Blog Post
Confusing Right to be Heard vs. Right to Prevail – Advice Giving vs Decision Making
'Here's a question we recently received: “I [am] the new director of a program that has extensive public participation. What I am finding is that the history and expectation is that some public groups have way too much power over the process. In the last brown bag, I...
What if You Don’t Have The Consent Building Luxury Ben Franklin Had?
Answering Questions from the Consent vs. Consensus (March 2011) Brownbag Question #1: Getting Informed Consent When Your Project is a Stakeholder's Worst Option A listener from the Alaska Fish and Game Department asked a question that Hans promised to answer in the...
Why Calling a Time-Out is Common Sense for Effective Decision Making
A call from some clients highlights that using the tactic of calling for a "Time-Out" is just plain common sense! . . . Provided you HAVE common sense. When a Feel-Good Project Turns Ugly A couple of friends – one working for a federal agency, the other serving on a...
A Bounty of Informed Consent Tactics but No Gimmicks
Following the March 2011 Brownbag, we received a comment from a listener who was frustrated that we didn't give, what she felt, was the means to moving a person from the Over-My-Dead-Body position to being at least willing to give his or her Informed Consent. As a...
What to Expect from the Bleiker Consent Building Blog
What this Blog is About . . . Sometimes, after a Consent-Building Clinic (formerly "Brownbag session") is over, the three of us -- Annemarie, Jennifer, and Hans – have an afterthought, an idea that we SHOULD have covered . . . but didn’t. Until now we just felt...
Giving Informed Consent and Non-Adversarial Participation
Question #4 from March 2011 Brownbag What about when YOU Are the Citizen Whose Consent is Needed? One listener asked what help, or resources for help, we could suggest for the role we all play when we are in the citizen – or stakeholder – role. Here’s how she put it:...
When Negative Experiences Haunt Your Public Project
"Is my relationship with my public doomed by this negative history and past missteps? . . . Is my project forever doomed? . . . What can I do so that past mistakes, real and imagined, don't totally undermine the chances for accomplishing our mission? . . . Help!" Well...
How does one identify and build consent from people who CANNOT be moved up from the “Over-my-Dead-Body” position?
Question #3 from March 2011 Brownbag A fellow planner from Alaska asked the following: "How does one identify people who CANNOT be moved up from the 'Over-My-Dead-Body' position?" Because this is a question we often hear from public officials, we think it deserves an...
Becoming a Student of American Values for Developing Informed Consent
As often is the case following one of our 90-minute Brownbag teleconferences, additional points we could have discussed come to mind. Right after the January 2011 session which covered the topic of "The Tactic of Focusing on Higher Values... When Your Proposal is...