A lot of time in Brussels is spent developing and drafting position papers.
The question I’d like to ask you is ‘do they persuade the people they are meant to?’.
I am sure that the people who write them think they are persuasive. And, if your audience is an echo chamber, it may well persuade. Too many are hard to read, evidence-free, and come across as the statements of faith of the zealot, trying to persuade the sceptic. They don’t persuade.
The only real goal of a position paper is that it influences decision-makers who hold the pen drafting the proposal and final law. You want to submit a position paper that positively persuades key decision-makers at the right time.
Crowd Sourcing Persuasive Position Papers
I’d like your help to crowdsource examples of position papers whose ideas got co-opted in Commission proposals and into final pieces of law.
There are plenty of poor position papers. The ones that ignore Richard Haas’ classic advice in the ‘Power to Persuade’.
Could you email me at aaronmcloughlin@mac.com with examples of persuasive position papers and indicate how they influenced the legislative outcome?
I’d like to deconstruct those examples and contrast them with the many examples of soulless jumble of words that inflict the eyes of officials.