strategies wrong.

Next, something to cheers us up.  Forwarded to me by Dave Sharman, this quote comes from the blog of  Roger Harmer.

"For three days, the mayors and leaders of a hundred major cities discussed the challenges of climate change, their ideas, plans, projects and responses and their shared focus on action and delivery.

At no point did anyone question the need for urgent action or question their own individual - and shared - responsibility and there was a quite remarkable lack of competing, showboating or criticism.

There was no carping about the levels of adopted targets or about who was at what stage - even though Copenhagen plans to be carbon zero by 2025 and Los Angeles daren't mention what their carbon emissions are likely to be 25 years later!...

This looked and felt like a team!"

Who's coming?

As well as the people who have RSVPd on the AMED site, we are expecting people who:

• cycled part of the way there raising funds for adaptation projects and delivered pledges from a 350 event in his home town;
• helped set up a sustainable tourism and education project in Nicaragua;
• wrote a book on sustainable business and is currently writing another;
• set up a consulting practice around sustainable development, and whose teenaged daughter went to Copenhagen;

Perhaps you'll be there too?

What'll we talk about?

The purpose is to share reflections and perspectives on what the outcomes of Copenhagen were, and what they mean for us and our practice as consultants, facilitators, organisational developers and the various other hats we wear.

I'll blog about what happened.

If you'd like to be part of this conversation, see here for details.

Dear All

AMED SDN – meet up in January 2010

We had a very enjoyable informal meet-up in December, networking and discussing the Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

We agreed that we’d do it again when the dust from that meeting had settled, so we’ll be meeting again at the Rising Sun pub in Smithfield, London, from 1.00 – 3.00 on January 26^th.

See here for more details: http://www.amed.org.uk/events/cafe-conversation-what-does

Our focus will be exploring together what the outcomes of Copenhagen are, and what they mean for ourselves and our practice as organisational consultants, people-developers, coaches, facilitators and so on.

Find out more about AMED and the Sustainable Development Network here: http://www.amed.org.uk/group/sustainabledevelopmentnetwork

If you would like to continue to receive updates about meetings, news and discussions from the AMED Sustainable Development Network, please join the group on the website, as this circulation list will be phased out during 2010.

Warm regards

Penny

2010 Training dates - IEMA Change Management workshops

We have three dates in the diary for this one-day workshop, which I've been running since 2005. The day is very interactive, with everyone sharing a specific sustainability challenge which they are working on, and using various frameworks and exercises to explore and understand the challenge better.

During the workshop, people

• Hear about some theory on organisational change and approaches to change, including a scale of strategic engagement, visioning, identifying key players, choosing a change strategy, identifying barriers to change and planning first steps.
• Apply this to their own organisational sustainability challenge.
• Hear from others in a similar situation, discuss common challenges and discovering sources of further information and support.

As you’d expect, the contents have evolved since I ran the first one.  But the approach is still one of making selected bits of change theory as accessible as possible to people, and giving them time to work on their own particular situation during the workshop. And everyone still gets a free copy of the workbook, so they can carry on making their own notes and using plenty more exercises and frameworks at their own pace.

If you'd like to come along, you can book through IEMA's website.

London: 28th April 2010

Leeds: 20th July 2010

Newcastle upon Tyne: 12th October 2010

Copenhagen - hiding behind the sofa

I'm finding it hard to listen to the news or read about the Copenhagen meeting, except through the fractured glimpses from other people's blogs. Reminds me of peeping at Dr Who through my fingers from behind the sofa.  Can't watch properly.  Can't look away completely either. These are the ones I've found particularly interesting :

• George Monbiot - taking a very big picture on how we, as a species, divide into types about climate change, and showing very eloquently why this is so hard.

• Living on Sunshine - the title of this blog alone is enough to raise the spirits, and with its provocative strapline "how old will you be in 2050?" (personally, 84, if I get there) reminds us old folk that if we're not going to lead, we'd better get out of the way and let the youngsters do it.

• Mark Lynas - surprisingly optimistic

• Jonathon Porritt - sounding comfortable (if that's the word) back amongst the activists and campaigners.

