Attributed to Albert Einstein : “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”
I have the suspicion that a lot of interests – Industry and NGOs – don’t get what they want – in term of public policy and advocacy – because they can’t explain what they want clearly and simply enough.
They fail because what they are communicating, by way of their written or spoken words, makes little to no-sense to the audience of decision-makers that they are trying to persuade.
After a few decades of campaigning and lobbying in sunny Brussels, this gut feeling keeps getting stronger year by year.
The real reason you fail in lobbying
Think about it for a minute. You fail because what you are saying in meetings or position papers comes across as gibberish or Latin.
You put their opposition down to any number of factors : the stars are in the wrong alignment, a conspiracy from Deep State, The Deep Green Conspiracy, the Illuminati (choose or add your preference), or the result was predetermined on day 1 by forces unknown (maybe the Lizard People).
That your words can only be understood by the ‘Select’ seems not to matter. The ‘Select’ are of course limited. They’ll be the ones in your committee meeting, your organisation, or your post-doc community. Those who can’t understand your brilliance should recuse themselves from making laws/public policy on the issue you are working on. They are not the ‘Select’. You are likely upset that ‘the non-select’ can even have a say or vote on a decision/law/policy that impacts your issue.
Lightness and Dense Fog on the same Day
Recently, on the same day, I witnessed the miraculous power of someone explaining an issue clearly, and a few hours, coming down to earth, when I listened to double-Dutch on an issue I know a lot about.
There is an issue that many people have tried to explain to me. Whenever they do, it sounds like they are speaking Latin and showing excel files. I’m lost. It may explain the slow progress on the file.
Someone explained it to me, in ways I understood. It was clear, indeed interesting, and important.
I had to pinch myself and check this was the same issue others had spoken about. It was.
What did this person do to make the complex clear?
He used:
Simple words.
No jargon or technical terms.
Metaphors and examples I could understood.
Drew parallels to issues I could relate to.
Checked to see if I understood each major point.
Framed the issue around something bigger than the issue itself.
Addressed proactively the concerns and perceived weak points about the issue.
At the end of the conversation, it was as if light and knowledge had broken through the fog and confusion.
Now, the person doing the explaining, is a real expert on the issue. By that I mean in the territory of several thousand hours type of focused work on the issue.
Yet, on the same day, I listened to a talk on an issue I have a certain experience on, and maybe I’d venture, expertise on.
I had no idea what was being said.
Strange words were being used that I’d never had heard being used in normal conversation.
For a moment, I had a flash back to a talk on Foucault during my graduate school days.
What I thought was a simple concept was being deconstructed into an endless white noise.
I left the talk none the wiser on what was meant by the strange words.
As a lobbyist, you are going to have to explain complex issues to people who are not experts – 10,000 hours types – in the unique issue. And, sometimes, you are going to find that the official or politician is a real expert on the issue.
For either, do what the first person did.
Prepare and Rehearse
And, for both, prepare and rehearse.
I know of too many meetings that go to hell, and interests set back years, because lobbyists or their clients did not prepare.
I still recall a lobbyist explaining a point to an official with a weird mix of arrogance and complexity. He seemed oblivious that the official had a PhD on the issue and had worked in industry for many years before moving over to government. The meeting did not go well.