Unpacking a (mostly) positive community listening experience

Fair warning: This post gets into the weeds and is long-ish. Jump to the What now? section to get a tl;dr version.

My head is swirling in reaction to all the actions that are focused on resisting what is going on around us. Protests, advocacy campaigns, boycotts, political organizing, providing aid and support for organizations and individuals impacted by the actions of Trump/Musk and their party of enablers. Fortunately, my existing and continually-growing network of relationships is drawing me into moments where I can contribute.

Yet, I cannot help thinking about the related, on-going issue of: How might we address local challenges in ways that model our democratic and inclusive and caring values? I’m going to continue making the case here that this issue is an important element of reclaiming our democracy as are the political actions.

I’m trying to see all of this as stars in a constellation. A constellation that includes resistance and advocacy as well as our ability to co-create progressive policy and practices which emerge from the collective brains of our communities. We need to exercise those collective muscles.

In this post I want to go deep in reflecting on one specific, formal example of community listening and co-creation. I honestly struggle a bit in writing this post. The house is burning and I’m here thinking about the next party I’ll hold with family and friends.

But I want to get these thoughts down. From experience, I find that this work becomes very useful at a future point, or it sparks a new action or experiment.

In At what point does your spidey-sense tell you that you have the right amount of community input? I wrote about rephrasing that headline question, posed to a candidate for Evanston’s city council, to get at a more specific experience: “Tell me about a time, in one of your community roles, where you felt confident you had the right amount of community input for a decision.”

How might I pose a similar question to myself?

It might be: “Tell me about a time when you participated in a productive community input activity.” So let me share that story, what I think it means and where I might take those lessons.

What happened?

The city of Evanston is engaged in creating a new 20-year comprehensive plan, intended to shape a clear vision and policy priorities for housing, transportation, heath, climate/environment, arts, business development, and more. The story I share is about a community input meeting early in the process (March of 2024). I’m working from memory so some details may be off a bit.

I heard about the meeting after having signed up for updates on the comprehensive plan process. It was one of a number of similar meetings held across the city. The one I attended was at a local school in the part of the city where I live. It was in the evening in the school auditorium.

I estimate 40-50 people attended the meeting. We started out sitting at long tables, organized in rows, facing one direction. I didn’t know anyone there and said a soft hello to my table neighbor. I could see several folks came in pairs or groups. To one side and behind the tables was a set of five or six poster boards, arranged so each was out in more open space. The purpose of these became evident soon.

The meeting was led by city staff but largely organized and supported by a consulting firm, who were also introduced at the meeting. The city staff facilitator opened with a short overview of the process and what a comprehensive plan is. The facilitator noted that Evanston had not updated its zoning code and comprehensive plan since the mid-1990s. A lot has changed since then, they noted. Then they asked the attendees something like “Think back to the 1990s and Evanston. What’s changed for you since then?” The question was open to anyone who wanted to answer. What I recall hearing was:

“Property taxes were a lower then. They are too high now.”

“There are too many tall buildings downtown.”

“A lot more homeless people now.”

I recall having a visceral response to these answers. They drew me back to similar open community meetings that turned mostly into gripe sessions by folks who felt the urgent need to gripe. After these comments were made, I recall a few other responses that were humorous or more personal, tapping into themes of growing older or finding new relationships.

I don’t recall all the details of how the transition to the next activity went, but part of it was the facilitators giving us instructions related to the set of poster boards. We were to wander through them and answer the questions posed on the boards. It was ok to go in any sequence.

Some of the boards had a question that you answered by writing on a post-it note and posting it to the board. Example: “Imagine it’s 2045 and the plan has accomplished all you hoped for. Choose three words that describe the Evanston you’ve found at the end of this plan.” Some boards were maps and we were asked to post sticky dots on parts of the city related to the question on the board. Example: “On a map show us your favorite place in Evanston. This can be a park, a store, a street, specific neighborhood. Anything you like.”

