We teach new councillors about governance. We forget to teach them how to talk to each other.

After every election we provide our shiny new council orientation sessions, binders, and briefings. Staff walk newly elected officials through their legal obligations, the budget cycle, the role of the CAO, the difference between governance and administration. It is important work. And it covers almost none of what will actually determine whether those four years go well. I’m serious.

Here is what most orientation programs do not include: how to listen, how to debate respectfully at the council table, how to ask a question in a public meeting without triggering defensiveness in the room, how to engage with a frustrated resident in a way that de-escalates rather than inflames, or how to disagree with a colleague without it becoming personal or landing on the front page.

These are not soft skills (I really don’t like that term). These are the core skills of elected office. And we are sending people into some of the most high-stakes public communication environments imaginable without teaching them. We are setting them up for failure.

I wrote recently about the science behind why people stop listening, and the research is worth revisiting here. When people feel threatened or dismissed, the brain’s amygdala triggers a stress response. The prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for rational thinking, listening, and measured response, goes offline. This happens to residents in a public meeting. It also happens to councillors sitting at the table under scrutiny, under pressure, or in conflict with a colleague.

Understanding that is super interesting for communications geeks but also critical to elected officials. When a newly elected councillor knows why a room escalates the way it does, they are better equipped to choose a different response in the moment. When they understand that tone lands before content does, they start paying attention to how they are saying something, not just what they are saying. When they learn that acknowledging a concern before responding to it is not a concession but a communication strategy, it changes how they show up at the table.

Most orientation programs are designed by staff who are experts in governance and administration. That expertise is exactly right for the governance and administration parts of the program. But the communication components, if they exist at all, are often brief and surface-level. A few notes on media relations, maybe a reminder to be careful on social media, and a handout on council decorum that nobody reads twice.

That is not enough. And the consequences show up quickly.

We have councils where debate has become adversarial, public meetings are generating complaints, residents are showing up angry and leaving angrier, and where staff are quietly absorbing the fallout of communication that went sideways at the table. We have all read about those councils in the news but not all of them make the news. However, it does show up in the number of staff leaving an organization. That hostility at the table and in the community is draining for staff. Some of that is inevitable. Local government is hard. But some of it is preventable, and the prevention starts at orientation.

A more complete, and frankly more helpful, orientation would include the basics of how people process information under stress and why plain, calm language builds more trust than passionate intensity. It would teach councillors the difference between debate that challenges ideas and debate that challenges people, and why that distinction matters enormously in a public forum. It would give them practice engaging with difficult questions from residents, not just policy questions from staff. It would address social media directly, with real scenarios, not just a reminder to be careful.

It would also be honest about the power dynamic that exists between an elected official and a resident at a public microphone. That dynamic does not disappear just because a councillor has good intentions. Understanding it, and designing community engagement accordingly, is part of the job.

None of this needs to add weeks to an orientation program. A focused half-day session on communication, debate, and public engagement, built around practical scenarios rather than theory, can shift how a council shows up from day one. It can be delivered as part of the existing orientation schedule or as a standalone session in the first few months of a new term, before patterns get established and harder to change. Better yet, what if the morning was focussed on communication and the afternoon was spent on spokesperson training? You might get a council that looks like respectful seasoned professionals.

The investment is modest. The alternative, managing the communications fallout of a council that never learned how to have a difficult conversation well, is considerably more expensive.

If you are designing your next council orientation and want a session that covers this ground, this is work I do. I am happy to talk through what that could look like for your community.

Five things you can do right now

1. Audit your current orientation agenda. Count how many hours are dedicated to governance and administration versus communication, debate, and public engagement. If the ratio is lopsided, you have your starting point.
2. Include a segment on the neuroscience of conflict in your orientation. It does not need to be long or academic. Even a 20-minute conversation about why people stop listening and what that means at the council table can change how new councillors approach difficult moments.
3. Use real scenarios, not hypotheticals. Pull from situations your community has actually faced, a heated public hearing, a divided vote, a social media incident, and walk new councillors through how communication choices shaped the outcome.
4. Do not wait until something goes wrong. The best time to set communication expectations and build shared language around respectful debate is before patterns get established. First term, first months, first chance.
5. Consider bringing in an outside facilitator for the communication components. The same staff who deliver governance orientation are not always best placed to facilitate candid conversations about how councillors talk to each other and to the public. An outside voice can create more safety for honest engagement.