Stupidity is the cause of most failures in lobbying. There is a lot of it. It includes the refusal to engage constructively at the start of the policymaking process, the self-righteous moral indignation expressed at any opportunity, the conspiracy theories, self-denial of the votes against your position, or the reliance on the political margins to promote your agenda.
So, if you want to win, it helps to know how not to be stupid.
I take stupidity to be overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information. It is the information sitting right in front of you, but you refuse to see it there.
You need to make sure sure that your lobbyist is not pulling the wool over your eyes. If they are telling you everything is okay, or all the problems can go away if like by magic, they are hoping that you won’t see the obvious.
8 factorsÂ
There are eight factors that increase your chances of being stupid:
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Being outside your normal environment, your circle of competence
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Being in the presence of a group where social cohesion comes into play
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Being in the presence of an expert
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Doing any task that requires intense focus
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Fixation on an outcome
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Information overload.
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Physical or emotional stress, fatigue.
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Rushing or a sense of urgency
All these eight factors are present in many areas of life. They are the key factors behind accidents. In lobbying, they are ever-present.
How to Avoid
There are good ways to avoid stupidity.
First, checklists help reduce the chances of stupid actions, but they don’t stop them.
Secondly, you need to be conscious of the eight factors and act accordingly.
If you are working in an area requires intense focus, late in the day, with a group of people, on an issue you have only a passing familiarity with and are listening to an expert, the chances increase that mistakes will be made.
Other Red Flags
There are some other useful red flags
1. If no clear information is presented to show that the prefered option will work and get the votes you need
2. If you people in the room shout you down and badger you to back the group approach, despite any evidence being presented that it will get what you want
3. If people are fixated on an outcome and refuse to acknowledge that their prefered option is not on the table
4. If the people around the table have no real competence to be there. Just as you would not have a doctor act as your lawyer in a court trial, you’d not ask your lawyer to perform an intricate medical procedure on you. With the same logic, you’d not ask someone to help you on the legislation who has never worked on the passage of a piece of law in that area. You’d be frightened as hell to learn that the medical team about to perform surgery were doing their first operation. You’d walk out, if you could, if you realised before being put to sleep, that the medical team had no training and were a group of [add any profession with no medical experience] testing their hand at the surgery. More or less the same thing happens every day in lobbying and campaigning.