When Engagement Isn't Actually Engagement

This honest - not commsy - launch blurb may hinder more than help. But… I need to stay true to what I believe.

My arrival in the field of engagement was a reluctant submission to circumstance. A crappy diagnosis for an eye condition created a need to future proof my ability to stay productive. That sparked a search for a new career field and new openings.

So, a mediocre stock agent with farming interests on the side, and skilled with only a strong jaw and a ready tongue discovered engagement. “Yes! The art of conversation!”  King of the two-way yarn meets the perfect job, a perfect path.

But that’s when the water got murky.

Organisations had hijacked engagement to deliver messages, corner conversations or peddle visions. What I expected to be a balanced back and forth of ideas, and the exchange of understanding, was in fact a broadcast. Not the listening, connecting, empowering and working with communities that I believed in.

Eeeww! It was as if I’d missed the correct entrance and saw the field in all its ugly glory. What had felt like a natural fit was a kaleidoscope of spin, PR nuance and a poetry of polish and packaging. But…painfully out of touch.

Don't get me wrong, we still need the spin doctors, the sales pitchers, the vision peddlers, but let's call it what it is, and not dress that up as engagement.

Engagement, the human stuff… the discussion, the messy, honest, face to face conversations. Not the “engagement”, I was running into.  Hollowed out.  Reduced to just messages, promotion, risk, and pre-approved talking points.

There was a disconnect and nowhere was this more obvious than in rural communities.

The tragedy is that genuine engagement - messy, honest, and personal is exactly what these communities need and deserve. Rural people are used to having real conversations about real consequences - drought, market prices, land use decisions and the stuff that affects their lives directly.

Could that be delivered? Something built from the inside out, specifically for rural.

Rural engagement that understands, warts and all, what it’s like to live in the reality. That doesn’t just “engage stakeholders,” but earns trust, and knows the difference between being heard and being handled.

So, I decided to start a specialised business in rural engagement. It’s named True Radius.

Not polished, but perfectly honest, human, and centred on the kind of connection that matters. Showing up, listening properly, and sticking around to see the consequences. It’s about starting where people are at and not where the paperwork says they should be.

Maybe I’m chasing a dream. That idealistic, truth-first way of working that treats rural people like partners, not just participants, might raise eyebrows. But it’s about respect -for every side of the conversation.

That’s the radius I want to work within.

That’s the difference I want to make.

It all starts with a yarn - if you’re ready to make that call.