If your lobbying efforts are not working, you should read RESET by Dan Heath.
The subtitle is “How to change what’s not working”. Even if you keep winning, you may pick up some useful pointers.
The suggestions are applicable across many disciplines. Many struck me as relevant for lobbyists.
Below is a nice one page summary of the book.
If you want to get unstuck, Heath’s recommendations will help you.
I’ve listed some of the points that spoke to me.
Section 1: Find the Leverage Points
Go and see the work: You can Find Leverage Points by observing up close the reality of your work.
This has three practical applications.
Firstly, if a position is published late or what comes out the door is unpersuasive, or as I call it, a pointless position paper, go and watch how a position paper is prepared. Observe the steps, the blocks, and the back and forth between people. From this going and seeing the work being done, you’ll likely identify the reason(s) why things are not working.
You can extend this from position papers to a lot of other products/services you produce, e.g. reports, amendments, etc.
Secondly, go and see your colleagues/clients in meetings with officials and politicians. If you see that your colleague/client is going out of their way to frustrate the official/politician, you’ll learn why your lobbying is not working. And, in my 27 years or so, I know only a few lobbyists who I have seen as effective in their meetings with officials and politicians. It is a rare skill set that many think they have, but few do.
Thirdly, your success depends on the skills and understanding of your colleagues. You can’t do everything – much as many will try and do. So, you need to observe if your colleagues at work to see if they have a functional understanding rather than a systemic understanding. As Heath observes “Without that systemic understanding, it’s hard to make things better”. Many lobbyists have a functional understanding, not the deep understanding, that allows you to know, automatically, what will play out 10 steps ahead.
Consider the goal of the goal. You can find leverage points by identifying alternate pathways to your ultimate destination.
In lobbying, it is common to fixate on an immediate goal, rather than the goal of the goal, the end game.. For example, a lot of time is getting an amendment tabled, often with little interest on the real goal, of getting your amendment taken up in the final legislation. This seems to manifest itself in howls of delight when a politically marginal MEP/Member State takes up your amendment, likely to doom it to instant rejection by the mainstream.
In any political / regulatory decision making procedure, there are well identified, if not well known pathways, to get your issue taken up. I spend my time focusing on those windows of opportunity. I’ve found it helps get the client’s ask taken up and enshrined in law.
Study the bright spots. You can find leverage points by analyzing your own best work.
This is a powerful idea to “Look at your most successful efforts and analyze what allowed you to succeed in those occasions.”
I do my best thinking work in the morning. So, if I need to write a position paper that persuades officials/ politicians, I’ve learned that it is best if repeat the following. Prepare the points and evidence the night before. Leave the outline printed and open on my laptop. Go to sleep early. Wake up at 5 am. Sadly I wake up then anyway. Get a strong coffee. Sit down in silence, and using the Minto Pyramid Principle, write up the paper in one 3 hour sitting. After that, leave it for a day, and edit it.
I find a good meeting requires a pre-read handed over before with a stated objective in the agenda. I read the paper the day before. Sometimes, I can send a loom video the day before with feedback/suggestions. If no pre-read or agenda, I just cancel the meeting. More time to focus on something else.
Those are two practical ways. In lobbying there are many more.
I’ve found stepping in early, with credible and independent evidence, constructively, supported with solutions, clearly stated, works well. I am confused why it is not used more often.
Turning up late in the process, or after the decision has been taken, is not going to make things easier for you. Recent events may make me revise this!
Not knowing the pathways, or having a shepherd, to take you on the journey is a good way to get lost.
I’ve also found that being rude, passive aggressive, or abusive, is not a great means of persuading people. I’ve seen it tried many times ,but not work once. I’m assured by some that this is the best way to go.
Maybe I’ve been fortunate to see many cases of success in campaigning and lobbying, or been blessed to work with some causes/clients who knew how to do what works. Anyway, when I’m stuck, I look at what has worked/is working, and harness those lessons.
Target the constraint. You can find leverage points by assessing the #1 force that is holding you back.
This is the idea to target the constraint or bottleneck – the #1 thing holding you back from your goals. Having identified the constraint, you can spot ideas for easing it.
From my time working for WWF on Blue Fin Tuna, I encountered two bottlenecks for getting the Commission to support a CITES listing proposal for Blue Fin Tuna.
The first was an official who did not want the political hassle of the file being tabled by their Commissioner. The other was France’s opposition to the proposal. If France opposed, DG Fisheries would oppose.
The solution was to find a time when the official on vacation and then get the proposal brought to the Commissioner’s attention. The other was to have President Sarkozy to override Bruno Le Maire, then fisheries minister. As soon as France supported the CITES listing, DG Fisheries, supported the proposal.