Will someone tell me what happened when it's over?

e-meetings - my toes are in the water

I'm keen to use more 'e' in meetings. Teleconferences mean live conversation without the travel.  Add in some kind of live editing of a shared document (like google docs), and everyone can see the notes being written in real time, just like flip charts in a workshop.  Share some video or slides, and everyone is viewing the same input.  Include video calling (e.g. using  skype), and we can see each other as well.

I can see that there's loads of potential to reduce participants' carbon footprints (probably) and include people whose other commitments mean that adding travelling time onto meeting time would mean that they couldn't attend at all.

Toe in the water

So I'm making a concerted effort to experience e-meetings of all kinds as a participant.  I joined a webcast (lecture and panel discussion) a couple of days ago, and I'm attending a webinar on how to design good webinars next week.

I'm also adding in some virtual elements to meetings which I facilitate.   Some tips on good teleconferences, built from that experience, are available here.

Spontaneous blending

Trainers sometimes talk about 'blended learning', which includes traditional face to face workshops with virtual elements like a web-based discussion space or a module delivered by email.

In a workshop I ran over the summer, there was a fascinating example of spontaneous blending of methods.  The group is a community stakeholder group, set up to represent local interests during the early phases of developing plans for a flood defence.  During a half day workshop, the group was looking at maps showing alternative sites for the defences.  Timescales for the project are very tight, and this workshop was taking place during a very short window of opportunity for people to feed comments back to the organisation which is developing the plans.  So the pressure was on the participants to ensure that they were accurately reflecting the views of the wider constituencies that they were there to represent.

One innovative participant whipped out a camera phone and took pictures of the maps.  Within seconds they could be sent to people who weren't at the meeting, and their comments relayed back.  I don't know whether this meant that their views made it 'into the room' during the meeting, or whether it simply gave them a head start in discussing the plans after the meeting.  In any case, it set me thinking about how much wider groups of people could be involved, if we can come up with ways of using technologies like camera phones and texting, which are ubiquitous.

What if this person had stuck to the ground rule about keeping mobile phones off during the meeting?

I'm enjoying dabbling my toes in this pool.  I'm readying myself to dive in!

Are your clients going to Copenhagen?

If you're a consultant (internal or external), are any of your clients going to Copenhagen? What are you doing to prepare them to, in the words of Dave Hampton, "succeed, against the odds, and pull off a real deal".  Dave suggests, in his letter to the Independent, that if this comes about, "history will remember them for eternity, for the bold leadership they found, out of the blue, when planet Earth needed it most."

Those of use who are coaches, mentors, facilitators or similar help our clients to think better, listen better, find out what they really want and co-create their future better.  Those of us who are advocates, communicators and campaigners bring inspiration, motivation and purpose.  What are our best, most excellent ways of helping clients find bold leadership, out of the blue, when they need it most?

If you're interested in hearing from others and sharing your own perspectives on this, why not pop along to this informal meet-up of the AMED Sustainable Development Network, which will focus on the Copenhagen Climate Summit.

If you are planning to come, please RSVP on the site, so we have some idea of numbers.

And why not post your thoughts here, on the discussion thread on AMED's website.

Is sustainable development about more than the environment?

I've been running a training course today, helping sustainable development specialists get some insights from the world of organisational change.  As part of this, each person identified a sustainability challenge that's real for them and their organisation right now. One of the participants was grappling with how to get people from across the organisation to look at the sustainability impacts of the services they provide.   This will entail having a much better understanding of what the social aspects of sustainable development are, and how you might measure or assess your performance on these aspects.

We came back to this question about the social aspects of sustainable development when looking at Dexter Dunphy's phases of organisational strategic engagement with sustainability.  There's a pdf of a presentation summarising this here. One of the phases in this typology is ‘efficiency’.

If your focus is on the environment, it’s clear that this is about eco-efficiency or resource-efficiency.  If your focus is the economic aspects of sustainability, then financial and labour efficiency (productivity) are easy concepts to grasp.  But what does this mean when you are thinking about the social aspects?

