If you are a lobbyist, what superpower would make your job easier and make you 1000x more effective?
For me, it is the superpower to get into the minds of your audience and see the world they do as they do, and be able to reformulate what you were going to say so that it speaks directly to your audience.
Imagine if you had this superpower. You’d be able to see what drove policymakers and political decision-makers. You could get into the minds of your audience and see the world as they do. You would understand what is driving their policy and political positions and votes.
If you had this superpower, you’d be able to adapt what you wanted to say and use the exact right words and examples that landed with the policymakers and politicians whose backing you want.
You’d know what makes them tick.
In the hands of salespeople, this would be a superpower. Their sales would be off the charts.
This superpower would allow you to pitch your case and policy and decision makers just right. It would be as if you knew their exact concerns in advance, and be able to deal with their concerns in advance, and could say just the right things to bring them on board to your side.
Today, you realise that the chances that policy and political decision-makers see the world the same way as you do is on a good day slim. It is like stumbling into your genetic clone, not impossible, but hard.
A lot of lobbying reminds me of this game.
But lobbyists try to push through the wrong ideas to the wrong people,
Small groups of people walk amongst us who have this skill. The first are those who have canvassed in general elections. They will have been forced to learn the skill whilst responding to voters’ questions on the doorsteps. The second are telepaths.
Movies have been made about this superpower.
Would you use this Superpower?
Would you use this superpower if you had the chance?
I think that most people would ignore it.
I believe that for many people, there is a simple psychological block to ever stepping into the minds of others, let alone people they disagree with.
The failure to embark on this mental exercise leads to confusion and conflict.
It is as if many people fear that if they do this, they’ll be infected with alien and dangerous ideas that send them to never-ending damnation.
If the foundations of your beliefs and case are built on shallow foundations, then this is a risk.
The only plausible reason I can fathom is that much campaigning and lobbying is akin to the religious zealots that plagued Europe during the Wars of Religion during the 16th, 17, and early 18th centuries. It is akin to one message to embrace all—more faith-based advocacy than born from rationality or evidence.
If policy/ political decision-makers accept you, they are righteous, and those who don’t accept your message are fallen. I come from the North of Ireland, and this way of thinking is not too far below the surface.
Indeed, some believe this book to be true.
If you’d like to learn this superpower, pick up a copy of ‘What Makes People Tick’.