What I recall happening is that the tenor of the meeting changed dramatically as people got up, moved to the boards and started answering questions. I recall there being five to seven folks around each board at any one time. There was quiet thinking, and then posting. A small bit of conversation as people shared where they put their dots or what three words they used.

I recall being inspired by what I saw on the post-it notes on the three-word exercise. “Vibrant.” “Inclusive.” “Safe.” A lot of aspirational thoughts. It seemed to me that folks were building a bit off of each others’ thinking. I know I did.

I don’t recall the meeting having an official close. We had each signed an attendance sheet early on, adding our email addresses if we wanted to stay in touch with the project. I thanked the organizers for doing the event and walked out after completing all the boards,

I do not recall getting anything about the outcome of that specific meeting via email. I got – and continue to get – routine updates about the overall project as part of a mass email list.

I have also gone back to the main website for the project and looked into various document folders. There have been (to date) three draft versions of the full written comprehensive plan; it’s difficult to tell what’s changed. Fortunately we have local journalists who work through the documents and highlight major alterations (a resource I rely on). The documents also include spreadsheets and some images from various meetings (including the one I attended). The documents are raw outputs; no summary exists for each meeting or groups of meetings. The only summaries I can find are the very high-level summaries of citizen input that exist in the draft plans. Those summaries synthesize many forms of input (various styles of meetings, surveys, etc.) from dozens of sources.

One final sidebar note: The consulting firm was dismissed. The city was dissatisfied with their work. The planning process and draft plan is now being done by city staff.

What does it mean?

Let me try to sort out what this means wearing two hats: One as a participant and one as an experienced facilitator.

These are some of the things I desired as a participant:

• I wanted to meet new people from my community.
• I wanted to provide useful input.
• I wanted to learn how other people thought (about the 20-year vision).
• I wanted to know outcomes of this event (and similar).
• I wanted to meet folks (city staff, others) who were leading the process.
• I wanted to learn about the planning process.
• I wanted to explore ways to contribute more.
• I want to be an active community member.

I recognize that some of these are not entirely distinct from each other (“contribute more” would move me toward “be(ing) an active community member,” for example).

But the sense I get upon reflection is that I made the effort to participate in this event with two potential personal outcomes in mind: 1) Be a voice in a one-off opportunity to share ideas (which is good!) and 2) Build relationships and insights to deepen my connections to the community.

I feel pretty good about being a voice in a one-off opportunity. The poster board exercises really helped with that. And, in the moment, it gave me insight into how some other people thought about the vision. That was pretty cool. And the vibe around those moments was productive and personally fulfilling.

I had fewer desires met in terms of building relationships and deepening my connections to the community. Also in finding more ways to contribute and learning what our input led to.

This is a where my experienced facilitator hat comes in. (Note: This is based on my own experience designing and facilitating group and course sessions, but some of the framing comes from having read Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters. I found her work a useful overlay on what I learned from years of exploring learning design and pedagogy).

My sense is that the opening question was a standard fare “ice breaker” attempt. I have problems with that kind of standard approach. Meeting organizers can get a little lazy. An assumption is that if we just get people talking it will build momentum. So they come up with a lazy discussion question and go from there.

Better to think of the beginning of a meeting as an opening act. I might divide this specific neighborhood meeting into three acts: Opening, The Work, and Close. The opening should set the vibe for The Work; what do we want people thinking about, and how would we like them to behave? The Close might be a check point (i.e., draft summary of the group’s input), a confirmation about follow-up, a celebration or acknowledgement, or some combination.

The opening question about “think back to the 1990s…” and the open-floor format missed in two ways: It was a poor question combined with a format that established an unproductive vibe. A different question might have directed people’s focus toward topics covered in the poster-board activity. Example: “Share something you did, this past week, that demonstrates what you really appreciate about living in Evanston.” It could also have been formatted as a small group discussion (three to four people) followed by the facilitators calling on a selection of small groups to give a brief summary of the discussion. This approach might have opened folks’ minds up a bit before going into the poster board activities.