With wonderful serendipity, I had just been reading Jonathon Porritt’s valedictory report, published yesterday.  Jonathon recently stepped down as Chair of the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commission, and in this report he examines what he calls the mystery of why sustainable development hasn’t been better embedded in the various strands of government in the UK.  He blogs about it here and there's also a link to download the report.

As it happens, he provides a very useful summary of what social sustainability is and what efficiency means in that context.  He does it so well, that I’ll quote at some length here.

The two overarching ends [of sustainable development, as articulated in the UK Government’s 2005 strategy] (“Living Within Environmental Limits”, and “Achieving a Strong, Healthy and Just Society”) require very different approaches. The test of “living within environmental limits” is a strictly empirical test: define the limit (as in concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, for instance, or threshold limits for pollutants in the air or water), measure levels of compliance against these agreed limits, and then adapt policies accordingly.  By contrast, “achieving a strong, healthy and just society” is a predominantly normative aspiration rather than an empirical test, with very different metrics and very different value judgements as to the weight that should be attached to different aspects of “strong, healthy and just”.

At the heart of the concept of sustainable development lies the concept of “dual equities”: inter-generational equity (living today in such a way that we aren’t ruining prospects for people tomorrow), and intra-generational equity (living today in such a way that we reduce – or even eliminate – current unsupportable inequalities in wealth, opportunity and broader entitlements).

In that respect, sustainable economic development means “fair shares for all”, ensuring that people’s basic needs are properly met across the world, while securing constant improvements in the quality of people’s lives through efficient, inclusive economies. “Efficient” in that context simply means generating as much economic value as possible from the lowest possible throughput of raw materials and energy.

…Once basic needs are met, the goal is to achieve the highest quality of life for individuals and communities, within the Earth’s carrying capacity, through transparent, properly regulated markets which promote both social equity and personal prosperity.”

This idea of efficiency in the use of the Earth’s carrying capacity to give as much social well-being as possible must mean, in some situations, redistributing carrying capacity from those who have an unfairly large share of it, in order that those whose needs are not being met can better meet their own needs.  This is the case because it is not possible to ‘increase the size of the pie’ – we only have one planet.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) produces the Happy Planet Index which uses official statistics to reveal, as they put it,  “the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered” in 143 countries covering 99% of the world’s population.  (I know you want to know – the UK score is 43.3, the USA is 30.7, and Costa Rica is 76.1.)

I wonder how this approach could be used to measure performance in organisations?

What is the job of a river?

The latest 'engaging people' column has just been published in the environmentalist, and it's about ecosystem services and stakeholder engagement. It was a lot of fun writing this article with the erudite and ebullient Mark Everard, who I first met when working with The Natural Step.  Mark is one of that rare - but thankfully increasing - breed of technical experts who really understand the importance and value of stakeholder engagement. 

The article explores engaging people in using an ecosystems services approach to understand places, problems and solutions.

It was great to compare experiences of running stakeholder workshops which are either centred on ecosystems services, or included a nod to that way of thinking.

Mark's experience has been more extensive than mine, and he seems to have witnessed more positive resolutions.  When a farmer asked "what is the job of a river" in the workshop I was running, he gave his own answer: it's to carry water away from farmland as fast as possible.  There wasn't the opportunity to enable a longer conversation which could acknowledge watery multi-tasking, and the benefits people from it.

We all rely on ecosystem services, whether we like it or not.  We all eat food.  We all drink water.  We all breathe air.  Mostly, in a country like the UK, we just don't realise that these are ecosystem services - carrots come from the supermarket, not an ecosystem. 

But it seems to me that some people feel threatened by the weight given to ecosystem services which seem - to them - to be more 'about birds than people'.  Dialogue which enables deeper understanding of our dependence on the natural world is enormously helpful, but in my experience it is hard to engage people in this kind of conversation when they are suspicious that the process it is part of is an excuse for stopping them meeting what they see as their more immediate and direct needs.

So I'm excited to hear about Mark's successes in moving beyond mistrust.

It's a beautiful day: am I allowed to enjoy it?

A bright, warm, sunny, late October day.

