Who do you trust?

How do you build trust in a development project when the community’s default position is outrage? Kylie Cochrane, Aurecon’s global lead for communication and stakeholder engagement, shares her insights.

The implosion of trust we’ve seen around the word may have eroded our faith in political and religious institutions, Cochrane (pictured) says. But it also has serious implications for any industry making changes to communities and places.

Cochrane is the international chair of IAP2, the International Association for Public Participation. She has led stakeholder and community engagement on a host of challenging projects, including rail, road and water infrastructure. Most recently, she oversaw Aurecon’s community engagement program for the $1 billion Wynyard Station redevelopment in Sydney.

She says every society, “whether first world or tribal” rests on three foundations: political, religious and community.

“Community is represented not only in terms of friends and family, but also geography. My street, my town, my city, my land,” she explains.

“As people become cynical and mistrusting of political and religious leadership, what is left is our sense of community – family, friends and place. In this context, any infrastructure project or large development project is being automatically greeted with mistrust, cynicism or even outrage.”

Cochrane is looking the impact of social movements on infrastructure and development projects, both in Australia and around the world, as she works towards a PhD.

She says this sense of “outrage” is an inevitable result of a more informed and educated community.

“In our grandparents’ day, people just put up with things they didn’t like. Today, people know how the media works, and they know how to express their outrage to get heard”.

 

Building trust in the digital age

When outrage is the default position, the development industry must engage differently from the outset.

“Engagement is about trust and understanding. When you can build that you can work through any issue. But when you start from a place of mistrust, engagement is very hard.”

Aurecon uses a combination of digital and traditional tools to build trust. During the Wynyard Station upgrade, for example, Cochrane’s team needed to connect with more than 100,000 commuters.

Standing outside the station with megaphones and fact sheets weren’t the answer.

“We realised that just about everyone had a phone in their hand”, so Aurecon developed innovative digital tools, including a smart phone app and SMS notifications to keep commuters informed.

Other strategies included a partnership with the City of Sydney to engage with rough sleepers around the station and a 3D tactical model of the station in collaboration with Vision Australia.

“The best way to combat mistrust is to start with myth-busting and factual information”, Cochrane says, adding that social and digital tools are primed for that purpose.

But Cochrane’s team complement their work on social media with traditional tools, such as “kitchen table meetings” in which the “project director can eyeball the people who will be impacted by a project”. Another is the “phone tree”, where project champions within the community share information updates with a group of people, who then share too.

 

Way more than warm and fuzzy

“Construction is not easy, pretty or clean. We need to acknowledge that as an industry. But most people can withstand disruptions or intrusions, provided they know when construction will occur and finish, and how they can deal with their concerns.

“There are many ways that we can make it easier for people, and to keep them informed so there are no surprises.”

Cochrane says the property industry must accept community outrage is part-and-parcel of any large-scale development.

“So, resource accordingly. One piece of research from the University of Melbourne has found that $20 billion in development and infrastructure has been lost or postponed due to community outrage.

“Community engagement isn’t just warm and fuzzy – it has clear commercial outcomes when developers don’t get it right”.