Unless I missed something entirely, the opportunity for a Closing act was missed. It’s possible that those folks who stayed longer heard something from the facilitators. But it was also clear that you could leave whenever you felt you were “finished.”

On this point, I go back to my participant desire of “I want to be an active community member.” Related to this is also “I want to be recognized as an active community member.” Think about the subtle action of receiving an “I voted” sticker after voting in an election. Wearing it signals citizenship.

It’s a small thing but I think it wields power. This meeting room could have included a table or other setup that participants were instructed to stop by before they left. Or better: Had no choice but to pass. Get a sticker for your laptop or bag or water bottle. Sign up to do more (choose your participation). Get a “thank you” from a someone on the meeting organizing team.

Finally: If you have people do stuff with post-its and stickies and poster boards, do some follow-up with it. People worked! They trekked from their homes and spent 90 minutes or more sharing their best thinking about your questions. The very least they deserve is to know is: What did our meeting group say? Bonus would be knowing how it compares to other data points or meetings. Raw data in spreadsheets doesn’t count here. Participants deserve some kind of synthesis, even if it is in draft form.

What now?

I want to reframe the way we think about citizen input and community listening sessions.

I’m guessing that the organizers of the session behind the example story I shared might have been thinking: “We have a method of gathering input. The method is proven. We need to get X number of these done to get good data for the project.”

What we ignore in that framing is the experience of the participants: Why they choose to participate and the unspoken desires of what they want out of participation. (“I voted” stickers get at an unspoken desire when you vote. It signals “I’m a participating citizen.”)

A more productive way of thinking about the session might be something like: “How do we best prepare folks for the work we want them to do in the session, and then acknowledge their effort?”

This framing makes two significant assumptions.

• We actually have a design that includes ways to provide input (the work participants do) which is based on some good logic or approach. The example story I share from Evanston did. It was clear there was an explicit design behind the data-gathering activities.
• The design’s activities are fit-for-purpose and support achieving a clear desired outcome. In the Evanston case, the outcome might be something like: “”Improve the active contribution from diverse community voices in the planning process.”

If we do have a set of activities based in a good approach and we know how these events support our desired outcome, then I suggest we need to be clear about two things in designing a community input session:

• The nature of the specific type of data gathering we intend to use. Is it synthesis? Consensus? Generating and gathering ideas? Getting engagement in structured activities to collect data?
• The desired experience we want folks to have – cognitive and emotional – as a result of participating in the meeting. What are the unspoken desires we might anticipate participants have, as a result of their participation?

A session where we desire consensus or even some high-level synthesis is very different than one where we desire to generate data or a list of ideas. Synthesizing and consensus building involve a lot of hard work. Process helps. But even a good synthesizing process requires cognitive and emotional energy. So a key design question is: How might we best prepare folks for the specific kinds of thinking tasks (and/or questions/topics) we plan to use in the session?

The unspoken desires that participants may have as a result of their participation may range from somewhat obvious – I want to know what happened with my input – to the kinds of recognition they might want for having contributed their time and thinking. Showing appreciation during a closing moment is easily accommodated. Experimenting with different small actions may lead to an effective routine to repeat in a specific local context. Routines – “I voted” – are meaningful.

The more challenging opportunity, I sense, is in addressing the feedback loop after an event: I want to know what happened with my input. Simply doing anything – sharing photos of poster boards, or a quick list of interesting data points – is a step.

The challenging part comes as input is synthesized. What does it mean? What now? It is easy for individuals to come away from looking at a summary of an event and think: “My voice wasn’t heard.” Or, “I’ve given this same input multiple times and nothing happens.”

This might be a key design space to explore. Facilitators (me included) often say “trust the process.” How do we really know whether we’ve made headway on that trust outcome?

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The photographs which accompany these posts are taken by me, and show different settings and views of Evanston (where I live). It is a visual reminder that this is the most important setting for belonging and contributing to community; my neighborhood, my city.