When I worked for Anita Pollack MEP passing Clean Air legislation, we needed to get it through fast. We needed the support of the Chair of the Environment Committee, Ken Collins MEP, to be sympathetic on placing our item on the Committee’s agenda. With his support, we are able to draft and pass a piece of law that at the time was fast.
Finding a way around the blockage tends to be a lot easier than going through them.
Map the system. You can find leverage points by rising above the silos to spot hidden levers.
Mapping the system involves zooming out to see the big picture. Look for the hidden levers.
This has two practical uses.
If your team is doing something, producing a service etc. ask yourself “Why do we do it that way? Is there a better way?” Map the journey, the steps, for delivering that service. Is there a better way of doing it? Does it need to be done at all? Is it only being done because of a historical reason that is now redundant?
The other is to identify the journey the file you are working on goes through. And, during the journey, identify who key people making the decisions on that file. Doing this, you’ll find a high-leverage person, whose intervention at a particular moment in time, will be vital for you. I’ve done this journey mapping for the main legislative and policy procedures I work on. I find it valuable.
Section 2: Restack Resources
Start with a burst. You can restrict resources on your leverage points by beginning with an intense and focused period of work.
This has two practical uses.
First, time block and don’t task switch. Work on one thing and get it done before your move on. Avoid interruptions. I find prefer a 4 hour chunk at the start of the day. Once it is completed, the rest of the day is a breeze, and left over for meetings/calls/shallow work.
Second, a targeted burst of activity helps bring movement forward, progress, and progress is positive. It helps shift inertia.
Recycle Waste. You can restack resources on your leverage points by ending work that doesn’t serve the mission.
Getting rid of waste, including defects, over production, waiting, non utilized talent, over production/servicing, has no downside. It allows you to shift those scarce resources to a leverage point.
There will always be products/services that could be stopped and the client would not recognize they are not there. Smart people can go and spend their time on something more challenging to them.
Heath highlights billing forecasting as ‘a continual toilet-flushing of human potential’ (p.130). They seem to be a guess-a-thon.
It is a process that will upset many – there are unknown reasons why waste is being produced.
Do less and more. You can restack resources on your leverage points by shifting effort from lower-value work to higher-value.
This has two practical applications.
I once worked on a turn around project. I encountered a lot of very busy, over-worked, and smart people, doing too way too much. A lot of the things being produced were because “that’s how we have always done it”. We dropped some things, outsourced some others, and let those smart lobbyists focus on some things that were higher value and that they now had time to do.
If you follow the 80/20 principle, you’ll know the general idea that 20% of your customers or products represent 80% of products. But, as Heath notes it is not true. The 20% of customers represent 80% of revenue and 150% of the profits.
This has a simple takeaway. Spend most of your time on the customers who bring you the profit.
As a lobbyist, it means spending time on those who support is key and who will deliver. It means ignoring those who will never support you, and those who bluster and promise the world, but don’t turn up to vote or deliver the support they promised.
Tap Motivation. You can restack resources on your leverage points by prioritizing the work that’s required and desired.
This has some direct uses.
If you want to secure support or change, pay attention to what the audience – officials and politicians – want, and consider their interests and desires. If you refocus away from you want, and to what they want, the reframe it in their terms, the likelihood of them buying into it increases massively.
If there is something you don’t like doing, but a colleague does like, switch the task.
Let People Drive. You can restack resources on your leverage points by giving your team the autonomy to own the change effort.
As Heath notes “Letting people drive is the fifth way to restack resources. Autonomy works because it’s motivating, it instills more accountability, it taps higher-order skills, and it reduces waste from micromanagement’.
I’ve never worked anywhere where the people doing the job did not know to improve things, if given the freedom to do so.
Accelerate Learning. You can restack resource on your leverage point by getting better, faster feedback to fuel improvements.
This is a vital idea: the faster you can learn, the faster you can go, and the faster you can improve.
With immediate feedback, you can see what’s work, and ditch what does not work, and put resources to where they are needed.
I’ve noticed that most position papers don’t work. They don’t inform or persuade. But, there are some position papers that get cross-Party support. These are the ones that are clearly written, offer policy solutions, and are supported by credible evidence. They’ll incorporate visuals – charts etc – to supplement the points, and include supporting legislative language. A few years ago I saw that visualizations explaining a complex story were welcome by officials and politicians. The two together our powerful.
Aside
It appears that using Sticky Notes is key for many of these tasks.
If you enjoy the sweet smell of defeat, don’t read Dan Heath’s latest book, or take on board the suggestions.