The sky is blue, butterflies are dancing through the air and a fat red dragonfly buzzes us as we walk along the footpath in our T-shirts.

I want to lose myself in how lovely it is, but part of me is saying "We'll be nostalgic about cold cloudy autumn days with proper rain once climate change kicks in".

Curses!  Sustainable development change agents have a hard time of it, what with being so aware of impending ecosystem collapse and the paltry efforts our organisations are making to stop it.

Can't we just enjoy the sunshine and let tomorrow worry about itself?

How do we feel about it? And how do we help ourselves feel effective, empowered and persuasive in the face of the latest information on ice melt, ocean pH and HIV/Aids? This survey of organisational change agents may help you feel less alone.

Take a look at this slide show, that illustrates the results of the same survey and draws some conclusions.

What do you feel about it?

*Update: Jonathon Porritt blogs about optimism and pessimism here.

*Update 2015: Roger Harrabin writes about scientists's tears, and the comments are very telling too.

I'm, uh, disappointed.

I work with this great mentor, called Hilary Cotton.  She's coached me over a long period of time, and her insights and support have been invaluable.

In our last session, I was describing the development of this website, and how the process that the web development team took me through obliged me to think really hard about what I do to help clients and to develop my field.  (Thanks Jonathan, David and Matthew!)

I mentioned the challenge that I have set myself here - for all my work to contribute to real change for sustainable development.

The work that needs doing is the work of transformation, and that's where my passion is.

But, maybe inevitably, it isn't where all my work is.

Some of the work clients ask for is a bit more workaday - more about being a bit better in today's context, than co-creating a transformed future.

And I was feeling uncomfortable about the incongruence, to the point of wondering if I should change the text on the page.

Thanks to Hilary's incisive questions, I had an insight: I was disappointed that not all my work is transformational, and I was letting my disappointment get right in the way.

The incisive questions technique leads you to identify limiting assumptions and replace them with liberating assumptions.

Here's the liberating assumption I came up with, which is also a reframing of my emotional response:

If I knew that respecting my disappointment will lead to understanding better the opportunities for transformation, I will pay it proper attention and be unafraid of it.

So here's the reframe: I can view my disappointment as a phenomenon, and be curious about it and what it teaches me about transformation.

I feel disappointed in what I've been able to do in this piece of work.  That's interesting.

And more, I can respect my disappointment, as a useful companion which can remind me about what I value and what my ambitions are.

Hello, Disappointment.  What can I learn from walking with you, looking you in the face and studying you for a bit?

And then I can bid it goodbye, and try on another attitude.

I'm going to look at this another way: with curiosity about what will happen, gratitude that the work was brought to me, and openness to what might emerge from it.

And I won't be afraid of being disappointed in the future.

Who can help me make this change?

The latest issue of the environmentalist includes an article I've written, entitled "who can help me make this change?".  In it, I share an approach I've used successfully in training courses and (as my daughter would say) in true life: it helps people to systematically identify key internal and external players who can help them bring about the change they want to see. If a particular person or group are crucial to making the change happen, then you want them to be supportive of it.  Ask them what they'd like to see happening, and how you can help them.  Find common ground and enlist their support.

If someone is already very supportive, but not really needed, then see what they can do to influence or recruit those who are needed.  Or enlist them to support you.

Remember, the art of engaging people to help create transformational change involves listening and letting go.

Horror stories and denial - which makes me cringe more?

So I'm just topping up on today's environmental news feed (my feed of choice is The Guardian, a nice little app that even a web dilettante like me can add to their Google home page) and two stories stand out and demand a closer look. The first states, "Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes".   The second say, "CO2 is green", which is less self-explanatory.  In fact, it's an astonishing TV ad running in the US aimed at scuppering a cap-and-trade bill - thanks to Leo Hickman for picking this up in his blog.

What I notice is that while reading them, I get that creeping feeling up the back of my neck and round to my jaw, and the sinking in my shoulders.  I'm physically cringing.  Not very much.  But it's there.

And which had the biggest cringe effect?  I can't be certain, but I'd say that CO2 denialists make me more unhappy than the Met Office's truly dire research.

So I wonder: what can I learn from this?

