21 recommendations on how to defend yourself from a NGO attack

The following is an adaptation of the checklist and longer briefing I written on what to do if a NGO attacks you.

There is nothing original in here. When I have used some of these ideas with clients they have walked away more or less unscathed.

Most commercial interests hunker down and hope they can weather the storm. This can be rational. If it is not a focused and well-funded campaign, you may be able to outlast them. But, when you face a long term and well financed campaign knowkcing on your doors you can’t play denial any longer.

For me,  these ideas are drawn from my time working on campaigns for NGOs and assisting clients when being attacked by NGOs. Yes, I must look like a chameleon.  It draws out some of the implicit points in Rose’s How To Win Campaigns.

If you wake up one day and find your offices being scaled by NGO activists what do you.

The reality is that they have probably been sending your letters for the last 12 months asking for the meeting. You or your colleagues have probably lost the letters.

I’ve found in most campaigns that the NGO targeting you know more about your supply chain and the issue than your own company. They probably use the world’s leading expert on the issue as their advisory consultant.

Sometimes, the most sensible thing to do is working out a quiet way to solve the issue. I’ve found this works.

Sometimes, you’ll feel compelled to yell ‘No Surrender’.

1. You need to beyond the stages and grief and act. Denial and being angry are natural emotions. They are not very constructive. You need to move on quickly or you’ll be paralysed by your grief. If you don’t, you’ll lose.

 

2. You need to understand what you are being accused of.  You’ll need to be able to show that there is ‘no problem’.

Here you have a challenge. Often, no-one is going to trust a word you say.  To deal with this, I have found a two-step process useful.

Step 1: get your own experts to analyse the problem and prepare a response with all the data in an Annex.

Step 2: you bring in the world’s best independent expert(s) you can afford to scrutinise the case being (1) made against you and (2) your expert’s analysis (with data).

This ‘truth testing’ will give you a better assessment of where you really are. If you have a problem, you need to sort it out. If not, you can go ahead.

If your own people don’t want a third party expert to validate your case, you know you have a problem. Then, it’s best to quietly sue for peace.

3.  Your organisation is unlikely going to be set up to deal with a campaign against it.   You’ll need to form a small group answerable only to the boss.

The more people who become involved in a campaign, the less productive it becomes.

4. It is likely you are going to drop your usual people to lead your response. They can’t campaign. Find a spokesperson, someone who can speak on behalf of the company, and who knows how to handle themselves in public, in front of the press, and politicians. A  core team of 3-5 people is often enough.

Campaigns and responding to them can’t be done by way of Committee.

 

 

Inertia, which is the default position of committees,  will grind down the ability to respond rapidly.

5. You need to develop a campaign plan. When it is agreed, you need to focus on execution.

It is relatively easy to anticipate the game plan that’s going the unleashed on you. What happens next is a  predictable escalation of well thought out steps. Just read Chris Rose to understand the game plan.

Once you know the model that’s going to be rolled out, it’s easy to respond to it.

6. You need to take apart every element of your opponent’s case.

You need to take apart their case not only on your terms, but on their own terms.

When you do this, you want to have the silver bullet or a series of smaller silver bullets. There is no one single bullet that will make this go away.

If you can take apart their case on their own terms they’ll find it hard to respond.

7. Drop the endless feedback meetings. They kill the defence work.

I’ve worked on campaigns that have only succeeded because most people were on holiday.  This allowed 5 people to focus on getting things done.

 

There are good online tools to track progress. I like basecamp.

Check-in calls at the end of the day for 5-10 minutes are good. They are useful to update the small campaign team on key developments, next actions, and make any decisions on shifting resources.

8. If the campaign team can’t keep up, drop them, and find people who can. Campaigns are few a very few people. The hours are silly. You need to juggle, and you have very thick skin.

9. Remember you are speaking to humans and not yourselves. If you keep communicating with yourselves and not the outstide world, you’ll likely lose.

You must remframe this issue on your own terms. If you take the battle on the opponents terms,  your chance of winning goes down a lot.

10. Use a values-based model to communicate your case with settlers, pioneers, and prospectors.

First,  you need to prepare your communications in terms of language that resonate with each of these groups.

Second, you need to use values-based models to prepare rebuttals for your opponent’s case.

This is usually the hardest part of dealing with any attack. Most of your colleagues just don’t have the headspace to look beyond the issue, other than from their position.

You need to have people who have the creativity and flexibility of thought to get into the heads of the people who will influence and decide the issue.

Otherwise, you may as well keep on speaking to yourselves.

11. Don’t hibernate.  Go out and meet the 250-500 people who make the decision on your key issue.

Do it quickly. Turning up late means you likely lose.

Your opponents will be walking into to meet every key official and politician across the EU back home.

12. Go out and communicate your case visually.

Push your case to the media (print and social media).

 

Great visuals are way more powerful than long position papers.

14. Make sure you keep anyone who pisses people off.

I’ve met great campaign strategists who had the self realisation that they needed to stay in the shadows.

If you have people on your team who wind up their target audience, keep them locked away.

15. You are going to have to need money to defend yourself.

For me, one of the great ironies of the early 21st century is that NGOs often outspend industry in relative and absolute terms comparing campaigning costs against as against campaign spend in defence.

16. You can never cut corners. You need to operate as if a Go-Pro camera is on your head.

Don’t do crazy things and go over the edge. If you fall off the edge, anyouur survive the fall, it’s going to take a long time in rehabilitation.

I know those who went down the crazy path. They lost. 10 years later they are still not taken seriously.

17. If you bring in outside help, choose them as you would choose a surgeon.

Make sure they have walked through the fires and back a few times. Ask to see their record. Don’t bring in campaign virgins.

18. You need absolute honesty from your advisers.  If they sell you quick fixes and good news stories,  walk away. They are like medical quacks who tell you the cure to cancer is herbal exlir tea.

19.  Often the very best people to defend you is not yourself. Cialdini writes about it. It’s often better to find persuaders to speak up for you, rather than do you do itself.

If you do that, make sure they are respected, with no skeletons in the closet, that will set you back if revealed.

20.  Be civil and decent throughout and speak to your opponents. Have good relations with them. You may one day land up working together.

21. Finally, f you manage to survive, you either have to set up a system that makes sure the problem never returns or flags up if a campaign is going to come knocking on your door.

I’ve seen good systems for identifying political, regulatory and legislative threats.

SIGWATCH is good at tracking NGO activity.

On every issue I have worked for, both for industry and NGOs, the issue was a long-standing issue. It never came as a surprise to me that it landed up on the political, regulatory or public agenda. It should not be a surprise for you.