If you want to succeed, you need to watch out for feedback loops. This is the information that is communicated in response to an action.
The feedback loop is important. It helps you iterate and improve. If you choose to ignore it, it will hasten your defeat.
For a lobbyist, there are obvious feedback loops. They include:
- Did you win the vote in Committee or plenary?
- Did your position get taken up by the Commission as their own?
- Did an influential Member State champion your issue in the Council Working Group?
- Did the meeting with the Commission lead to a fast and positive follow up?
- Often it is an off-hand comment, usually delivered walking you to the lift, that sums up the true position of a key decision-maker or influencer.
Are you picking up the feedback signals?
It is common that you or your client are not picking up the feedback or are not interpreting it correctly.
I’ve sat in meetings when working for MEPs and in the Commission, when the meeting was a train wreck, that the lobbyists thought had gone well.
I’ve been in meetings when the Commission officials turned off in 5 minutes listening to the lobbyist’s protests.
I’ve watched in awe as a lobbyist snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
And, in all these cases the lobbyists thought the meeting had gone well.
Feedback to watch out for
The political world offers us all feedback, but do we listen and incorporate, or do we just keep wanting the political world to work differently than it does?
The obvious are listed above (1-5).
The more you learn to accept feedback and take it on board, the more you quicker you will get to where you want to be.
If you keep ignoring not being close to a winning majority in the EP or Council, Agency decisions constantly going against you, and the Heads of State going against you by 26-1, you are ignoring some valuable feedback. After 25 years in Brussels, I have stopped being surprised by how many people ignore very clear feedback.
Some practical steps to get better feedback
In the political system, feedback is often not immediate. You only learn if you have won or lost the vote later on. This delayed feedback on our actions makes it harder to work out had any casual relationship on the result. A good way to get accurate feedback is to look at past decisions. Ask the people involved in making those decisions why they did not go your way. A lot of people will never do this. They think it is too painful to do.
Before I start working on any issue, I ask the people who made the decisions why they made those decisions. Did the client influence the process constructively or did the client’s actions make them a bystander, with little to no influence? The decision-makers tend to be forthcoming, and the valuable feedback. It helps you improve.
Something that you need to bear in mind is that some short term positive feedback may have long term negative consequences. A short term win brought about by shortcuts will lead in the long term to political ostracism. You may well feel that you are being held to account for the sins of your father, and you are. All you can do is genuinely atone for those past actions, and hope that over time trust can be established.
I know of two firms that have listened to the feedback loops and changed their actions. They are now seen as trustworthy and listened to. The change took a long time.
The faster you can get accurate feedback, the quicker you can iterate, and improve. I like to speak to the people clients have met the day after. I ask the officials/advisers/politicians if they were positively persuaded by the client’s case and did the case hit the right spot? If it does, all well and good. I ask how a good case can be improved. If it did not hit the spot, listen carefully to why it did not persuade, and what can be improved. Was it unclear, did not come across as self-serving, were people rude? All these things can be corrected if you get the feedback quickly, and make the necessary changes quickly.
What to do with the feedback
The first time you try something it is hardly ever good. Every time you try something, the feedback you get. helps you improve. Making your case in lobbying is not static. You’ll use many iterations of a case before you get to something that persuades and makes a positive difference.
This can take months. It hardly works perfectly on the first test. Many campaigns and lobbying efforts fail because they refuse to adapt their case and strategy despite the feedback they are getting from meetings with politicians, advisers and officials, the debates in the Chambers, or the votes in the EP and Council.
If you listen to the feedback and adapt, you’ll win.