Consultations

You can approach consultation processes with local people in various ways.

1 One way, the unashamedly top down way, is to decide beforehand what you want to do and get a bit of help on some of the less important details from some local people.

2 Another way, the bottom up way, could be to ask people what they want and making some adjustments for different opinions do what they want. This is a rare phenomenon.

3 A clever way is to decide beforehand as in (1) and then persuade the punters to follow your ideas. Success here depends on having exclusive and effective control of the relevant (and some irrelevant) information and being sure to have some strategies in place in the unlikely event that they don't accept your view. (like saying the European Directorate will only sanction your plan and no others)

4 A more devious version of (3) is the one increasingly preferred these days. You've effectively made all the decisions yourself well in advance but you don't tell anyone. Using various now well known methods you conduct your consultation in such a way as to make it look as if the preferred outcomes all come from those consulted. The important thing in this is not to be seen to be sniggering behind your hand.