☆ Smith analysis: City's citizen feedback system works against compromise
This week's showdown at City Hall over special elections featured a lot of yelling and name calling and hardly any listening. Former D3 CM candidate and President of Business & Homes Network - San Jose, Irene Smith, puts on her Counselors' spectacles and sees a misguided system in a chat with Opp Now's Christopher Escher. An Opp Now exclusive.
Christopher Escher, Opp Now: There's a lot of chatter in academic circles about how we've entered a Post-Persuasion environment, in which the internet drives a communication model where nobody tries to convince anybody of anything; they just say stuff to fire up people who already agree with them. Sorta felt that way on Monday.
Irene Smith: It sure looks like people are so intent on getting their message out that they cannot, or will not, listen to the other side. It is not a conversation; it is a rugby match--lots of shoving and scratching. Tribalism really informs the structure and language of this communication system. People are rooting for their team and actively rooting against the other team--with hardly any protocols or guardrails. It often appears childish: Opinions are either suppressed or supported, but the system doesn't invite a give and take.
ON: I guess it wants to be a structure that works like this: People talk, express individual opinions, then the CM's act as referees, and the conversation and compromise takes place at the CM level.
IS: I don't think anybody could watch that meeting and think the CM's were negotiating amongst themselves or looking for compromise or common ground. They just continue the process of an Individual Speaking Their Mind.
The problem, of course, is that it looks like the system devalues public input. It's like a little ticky box they have to check off before they move on to their pre-ordained decision. There's nothing to suggest that anybody was moved by anything anybody said. The public input is structured to come in at the last minute, there's no formal summary, there's no analysis of the input, there are no action items that emanate from it. People are given pre-written emails to send in, like a script somebody has written for them. Free bus rides to the meeting. This is theater. Anybody who's worked in companies that are professional about managing customer relations and customer opinion has to roll their eyes at this process. It's just not serious. And sadly, just like a 911 call that doesn't get answered, people get inured to the government just not responding to them.
ON: What would a serious customer feedback process look like?
IS: Listening is an active, conscious process. It requires a system that is organized around curiosity, around respect, around dialogue, around goodwill, around trying to get to a shared objective. You want people to walk away thinking: They heard me. Instead we get: We won or we lost.
Even in our candidate fora when running for office, Omar and I never really got a chance to have dialogue: The whole thing is set up for each candidate to state their soundbites and then move on to the next question. I really wish we had the fora to just have a conversation about finding common ground around the key issues, instead of a structure that rewards opposition.
ON: Sounds like you'd prefer a creative team meeting model, or a focus group model, to the current Us vs. Them model.
IS: Or a negotiation model. Or a family discussion model. Or an engineering design meeting model. Or a seminar. There is no law that says we need to set up our communications and feedback like this. It's very old school, it's very unimaginative, we're just sleepwalking our way through what should be a very important process.
I outlined this broader issue and recommended a complete re-do of the city's communication model during the campaign. People can read about my concept of an Office of Public Listening on my website. It basically says the city should apply cutting-edge marketing techniques to daylight, to understand, and to track customer and resident feedback.
ON: Why do you think we're so stuck on this adversary model?
IS: A campaign is a competition; it's not a collaboration. But once the campaigns are over, the CM's are not supposed to be campaigning against each other. They're supposed to be working together. I wonder if they are.
They are also stuck with this old-school model that basically sees input as a task to get done as efficiently as possible. Sadly, it's most efficient when the least number of people show up and talk. So it goes from two minutes to one minute to thirty-second comments. And then just shut down altogether. This system would prefer people to not talk at all.
ON: What's an example of how it could be done better at council meetings?
IS: Regarding the appointment of councilmembers, the council should have alerted the public two years ago that this was a possibility. If we are talking about good feedback and customer input, then information has to provided in a way that allows for thoughtful consideration and input. Now, instead of being prepared, the public is surprised, shocked, outraged and has no time to think about alternatives or suggestions.
What if the SJCC told the public in 2021: "Hey, there is a possibility of having vacant seats that will either need to be appointed or call a special election; start thinking about the process now." The public would have felt heard and been part of the solution rather than having the current adversarial relationship where voters feel completely disenfranchised.
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