This is a short list of things I think a young lobbyist needs to be comfortable with and master at the start of their career.
- Write clearly and concisely.
- Speak clearly and concisely.
- Visualise complex information.
- Use plain English.
- Pick up the phone to ask officials/politicians for information.
- Communicate without jargon.
- Present to a senior-level audience.
- Speak in public.
- Understand the process for the procedures you are working on (over time master).
- Understand the evidence you need to bring to the table for the audience/process you are working on.
- Have an aptitude to keep learning.
- Practice radical detachment.
- Manage your emotions.
- Don’t speak your mind.
- Develop a poker face.
- Be comfortable with ambiguity.
- Manage the roller coaster of emotions when working on a campaign/procedure.
- Realise that some people won’t like you. Don’t take it personally.
- Pass bad news.
- Look the part.
- Sound the part.
- Communicate clearly internally.
- Have an unrelenting focus on delivering a good product.
- Maintain the highest ethical standards whatever.
- Maintain your health.
- Don’t fuel your work by caffeine and alcohol.
- Understand your audience: politicians and officials.
- Produce clear and concise issue notes.
- Produce a good Lobby Plan.
- Produce a good Debate report.
- Draft legislative amendments: proposal and explanation.
- Prepare good Position Papers.
- Prepare a Meeting Agenda + Annotated agenda.
- Prepare a Meeting summary and follow-up actions.
- Prepare a Briefing for meeting with officials/politicians.
- Prepare an Elevator pitch.
- Prepare Speeches.
- Present study findings.
- Commissioning an impactful study.
- Eat at the kitchen table, not the office table.
- Research skills to find out the state of play of a legislative or regulatory file.
- Study your craft. Keep learning.
- Be prepared for a marathon, not a sprint.
- Close down at the end of the day.
- Have a hinterland.
- Be comfortable with change and adapting.
- Keep your politics out of your work.
- Visualise Work in Progress.
- Manage your workload and agenda.
- Look at what works and why. Deploy what works and discard what does not.
- Recognise your circles of competence. They are more limited than you think.
- Keep to the essence of an issue.
- Don’t waterboard clients/others.
- Don’t lie.
- Send pre-reads ahead of time.
- In meetings, shut up and listen.
- Track delivery.
- Learn to give feedback.
- Learn to take feedback and learn.
- Learn to give clear instructions.
- Admit fault.
- Flag in advance when others are slacking.
- Turn up early to meetings.
- Realise you are part of a business. Maintain high-value services.
- Admit you can’t do everything. Say no.
- Deal with public scrutiny of your work.
- Say no to unethical things.
- Know when to walk away.
- Avoid jumping to the next bright, new, shiny toy. It takes 5 years to develop a semblance of expertise.
- Avoid bigots, racists, misogynists. There is guilt by association.
- Don’t slag people off in meetings. It is a small world.
- Keep confidences given to you.
- Follow up when you said you would.
- Be realistic about what is possible – in terms of the law and votes.
- Don’t live in cloud fairyland. Don’t be delusional.
- Avoid conflict of interest.
- Keep your home life separate from work.
- Don’t shout/fight officials/politicians.
- Don’t follow people into toilets to continue a conversation, especially if the person is a different sex than you.
- Don’t do anything that you would want to be seen on TV.
- Think on paper
- Manage differences of opinion.
- Know how your organisation adopts positions.
- Don’t turn up late to decisions and votes.
- Be prepared for the obvious and less than obvious.
- When in doubt, check with an expert who knows.
- Prepare and rehearse for all meetings.
- Learn to identify who is the key decision-makers and influencers on any file.
- Carry a notebook at all times. Your memory is not as good as you think it is.
- Take notes on paper in a meeting and not on your keyboard. It looks like you are doing email.
- Turn off your phone in a meeting.
- Be comfortable with people who are not being straightforward with you.
- Prepare a good pitch for new business. Understand the real challenge a potential client has.
- Make a good pitch.
- Provide what you think will work, rather than maybe what’s being asked for, and explain why.
- Deliver what you said you would deliver.
- Deal with rejection if you don’t win.
- Delegate work downwards.
- Delegate work upwards.
- Speak to the few people who really decide and influence a file/decision.
- Admit when you change your mind and explain why.