Too often too many people leave things to chance.
They think you can just turn up and expect things will go just fine.
The best in their field don’t leave things to chance.
What you can learn from an orchestra
Last week I attended a concert by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra being conducted by Franz Welser-Möst . The concert was great.
What was even better was getting access to the pre-concert rehearsal.
Here, I saw one of the of the world’s top conductors iron out glitches in the performance of one world’s top orchestrators.
A group of the world’s finest musicians still had room to improve.
It did not matter that they had been playing the same piece of music together for some time. Improvements could still be made.
It did not matter that they had been rehearsing before and even earlier that day. Improvements could still be made.
Things could still be improved, glitches ironed out, tonal improvements to make.
So, they rehearsed, refined, and improved.
It is something the people who are at the top of their field do.
The late Sir Ken Dodd
I notice the same thing in the obituary in the Economist of Sir Ken Dodd.
“It seemed scatty, but every joke and gesture was rehearsed and re-rehearsed. In each new town he scoured the public library for books about comedy and the psychology of wit. His house in Knotty Ash was full of them. He read Schopenhauer and Freud. “Freud said, Laughter is the outward expression of the psyche. But he never played the Glasgow Empire on a Saturday after both Celtic and Rangers lost.” In dozens of notebooks he recorded his jokes, where told, and how they’d gone down. In the Black Country he had to unfold them slowly. Nottingham liked picture gags. The south coast enjoyed a bit of spice, but Wigan didn’t. His favourite photo of himself was a back view, walking across a theatre car park in red-and-white striped stockings, tickling-sticks in hand, thinking: “I could have told that one better.”
What can the lobbyist learn
You can keep learning, refining, and be improving. The trutch is you have no choice.
A notebook of what worked and what did not work is useful
Reading the minutes of every key committee you follow is easy. You get to understand the committee’s thinking.
Reading the output of decisions of the Parliamentary and Council is vital.
Reading the specialised press in your area – for me ENDS, Chemical Watch, EuroComment – keeps you up to speed.
In all your reading, you will observe trends and developments, that if you note down, and store somewhere (I use Evernote) will help you improve your game.
Don’t leave any meeting to chance – review, refine, adjust before going into a meeting, and after following up, look at how you can improve.
Notice what lines of engagement work and those that don’t. I have not found in 20 years threats, explicit or implicit, to shut down a plant and leave the EU to work if a politicians/regulator backs a measure. So, I recommend not using it. Better Regulation argumentation works with a few people, but most of the time people fluff their lines and make put forward a really bad case because they have not bothered reading the Better Regulation Guidance. Instead, too many recite empty slogans, that land up annoying the true believers of Better Regulation, who just politely walk away.
You only get to be one of the best by constantly improving yourself, day in and day out. Few people have the energy or mindset to do it. It is a lot of effort on your own clock