There is one thing every lobbyist will experience.
You are going to find out that their client’s prefered option for a legislative, regulatory, or political decision is going to be rejected by the decision-makers.
You reach a fork in the road.
You can deny political reality and hope that divine forces will intervene and change the outcome, or you can accept reality, and adjust.
Below is a self explanatory decision tree on what you can do.
What Path Will You Choose
Denial
Most people will choose to go on as if nothing has happened.
One path is to deny it is even happening. Clients may shout at you when you tell them the news.
I’m not much one for running into a wall, head first, without a helment on. It hurts and does not lead to any useful change. It looks heroic to some. It looks bloody and painful to me.
It’s quite common for people to double down on what’s not working. This is akin to running harder and faster into a brick wall, without a helmet, head first, thinking something different will happen.
The problem with denial is that when the bad news is official, people tend to act surprised. So, as a lobbyist, you need to keep a good paper trial of when and where you informed people of what is coming.
No Surrender
A variant of denial, is doubling down, and entering a chorus of ‘no surrender’. This is easy to spot. Some legal or political messiah will pop up to save them. Speaking louder, often aggressively, to the relevant decision-makers will somehow lead them to change their ways. And, there is often a belief that somehow the people making the decisions will come around before the decision is finalised, and all will be saved.
Re-Calibrate
There is an alternative approach. It is my prefered one. I find it has a better track record of turning around failure and delivering success.
You need to accept that what you don’t want to happen is going to unless you change what you are doing. Accepting political reality is necessary. It does not mean you like it. So, you go back to the drawing board and adjust.
It involves listening to the feedback on why your case did not land and adjusting accordingly. This is often painful. Listening will help you understand what did not work. Was your case gibberish, your advocate rude, your positioning offensive, the ravings of fetish fantasy policy clique on the dark web?
It requires suspending your/your client’s ego. This is very difficult. A lot of people get offended if decision-makers don’t agree with them. This is something you just need beyond very quickly. If you get stuck here, your chances of adjusting your case/submission etc. diminishes.
I’ve helped many do this – NGOs and companies – and it works. The client is rarely happy. They win but not for the reasons that they want to win on. I’ll take the win.
The signs tend to be obvious early if what you are doing is working. Many refuse to listen to the signals that they don’t like.