Are you ready?

Here are a few more issues to consider to help you make sure you are ready to involve other people in improving your organisation.

Are you really committed?

There is no point in inviting people to be involved if your organisation is not committed to responding to what they have to say, and to making changes as a result. Before you approach anyone, it is vital that you are honest with yourself about how far your organisation is committed to taking on different views.

It is worth reflecting on this at the start, because a lack of genuine commitment will eventually become obvious to the people you are trying to involve, and may undermine your efforts and damage your organisation's reputation.

Acting on suggestions

You should consider all views or ideas expressed, and where appropriate, act upon them. The degree to which you make changes will partly depend on the degree of stakeholder involvement you have signed up to. Although you are not bound to act on all suggestions, it will show respect to people if you can at least demonstrate that you have a process for considering their suggestions and deciding whether and how to act on them.

Sometimes it will be necessary to respond directly to an individual comment or suggestion. It's rarely helpful to do this immediately because, in your haste, you could appear defensive. A considered response is usually better, even if you are disagreeing with the comment or choosing not to take forward the suggestion.

Other considerations

Other factors to consider before you begin could include:

who you could or should involve
to what degree and at what point to involve people in your work
thinking about any previous initiatives your organisation has undertaken to involve people and the reaction you got: what could you learn from these past experiences?
other activities happening outside your organisation which might impact on the availability or attitudes of the people you want to reach
the resources you have available for your plans
timing.

Take a look at our introduction to marketing for hints on how to reach your target audiences.