3.3 Prepare the team
The third step of the narrative change campaign planning process – Prepare for responses & engagement - consists of three elements that give you the chance to test the campaign elements you prepared in the previous step and also guide you through preparing the team for the campaign roll out in the next. On this page, we focus on the third element – Prepare the team.
- Test & adapt campaign elements
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Develop talking points
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Prepare the team
Most narrative change campaigns involve a group of people who will directly and purposefully engage different audiences from policymakers to journalists to the public. These people can play the role of lead spokesperson for the campaign to all kinds of supporting roles from facilitator to press person to a door-to-door campaigner engaging individuals in conversation. All these people need to be on the same page with the basic information and messages, but more importantly and in line with the reframing approach outlined in these guidelines, they need to be ready to engage the target audiences in a way that also allows those from the middle to feel warm about your campaign and messages. This helps to build an opening for dialogue which is a key starting point for the campaign and opens the door to a real conversation.
In this section, we don’t focus on providing guidance for conducting media interviews or dealing with policymakers, but rather on how to effectively engage middle audiences as this is not covered in many other guides and presents the biggest challenge for our civil society partners. Further, experienced campaigners reported to us that it is this middle audience you should have in mind when in a media interview situation, as they are the ones you are ultimately trying to connect to. This means that when you are with a journalist, you are actually answering the questions as if the middle audience was the one you are speaking to.
To support your preparation process, we first outline three guiding principles centred around an approach intended to constructively engage the middle audiences based on the principles of dialogue and civility. In the page following, we then outline three practical techniques to put these principles into practice which are designed to support in preparing the team for engaging in the range of communication challenges they will face in the campaign.
Principle 1: Design for an open dialogue conducted in a civil manner.
The logic of a campaigning approach based on civility is inherent in this toolkit, as we recognise the need to engage with the movable middle to solve a broader societal issue. If we feel that the solution to societal problems must involve diverse groups of people who don’t necessarily agree with us and we wish to move to a space of “non-violent coexistence”, then an approach based on engaging and convincing people who are not on our side in a civil manner is simply a must1
. A chapter title in Haidt’s book (the moral psychologist referred to in earlier steps), presents the challenge perfectly: “Why can’t we disagree more constructively?”2
. This view of civility is not about manners or politeness for the sake of status; this is about showing the common courteously to listen to the views of others and respond in a way that strikes a reasonable tone and seeks to open a dialogue, even if you disagree with their point of view3
. Acting in this manner also illustrates that you are engaged as a constructive partner in a common challenge4
.
This Hope not Hate campaign was developed around a decency frame and their constructive approach to the debate was in stark contrast to those from the far right who protested in a violent manner on the streets. They argued a decency line by saying that we are constructive, reasonable people willing to engage the process in a civil manner. This conciliatory approach also worked well in appealing to middle audiences.
Principle 2: Prepare your team to focus on an approach that values dialogue, rather than winning the argument.
The assumptions of many progressive campaigners in engaging the public is that our role is to persuade them that we are right, show them they are wrong, and get them to admit it, i.e. a zero-sum outcome5
. However, as we have reiterated throughout this toolkit, this is a discussion full of emotions and the people involved are attached to their stories to the extent that a purely rational approach will rarely win. To quote a key source on this issue, “difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values”6
. And we believe that better engaging these conflicting values is worthwhile with the target middle segments. This entails being emotionally smart in opening these discussions so that your audiences feel included in the conversation, that their points of view are respected, and there is room for them to ask questions and be convinced. To be clear, this does not mean you have to change your opinion, but your approach and tone should focus on being non-judgemental and driven by the tenets of civility.
This approach can also bring criticism from other progressives who claim that this is selling out. A good response to this challenge is one of our campaigning tenets that ‘understanding does not equal agreement’ or stated another way, engagement in an understanding manner does not equal agreement. The reason we need to engage the middle in a civil manner is that they are a key part of the solution alongside existing supporters and therefore, we need to start by opening the doors to a conversation that allows us to discuss the issues in a manner that offers a chance to convince them.
This entire campaign is built around a non-judgemental listening and discussion process, where passers-by at selected locations in the city of Mannheim were invited into the reception area of a purpose-built installation and asked to share a rumour they had heard about migration. The two artists running the rumours kitchen described how they worked to build trust of the guests by listening respectfully and noting down the rumours without comment or judgement (even though they personally found many of the rumours distasteful or worse).
Guests were then invited to have a seat in the dining room of the installation while the artists went to the kitchen space and prepared a dish to be eaten together. The ingredients of the dish represented the different elements of the narrative underpinning the rumour shared by the guest. This non-conventional and creative process opens the space for having a constructive discussion, while sharing a meal together also served to foster the connection and comfort of all involved. There are in fact many campaigns that try to provide these new experiences to open such a door to constructive dialogue.
Principle 3: Don’t feed populist caricatures, rather disarm them by engaging.
As mentioned earlier, “Populism can only survive amid polarization. It works through caricature, through the unending vilification of a cartoonish enemy”7 . Conservatives often parody cartoonish progressives as weak, angry, not in control, soft-hearted, unpatriotic, uninformed and elitist8 . So, the common advice is simply not to be that stereotype that they expect. The lecturing, zero-sum approaches of some progressives, whose main aim is to prove opponents wrong is ultimately just fuelling the fire in this regard, no matter if you objectively “win” the argument or not. There is a great need to focus on an approach of listening, understanding, employing a reasonable tone, and building some empathy. This approach will disarm the stereotype and open the door to a conversation with your intended audiences in the middle.
- 1Bejan, T. M. (2017). Mere civility: Disagreement and the limits of toleration. Harvard University Press. & Bybee, K. J. (2016). How civility works. Stanford Briefs, an imprint of Stanford University Press: Stanford, California.
- 2Haidt, Jonathon (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
- 3Lakoff, George (2014) Don't think of an elephant!: know your values and frame the debate : the essential guide for progressives. 2nd Edition. White River Junction, Vt, Chelsea Green Pub. Co.
- 4Stone, D., Patton, B., & Heen, S. (2000). Difficult conversations: How to discuss what matters most. New York, N.Y: Penguin Books.
- 5Stone, D., Patton, B., & Heen, S. (2000)
- 6Stone, D., Patton, B., & Heen, S. (2000)
- 7Rondón, Andrés Miguel (2017) How to Culture Jam a Populist in Four Easy Steps.
- 8Lakoff, George (2014)