Monday, January 30, 2012

Communication Strategy


Jamie:

We had the same kind of participation. The “Purple Team” was made up of staff from public and private agencies, and they went to individual staff meetings to prepare participants for the mini-summit.  Everyone knew what we’d be talking about, what they were to bring to the table, and so they were able to come ready with some ideas. We actually used the family team meeting model and applied it to the mini-summit, and it really paid off in participation!

We were able to delve right into the strategy development phase, which is what everyone really wanted most. Many ideas were centered around clarifying expectations.  Because of the collaborative nature of the mini-summit, the conversations we had were so informative. No one needed to be cautious with questions or realities – everyone stayed professional and honest, and we figured out ways to establish that clarity.

The other piece was communication, and again – the environment made it possible for everyone to have realistic conversations and produce some great ideas.

It was the same story when we looked at our challenges, strengths and strategies for improvement. We’re all working toward the same goal, but an increase in communication and collaboration on the front end is going to get us closer to the goal. In our strategies, we literally wrote in shared responsibility for communication.