A long time ago, I asked someone who had a very successful track record of passing environmental legislation how he did it. He was able to get major legislation through, and have several proposals going through at the same time.
His answer came down to “You follow the same process and steps for each proposal. The people and fundamental issues are not that different for each proposal, so I just slot the facts in, and we get the laws passed”.
At the time, I did not really understand the answer, but years later I did.
Why your issue is not new
Most clients, lobbyists and officials think their file is “unique” and “special”. They often act as if no similar file has ever been considered before. Their file is “groundbreaking”.
After many years, I realised that very few files are “groundbreaking”. You are in fact taking a file through a well-trodden path that many others have gone through every year.
Sure the people, specific facts and politics will vary for every file. But the journey you are going on, the steps you will take, and the actions you need to take, by when and with whom, the way you deal with key decision makers and influencers, is more or less the same for every file you work on. What works, and what does not work, has been tested many times. All you have to do is copy what works, and ignore what does not work.
You would not believ your lawyer if they said that your house purchase, company incorporation, or the divorce was “unique” , and bill you accordingly. You’d especiall not believe them if you knew that there were using a piece of software or AI backed software, to do the work. They can do this because the steps are so clear and established. A lot of the more mundane work is no longer done by lawyers and is done by AI and legal software (see this FT piece).
What are you really dealing with
In lobbying, nearly every decision-making procedure you are dealing with has been dealt with before. At the end of the day, most of the time you are going to be dealing with:
- Agency deliberations (e.g. EFSA, ECHA, etc)
- Ordinary legislation
- Secondary legislation: Either an Implementing Act, a Delegated Act, or (still) Regulatory Procedure with Scrutiny (RPS) measures.
Yes, each of these procedures has quite a few steps involved from beginning to end. I have 70 steps for ordinary legislation and around 20 for a delegated act.
Over time, I’ve developed models for my narrow fields of competence. My limited competence is only in ordinary legislation, legislative campaigns, chemical regulation, fisheries, environmental measures, and secondary legislation. The advisory work on ordinary and secondary legislation is of broader application across issues because the steps, and corresponding actions you need to take, are more or less the same for every issue.
I’ve assembled process charts, best practice checklists, and case studies for all agency chemical procedures, ordinary legislation, and secondary legislation (implementing acts, delegated acts, and RPS measures) I work on.
This is all written down and filed away.
A latticework of models
It means I have 10 models filed away that cover nearly 99% of all requests for advice. Each model contains an operational breakdown of the steps involved from start to finish, with the lead times, documents you need, assets/materials you need, key stakeholders, what the key decision makers and influencers need, operational checklists, and examples and templates of the material you need to use (e.g. position papers, briefing notes etc). Each model is tested against reality, with case studies, and a look at the result for each example, which is usually how many votes did the proposal get and were the votes enough for the proposal to get adopted.
And, over time I realised that every good position paper, briefing, amendment, etc have more or less exactly the same characteristics. I am near finished assembling a portfolio of good examples and creating templates.
Less excitement
I know this takes away most of the excitement out of the work. I don’t need to run around and find the answers to the question “what happens next”. Instead, I just turn to a specific model for the process at hand and see what the next step is, and look at what needs to happen next.
At the age of 51, I like to keep the excitement at work to a minimum, focus mental energy on the rare 1% of non-standard cases, and find solutions to difficult cases.
Hi Aaron, you make it sound easy and simple, but beyond the models and templates there are a lot of variables ( e.g. political orientation of those who vote, who are the stakeholders involved and what is the balance of power, does the respective measure give a competitive edge to certain players, thus they will take the opportunity to dig the grave of competitors and display “NGO like behaviour” , etc. There is some routine, no doubt, and we do not re-invent the wheel, but still…
Adriana, From my experience, the non-variable steps are around 90-95%. That said, the models/steps I am using are a lot more detailed than most. Aaron