That I'm more comfortable with things which reinforce my existing world view, however awful?  Perhaps.

That we need to pull together now and use all our considerable intelligence and organising power to avert the worst and prepare a soft landing, and that I'd rather the US pro-CO2 lobby would 'get with the programme'.

I'm happier owning up to that as a reason!

The other thing I notice is that these cringe-related feelings are not empowering and motivating.  What I plan to do now is

• forget I read either story,
• remind myself of some of my reasons to be cheerful,
• review my to-do list, and
• plunge into productive work.

Does that make me a denialist too?

IEMA Conference 2009 - how it went

Well as promised, here are my thoughts having attended the morning of the IEMA Conference 09.

Speeches

- I'd gladly hear Jonathan Porritt again.  He talked about the need to get off the hedonic treadmill, and the challenge of getting marketeers to sell austerity.  His slides are here.  I'm intrigued that he found Dr Steven Chu's speech to the Nobel Laureate's symposium inspiring - because JP says the speech was about energy efficiency.  And in the words of Theodore Roszack,

...prudence is such a lacklustre virtue.

I couldn't find a way to read, hear or watch Secretary Chu's speech (please let me know if you know of one) but the symposium site is here.  The other insight which caused me to stop short is that, apparently, family planning is the single best intervention in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, from a cost benefit point of view.

I didn't really understand what Lord Jenkin was trying to tell us.  Insufficiently relevant, at least to this member of the audience.  Sorry.

Peter Jones is always interesting, although his acrobatic mind can leave me behind sometimes.

Skills for Change

The workshop I ran was an hour's worth on skills for change.  I chose to focus on inter-personal influencing, through mirroring body language, asking facilitative questions, and sharing the six sources of influence that I learnt about through the 'all washed up' video which I've blogged about here.

The handouts from the session are here.

It was a lot of fun - it's amazing how quickly you can find three things that you have in common with a total stranger - and I hope stretched some people to think beyond 'awareness raising' as a way of influencing others.

I hope that it also helped people to be braver about networking later in the day, because making connections and building trust within a group such as this one, composed of IEMA members and fellow-travellers, will - in the long run - have far more impact than speechifying.

Climate change, cake and a nice cup of tea

I love World Cafe as a 'technique' to use in meetings.  And I was privileged to go to one where Peter Senge was one of the facilitators. This article - a longer version of one I wrote for the environmentalist - explains more about the technique, and the results that emerged from this meeting of a mixture of climate change professionals and activists.

How can wind farm developers win friends?

It won't have escaped your notice that not everyone in the UK loves wind turbines.  So if you're planning to add to our renewable energy capacity, you might want to think about how to involve your neighbours early on. In 2005 my article (pdf) in the environmentalist described some interesting initiatives specifically designed to help those promoting or planning wind energy developments, to engage their stakeholders.

Have you heard the one about...

...the North Wind and the Sun? In Aesop's fable, these two characters argue over who is the strongest, and decide to settle the matter by seeing who can get a traveller's cloak off his back.

For those of you unfamiliar with Greek tales, the denouement can be found here.  And while you read it, you might reflect on our behaviour change strategies - and which are most effective.

Listen and learn...

Too often, I meet with people who see stakeholder engagement as a more sophisticated way of selling their messages to potential critics. That's not the game I'm in!

Don't bother asking people what they think if you're not willing to change your plans as a result.

This article explains why you need to act in good faith when you're listening to your stakeholders.

Update: November 2010

I've been using a new categorisation recently with good effect, courtesy of Lindsey Colbourne and Sciencewise:

• transmit - "straight comms" - one way, putting out a message about something which has already been decided or already happened.
• collaborate - work together to co-create an understanding of the situation, problem, possible solutions, implementation plans and so on.
• receive - "extractive research" of the kind perfected by social researchers, market researchers etc.

There is absolutely a role for all three, and many processes or even single events will include ways of doing all three.

But if you want buy-in, and want those implementing the outcomes to want to do so, collaboration is the way.  And more fun, IMHO.

Facilitator and blogger Myriam Laberge has explored this a bit too.