The Infrastructure Podcast: Episode 30

Guest: Teresa Jolley and Sir Nic Cary, founders of transport communication specialist DEFT153.

Stories to communicate change

Today we delve into the world of communication and examine the challenges faced by infrastructure professionals when it comes to winning buy-in for new ideas, policies and projects. That’s buy in from the public and from politicians.

I have described this process as creating the "Stories to communicate change". Well let’s discuss this!

It is a stark reality that the experts charged with planning, designing, constructing and operating our infrastructure assets are not necessarily always AS focused or AS skilled as they need to be when it comes to translating brilliant and sensible ideas into popular or even supportable solutions. 

Typically, problems can occur from a lack of focus on the impact that a particular idea or project might have on specific people, or insufficient understanding of the needs and fears of local communities. This failure to properly analyse the benefits – or disadvantages – can quickly render change practically difficult or politically impossible.

Getting this analysis and approach wrong can stop progress in its tracks; getting it right usually ensures that the benefits of infrastructure investment are reaped across communities – communities who understand and believe in that change and who subsequently have the confidence to demand more.

It’s a huge and important challenge, so to help me I have two guests today, Teresa Jolley and Sir Nic Cary, founders of transport communication specialist DEFT153. Teresa and Nic both of have career spanning experience in helping experts across the sector to successfully navigate this tricky process - and in building the vital trust required to shepherd individuals and teams through difficult processes of change.

Teresa’s background is in communications and in the design and delivery of events, networking and community engagement across the transport sector. Nic has spent a career working largely in central government to help accelerate the uptake and use of data as tool to better design policy interventions – most recently as head of data an digital transformation at the DfT.

Together, according to the internet, they “simplify the communication of technical subjects” and “help technical staff deliver engaging insights that inspire change”.

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