The power of reciprocity in relationship strategy

On a roading construction project I worked on, the community had been through the wringer. The cyclone had taken a heavy toll and, twelve to eighteen months later, people were still exhausted. Tempers were well frayed.

We had worked through a series of engagements and put those to bed. Then we reached one of those stretches where there were no project updates significant enough to justify another communication.

During that quieter period, a complaint came in about some trees and drainage. Unfortunately, the trees had to be felled. They were turned into woodchip which would ordinarily have ended up at the fill site.

The construction manager paused and asked a better question. Who might be able to use this?

The site was close to the local school. Perhaps they could use the woodchip to freshen up the gardens and playground? A couple of phone calls later, we had a very grateful principal running a school on the smell of an oily rag.

I deliberately didn’t ‘comms’ it. There was no media release or project photo call. I knew how that community worked and, if the gesture mattered, the story would travel without us packaging it into a good-news story.

“The good buggers fixing the road helped our school out.”

That sentence carried more credibility than any project update I could have written. It came from within the community, in its own language, because the action had been useful.

A load of woodchip could never undo what that community had experienced. The gesture gave people one more piece of evidence that the project team was paying attention and willing to return something of practical value.

The moment was unplanned, and by chance. It made me wonder why projects so often leave reciprocity to chance, or more often than not, don't invest into it when there is the opportunity.

When the project keeps taking

Most stakeholder plans are very clear about what the project needs. We map who holds knowledge, who carries influence, who could be affected and when we need to involve them. We set our channels, meeting schedule and process for gathering feedback.

We spend less time examining what stakeholders contribute to the relationship and what the project should return. People give us their time, lived experience, cultural expertise and emotional energy. They may open doors into their networks or lend the process credibility simply by participating.

The project can carry that value forward into better decisions and fewer surprises. The cost to the stakeholder does not disappear when the meeting finishes. A newsletter or engagement summary may be important, but it may not return anything they recognise as useful.

The theory underneath it

You know I love a good bit of theory - bear with while I explain. Social exchange theory helps explain what is happening. Cropanzano and Mitchell describe relationships as a series of interdependent exchanges that can develop into trust and mutual commitment over time. The value exchanged may be practical, informational or symbolic. Being treated as though your contribution matters is part of the exchange.

Reciprocity can also travel in either direction. Positive treatment can encourage cooperation and further investment in the relationship. Repeated extraction, silence or broken follow-through teaches people to protect themselves from the next request.

Project-based research points in the same direction. Moffat and Zhang found that the quality of contact and perceived procedural fairness shaped community trust more strongly than the amount of contact. People paid attention to whether they were heard and respected, and whether the company was prepared to respond to community concerns.

Te Arawhiti’s guidance for engagement with Māori also recognises that engagement runs in two directions. Māori invest time and effort, and agencies should explain how that contribution influenced the decision. Māori-Crown relationships carry the wider context of status, rights, authority and Te Tiriti obligations, which a generic stakeholder technique cannot capture.

Reciprocity becomes manipulation when a project offers a favour to create debt or buy support. Genuine reciprocity returns value without making agreement the price. It shows that the project recognises what it has received and accepts some responsibility for the health of the relationship.

Five places to start

1. Audit the exchange. Choose one important stakeholder relationship and examine what the project asks them to contribute, what it costs them and what they receive that they value. Include the disruption or risk they carry as well as their time and knowledge. If the project side is long and the return amounts to ‘updates’, you have found a gap.
2. Ask what useful looks like. The project cannot define value on the stakeholder’s behalf. Useful might mean earlier notice, access to project evidence, a direct conversation with someone who holds authority, practical action on a recurring issue or participation arrangements that respect their capacity. Ask before assuming.
3. Resource participation properly. Repeated involvement, specialist input and cultural expertise all carry a cost. Decide what appropriate recognition and resourcing look like before sending the invitation. This may include paying for expertise, covering participation costs or adapting the process so people can contribute effectively.
4. Build the return pathway before the engagement. Decide when people will hear back, who will respond and how you will show the connection between their input and the decision. Give every resulting commitment an owner and bring it into project controls. This turns reciprocity into delivery practice instead of leaving it as a courtesy after the event.
5. Look after the relationship between asks. Share useful information when it becomes available and make warm handovers when personnel change. Give the wider project team permission to notice practical opportunities, just as that construction manager noticed the woodchip. A relationship strategy should help the project stay attentive even when it has nothing to announce.

Before the next ask

The woodchip cost very little to redirect. The decision required someone who could see that a project resource might have more value in the hands of the community than at a fill site.

The community remained entitled to every frustration and concern it held about the road. The gesture simply added one more experience to the relationship. Trust develops through that accumulated evidence, including the moments when a project notices, responds and follows through.

Before your next stakeholder engagement, consider these questions.

• What has this stakeholder already contributed?
• What cost, disruption or risk have they carried?
• What have we returned that they would recognise as valuable?
• How will we care for the relationship when we need nothing from them?

A project can behave in ways that warrant trust, which will encourage people to trust it. Reciprocity is one of the conditions that gives trust the best opportunity to develop.

I am currently mapping how reciprocity operates across the Trust Lifecycle, from the first approach through delivery and into the relationship that survives after closure. This work will form part of the Conditions of Trust framework and the professional network I am building around it.

If this has brought a stakeholder relationship to mind, hit reply and tell me where the exchange currently feels one-sided. I am especially interested in what reciprocity looks like across different parts of infrastructure delivery, and other industry sectors.