barbed wire fencing around the partly constructed houses. And try to figure out what to do next.
The residents were devastated. Two of my beloved friends, both homeowners, who subsequently died, told me the following: ‘Wendy, we love you. We think you gave us everything and you tried really hard. We know that. And we learned heaps from you. And you need to know that your work resulted in the deaths of two elderly friends of ours. They died of broken hearts. They died feeling betrayed and hopeless that everything you had promised was destroyed.’
Those two women knew nothing about the GFC. But they knew what betrayal looked like and they lost hope. And they died. And it is well-documented that grieving for a lost home can result in death. We are not exaggerating here. This is the dark side of the Principal-Agent Dilemma.
Over the years, I’ve read insightful articles by academics about ‘participating the public’ and I thought they were quite smart. But the luxury of being an academic is that you can sit back and reflect on these things and you don’t have to worry about where your next consulting job is coming from. Not so with Becky Hirst.
Becky’s book is a scream from the depths of the dark swamp of engagement. It’s an authentic voice reminding us that all is not well in our profession in Australia. She’s celebrating that amazing, wonderful, and transformative processes can occur with community engagement. Individuals and communities can be transformed. The guiding hand of a skilled, reflective practitioner can definitely conjure up community transformation.
However, we must look directly into the eye of one evil aspect of our work. And that is the issue of influence. Repeatedly in this book, Becky points out how gatekeepers, the people with clout (often the senior men) squelch innovation and destroy opportunities for community influence over decision-making. If I had a dollar for every one of those gormless people I’ve encountered in my working life, I can’t say what I do with it! But it would be a lot of money!
But let’s be clear: this is a book about love. It’s a book about passion, enthusiasm, and a heartfelt commitment to community empowerment and community building. No question about that!
And it’s also a wail of despair and a warning to all of us. Do not enter this field if you are gutless. Don’t even think about becoming a community engagement practitioner just for the money. If you think it’s about communications and marketing, think again.
And if you are willing to be courageous, wear your heart on your sleeve, be blamed for your post-critical naïveté, and vilified for your enthusiasm, goodonyer!
Because that’s where the love will be. And you will find people loving you back. You will hear people telling you that they trusted you because when they were weeping after that terrible public meeting in that roasting hall a few days before Christmas, you sat beside them and held their hand. You will not even remember doing that because it was just a natural, loving thing to do.
You will find your soft heart opening and suffused with the love of community engagement. And you’ll be lining up behind the indefatigable Becky Hirst.
And I’ll be there to cheer you on. (One way or another.)
But don’t even come near it unless you are willing to be courageous.
All love needs courage. There is no love without courage. There is no authentic community engagement without love.
And there is no leadership in our profession without heart.
You will find heart in this book. Buckets of it!
Introduction
Up to this moment, my career has been a self-directed adventure. I’ve made some good choices and had some great luck. I’ve also been blessed to work with amazing people, in amazing communities, and in amazing locations. I have a passion for thriving communities. Vibrant conversations, connecting people, working collaboratively and building community pride: these are my reasons for being. After much soul-searching in recent years, I now accept that I’m meant to do this work in my personal and professional life. My work extends far beyond merely being a trade or a business that I’ve grown. I am passionate about community. I engage with people, groups and communities in decision-making because my heart is thoroughly committed to the belief that the world lacks engagement and needs more of it. I’m incredibly fortunate to create a life dedicated to this work. I’ve even found a way for my passions to pay the mortgage.
In 2009, I established myself as a consultant to local and state government clients in Australia, helping them involve people, groups and communities in decision making. In Australia, we call this community engagement, but elsewhere this process is labelled as public participation, community participation, civic participation or simply just consultation. Since then, I’ve not been shy in coming forward about community engagement in a thought-leadership capacity within our sector. Many times, I have heard about my strong reputation for outstanding, high-quality, and authentic community engagement. My clients tell me that I’m a pragmatic, values-driven community engagement practitioner. The people I work with in community settings describe me as authentic, genuine, and ‘the real deal’. People say I’m empathic, high on energy, driven and deeply passionate about what I do. My friends tell me I’m a natural community builder, even down to the social gatherings I host. Wendy tells me I’m full of chutzpah, oozing confidence and audacity that I use to drive positive change where it’s needed.
However, I regularly find myself questioning how or why I came to be these things. What makes my practice stand out as being different? Or special? Did I attend the University of How to Be a Really Awesome Community Engagement Person? Do I eat cereal that’s high in Authenticity Vitamins for breakfast? Of course, I didn’t, and I don’t. I’m not certain that anyone can learn the traits or principles that characterise my practice in one training course, even a university course, or on a single project. It’s been a rich combination of experiences.
Unknown to me at the time, I embarked on a journey that taught several valuable lessons that shaped me to be the proud community engagement practitioner I am today. I took those lessons on board one by one, popping them in my little skills and expertise backpack so I could pull them out, nurture or reflect on them for future projects. As a highly reflective practitioner, I see writing this book as an opportunity to refine further my principles of high-quality community engagement, based on my skills, knowledge, experience, and stories from the last 22 years. And, of course, to share them with my readers.
I hope that by sharing some of my experiences, lessons, and insights, we can begin a conversation about how to reimagine community engagement.
I hope that students studying community engagement will be encouraged by the contents of this book to think big, understanding that there’s way more to this work than learning the kind of consultation processes currently taught in universities. I hope that people already working in community engagement (such as consultants, public servants, in the private sector, or somewhere else) will use my book to reflect on their practice. And that this book will encourage them to think outside their safe and familiar comfort zones. I hope that people already deeply immersed in communities will discover the potential for making an even bigger difference by using their connections with community to inform decision-making at the highest level. I hope that current or aspiring politicians will read my book and reconsider their roles as leaders within our communities. That they will appreciate the importance of genuine listening, authenticity, and empathy, far beyond the once-an-election-cycle presence in communities that many currently have.
As a culture, we have a habit of thinking about community engagement as being touchy-feely, nice-to-have and part of a soft skill set. This is completely wrong. To have a thriving society, we need people and communities who are actively involved in civic life. How government and corporations involve people in problem solving and decision making about things that affect or matter to them is very serious business. And it requires hard skills.
There is no time to waste. I want