This chapter further develops the conclusion of the previous chapter and translates it into recommendations for practice and policy. It starts by once more making the argument that citizens and public professionals can improve the productivity of their participatory encounters when they learn to recognise and break through the habitual communicative patterns they sustain in-between them by adapting the nature, tone and conditions of conversations to the law of the situation. Exercising communicative capacity can enhance their ability to solve the problems they face together and save time, energy and cost in the process. Based on the analysis of the three cases, I provide a number of pointers for more productive communication about the situation they are in, the substantive issues at hand, and the relationships they build and maintain. I then turn to three recommendations for policy makers to actively support public professionals and citizens who encounter each other in everyday practice, enabling facilitative leadership, learning and change to emerge while jointly acting upon the problems at hand. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the challenges involved with learning and change and emphasising the importance and centrality of communicative capacity in the process.

Communicative capacity in practice

So much is going on and is at stake in participatory practice. Why is it so important that public professionals and citizens spend their precious time and energy on the ways in which they communicate? How does this help them to better address the problems they face together? Is there not already enough talking going on without adding talk about the way in which they talk? These are all legitimate concerns which are often voiced when I talk about communicative capacity with practitioners. They are usually very busy with their day-to-day affairs, trying to get things done amidst many meetings, emails, phone calls, activities, planning, workshops, evaluations, and so on. I can therefore appreciate that reflecting on communicative processes, patterns and practices can seem like a waste of time, or, at best, just one of those things we should really do but for which there is simply no time.