After the French voted “non’ and the Dutch followed with a “nay” on the
European Union constitution this week, many policy experts, journalists
and politicians started dissecting what happened.
One of the
biggest issues, and not talked about much, is that the voters just
didn’t understand what the EU constitution would mean to them.
The
policy makers and politicians failed to communicate with the people.
They holed up in Brussels writing dense, rhetoric-filled papers, shared
these with insiders, and thought they were done. Their approach is
similar to what frequently happens in the corporate world where
executives develop complex corporate strategies with their seven figure
management consulting firms, write a report (or a really, really big
PowerPoint deck) and consider the job done.
Whoa. If people
don’t understand what the strategy means to them, they will not accept
it, work to make it happen, or in the case of the EU constitution, vote
on it.
Talking yesterday on NPR’s “Connection” radio
program, Jocelyne Cesari, Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard’s
Center for Middle East Studies and Divinity School, underscored the
communications problem.
“What is missing in Europe and the EU
building process is a political narrative that would be appealing to a
lot of segments of European society — especially young people. Up
until now the European Union has been seen as a bureaucratic process.
When people say Brussels they mean a very specialized place – writing
treaties of 30 pages long with technical features.
“People in
Europe don’t understand what the story would be for them in this new
union. This is very important. It is the responsibility of all national
political classes to make a story that resonates.”
Another example of how essential strategic communications is – and the cost when executives fail to make it a priority.