Synergist - October 2011

That’s okay on occasion. But a confidential advisory group—one that almost never reveals what it has learned and what it thinks—is worse than useless; it will arouse more outrage than it vents. Advisory group meetings should be routinely open to outsiders, including the media. Your group should go into “executive session” only when there’s an obviously good reason to do so, and should routinely post its minutes for all to see.

3. The power to transmit information.

Advisory groups should be conduits for two-way communications. They should take back what they’ve learned from your company or agency to their constituents, explaining what you said as well as expressing their agreement or disagreement. Just as important, they should be open to concerns expressed by their constituents. Whether they share those concerns or not, they should tell you what concerns they are hearing.

4. The power to give advice. This is advisory groups’ putative principal purpose: to tell you what they think you should do. It’s important, but no more important than investigating, publicizing, and transmitting information. And of course the advisory function is a lot more powerful when it’s accompanied by the power to investigate, publicize, and transmit. Advisory groups don’t just tell you what they think you should do. They tell you why, based on the information they have unearthed and the concerns they have heard from constituents. And they tell everybody else what they advised you to do, and how you responded to the advice. They can’t make you take their advice, but they can make you answerable for taking or rejecting it.

5. The power to manage themselves. My clients are endlessly asking about advisory group practices. Should they have an outside facilitator or run their own meetings? How often should they meet, and where? When and how should the minutes be distributed? Should members get paid or

their expenses reimbursed, or might that look like a bribe? The best answer to these and hundreds of other questions, I think, is “none of your business.” Let the advisory group decide. You can gently suggest reasons why one approach might be superior to another. You can certainly offer to cover the group’s costs, so it isn’t unduly constrained by financial considerations. But you’re not going to let your advisory group run your company or agency, so don’t try to run your advisory group.

One final piece of advice about advisory groups: Don’t let your advisory group preempt other vehicles for interacting with stakeholders and hearing their concerns. In the U.S., the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) governs the behavior of the 1,000-odd federal agency advisory groups. Various provisions of FACA aimed at preventing agencies from going behind their advisory committees’ backs end up inhibiting their other interactions with stakeholders. My agency clients often tell me (with barely hidden pleasure) that it might be illegal for them to talk to any stakeholder anywhere other than at a formal, announced-in-advance, open-to-the-public advisory committee meeting.

Similarly, my corporate clients some-
times tell me that a particular activist
organization refuses to attend advisory
group meetings but is willing to meet
separately with the company. “So meet
with them separately,” I respond. “Ab-
solutely not!” the company insists, the
smirk just below the surface. “We set up
the advisory group for that purpose,
and we wouldn’t want to do anything
to interfere with its prerogatives.”
Preventing you from dialoguing with
stakeholders in some other venue is not
an advisory group prerogative.

Peter M. Sandman is a risk communication consultant and speaker. Much of his work on risk communication can be found on his website, www.psandman.com—and in videos and a book published by AIHA. Comments on this and future columns can be sent to peter@psandman.com.