On Saturday I gave a talk to some students at the College of Europe on lobbying.
I made some suggestions on useful skills and these are the books to learn your craft.
On communicating/writing well: Barbara Minto’s The Pyramid Principle.
On clear presentation of information: Edward Tufte’s Seeing with Fresh Eyes.
On organising your work: Cal Newport’s A World Without Emial
On systemising your work/understanding of what you are really doing: William Heitman’s The Knowledge Work Factory and Atwul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto
On how to influence people, Robert Cialdini’s Influence and Pre-suasion.
On understanding the policy process and windows of opportunity, anything by John W.Kingdon, but especially Agenda, Alternatives and Public Policies. Generally a master class on what do and when in the policy making process.
When you work in certain areas, you’ll come across certain authors whose thinking has had a profound thinking on public policy thinking. You shoud read their work. They’ll often make the complex clear.
So, if you work on energy, you’ll read anything by Vaclav Smil.
If you work on risk regulation, you’ll read Cass Sunstein’s classic Risk and Reason.
On campaigning, Chris Rose’s How to Win Campaigns and What Makes People Tick.