The Participation Blog

Author name: John Godec

Now, Let’s Fix Your Emails

Email is the most used communication device in the work world, right? If you’re anything like me, you use email far more than the phone; text might be catching up and video conferencing is now in competition. It’s easy to just take emails for granted, but it’s not smart to ...
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Awkward!

This is one of those stories that I debated about even using in this newsletter, I’m trying to avoid going too deeply into the polarized political pit. But, fact is, it’s become impossible to avoid in this work that you and I have chosen to do. Working successfully with the ...
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Mutual Influence

It was interesting to find the corporate world acknowledging the value of engagement but using different terminology, in this case, influence … mutual influence. In other words, operating differently from a position of unilateral hierarchy, coercion or authority, which is the way that we have come to expect most companies ...
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Your Optimism May Be A Problem

Working with people in leadership positions reveals an interesting conundrum related to credibility with communities. Leaders more often see themselves as cheerleaders for the projects that they manage. That zeal, however, makes it difficult for them to empathize with those who don’t see those projects quite as positively, which creates ...
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But, That’s Not What I Meant

One challenging thing we all face is recognizing the continual disconnect between what we intend to say or write, and how that intention is actually interpreted by the receiver. There is a lot of “stuff” that influences that exchange. For example, what specific words that you select to say, what ...
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Hear, Here

We live in a time of talk. Someday anthropologists will decide that people who lived in 2023 all had ginormous mouths and itty bitty ears. We have 24 hour access to a megaphone that’s always on and people use that amplifier relentlessly, broadcasting every momentary thought and posting pics of ...
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With A Little Help From Your Friends

Successful public participation requires authenticity. Authenticity requires participation to be meaningful, not perfunctory. That can cause stress for organizations that have dabbled in public involvement in the past, but have done so with minimum commitment. They want credit for engaging their stakeholders but they avoid any serious involvement because they ...
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