Engage and Sustain Relationships (Expert / leading)

70% on-the-job learning

• Work collaboratively with stakeholders across your agency, across government and externally.
• Lead and guide others in developing engagement strategies and consultation and other engagement documents.
• Draw on your experience in the Māori Crown Relations Engagement Framework and Guidelines, when advising other colleagues.
• Apply guidance on collaboration and engagement with local government – see Guide for central government engagement with local government.
• Lead a policy team to apply the Community Engagement Design Tool in the Policy Methods Toolbox when designing a community engagement approach on a policy project you’re working on.
• Apply expert knowledge of issues when communicating with knowledge leaders and stakeholders.
• Maintain the confidence of policy leaders by updating them on stakeholder issues management, recommendations and next steps.
• Predict and manage complex relationships. Maintain engagement and involvement of key influencers in key policy projects you are leading.
• Use your existing stakeholder networks to find new partnerships – who do your stakeholders work with that you don’t?
• Engage with new partners, identifying to them the benefits of working with you.
• Use participatory approaches to design, develop, test and implement policy projects that involve affected parties, users and other members of the public directly.
• Use a range of research methods to obtain insights about people affected by policy issues and initiatives (questionnaires, in-depth interviews, workshops, ethnographic observation).
• Regularly test, revalidate, and identify new citizen needs throughout the development and delivery of advice.
• Ensure that appropriate tikanga for engagements is followed, and identify when additional cultural support is required.
• Arrange a short secondment to a key stakeholder agency.
• Make sure your meetings are accessible to all people.

20% learning from others

• Work with specialists in user experience to develop engagement processes that are human-centred.
• Discuss with others their experience with approaches to engagement with Māori. What worked well, what could have been done better, and what were the outcomes?
• Contact the Te Arawhiti – The Office for Māori Crown Relations to discuss your proposed approach to engagement.
• Contact other agencies that can provide assistance with engagement with specific groups (e.g. the Ministry of Disabled People on engagement with disabled people).

10% formal learning

• Pursue advanced facilitation, building coalitions, conflict management and resolution training.
• Take a course on building collaborative networks, inclusive community engagement design, or approaches to engaging to develop collectively agreed solutions (e.g. Engagement Evaluation and Engaging with Influence by International Association for Public Participation).
• Take a Māori Crown Relations engagement course (e.g. Masterclass Engagement Training by Te Arawhiti).
• Take a course in negotiating and influencing skills.
• Take a relationship management course (e.g. Relationship management by Communicate).