Language Guidance for Score-Decline Conversations

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM

CLASSIFICATION: FACILITATOR LEVEL AND ABOVE

DO NOT DISTRIBUTE TO CITIZEN-FACING CHANNELS

TO: All Optimization Facilitators, Denver Efficiency Zones 1 through 22

FROM: Office of Citizen Compliance, Implementation Division

RE: Language guidance for score-decline conversations

Facilitators have reported difficulty in sessions with citizens whose scores have declined across three or more consecutive measurement cycles. Session transcripts show a recurring failure point. When a citizen asks what will happen to them, facilitators are answering the question.

Do not answer that question.

The citizen asking it has already begun modeling an outcome. Every additional detail you supply gives that model more material to work with, and citizens who model outcomes stop working toward them. Score data across the last four cycles is unambiguous on this. Citizens given specific consequence information decline faster than citizens who are redirected.

Approved redirections, in order of measured effectiveness:

1. "Your next cycle has not been measured yet."
2. "Let us look at what is available to you this week."
3. "That is a question for a citizen with a different trajectory than yours."

Item 3 tests strongest. It is accurate, it is encouraging, and it returns the citizen's attention to behavior they can still adjust.

Facilitators are reminded that a citizen who leaves your office frightened has been made less productive by the appointment. The appointment is a resource. Do not spend it on information that lowers output.

Direct questions regarding this guidance to your zone supervisor. Do not raise it in citizen-facing forums.

V. Pierce

Chief of Implementation