What can you do when your client /interest can’t win

There is something most lobbyists never want to admit. For some clients/interests you can’t win at the moment in time they come asking for help.

I’ve experienced this working for both NGOs and industry.

It is tempting to ignore political reality, and hope intercession from forces unknown and unseen, will sway the day. They rarely materialize. Fooling yourself is especially strong when you believe in the issue/client. You, and likely your client/interest, find it impossible that most of the world don’t see things the same way you do.

Over 30 plus years, I’ve seen tactics that fail and those that win.

You may find yourself sitting in a world where time has stood still. It is a world where everyone agreed with your client/interest. It is a world that no longer exists. The slogans and arguments of yesteryear no-longer land. If you can’t help your client/interest shift, they’ll be doomed to sit in think tanks for fellow travellers remembering by-gone and better days.

I’ve encountered many who believe that they posses, or have leaders in their organisation, whose powers of mass persuasion are greater than Edward Bernays or the great orators.

Now, it is true that such people do exist. In all likelihood, your client/interest, does not have them within their ranks.

And, such powers are limited in a public policy making, when most persuasion is done by written briefings and evidence.

It is tempting to think that charging the barricades will guarantee victory. If you can just muster enough fellow travellers together, you can bring and change.

It hardly works. A lot of people get harmed. It tends to set the cause back. You will be ignored for a long time. And, most of the time, the band of fellow travellers are a clique.

As a man of faith, it is gratifying to see so many who believe in divine intervention to save them. I keep prayer out of lobbying.

Hoping that some political force, usually in the form of a political marginal MEP, political group, Prime Minister, Member State, or non-Member State, will switch a 27-1 vote against you, at the last moment, is endearing but foolhardy. Better to see how they have actually said or voted when they had the chance, and see how many allies they bring along.

“If they just understood this, they would agree with me” is an all common belief.

This does not tend to work for two simple reasons.

A lot of the time, they do understand where you are coming from, but for a number of reasonable reasons, they disagree with you.

It requires a mind swap. It is unlikely that the people making the decision on your issue see the world as you don. Hoping that they see the world you as you do is a big jump of faith. It is not impossible. But, if your issue is on the policy or political agenda for action, it is likely that how you see things is not the same as those making decisions see it.

When your only allies are on the political hinterland or regarded as political pariahs by the mainstream you are in a dark place. Even those who would have supported you are likely to walk away given the backing of political pariahs.

Research from questionable scientific “experts” is common but in my experience never successful.

The political press is full of wonderfully weird ads that tend to speak to no-one other than people who paid for them.

Many clients/interests think that the whole political community/public are talking about their issue. And, many think most of the public agree with them.

In sober reality, very few people will know, let alone care about your issue.

If you are going to run ads, use the language and the values of the very few people you are trying to persuade.

These are some of the things I’ve seen, know that work, or have successfully harnessed.

The political and legislative agenda has a limited amount of head space to work with.

Parliamentary agendas get filled. Meeting rooms in the Counicl get booked.

And, whilst many will say the Green Deal disproves it, on closer look most of the proposals that were passed, were minor updates on existing laws, rather than revolutionary new initiatives.

If there are too many issues on the agenda, by accident or design, there won’t be enough political oxygen for your issue to progress.

My granddad was a Royal Marine Commando during WWII and then Korea etc.. He taught me a valuable lesson. He was alive because he learned that waiting for a RPG , rather than charging a machine gun position, would get you what you want. Sometimes hunkering down and waiting out the political debate, and not adding fuel to the fire, will serve you best. This is especially the case if your client/interest is seen as a political Pariah.

I learned from my time working on fisheries, that implementation was so poor, and roll back so common, even if the fishing industry lost the vote, they won as the measures did not get implemented properly or at all.

Reframing an issue is likely the most successful but hardest. It usually requires you ignoring what want you client/interest wants to talk about.

Highlighting the unintended consquences of an innocous measure to one key stone project of a Commission may well lead to a solution at the last moment.

Taking an issue out from a technical issue and highlighting the unsavoury elelemnts- the late Colonel Ghadafhi, Marseille Mafia – a government would be siding witihif they backed their existing position will shift positions.

An issue can be brought to life or dropped from the agenda by a few words of someone is respected by decision-makers or is held in a state of reverence.

Brining the late Richard Leakey to Brussels to intervene on an issue helped move it along against entrenched opposition.

The backing of your data or studies from key experts, within the Institutions or outside, can change everything. I once had the chance to to bring a world expert on an issue to Brussels. The Commission’s experts heard of his visit and wanted to meet him, more out of reverence than a policy discussion. I brought him and left him with them. I learned later than he had been asked about the science on an issue we working on. The Commission changed their mind.

If you can get your client/interest to do the following, their chances of winning go through the roof. But, for reasons I don’t understand, this is the hardest.

It involves looking at the issue from the other sides perspective, understyanding their values, and doing the following. First, see if there is a common solution. If not, use their language and values to advance your case.

I know of cases where industry and NGOs have worked together, even the unlikeliest of allies, to find a common and better solution. In those cases, it takes brave leadership from the CEO and NGO leader to impose it. The biggest challenge is often sabotage from within the ranks.

When you don’t have the votes to stop something, or you case in so politically untenable, use process as your shield. Law makers like process and hate doing anything that would give the hint of procedural irregularity. Sticklers for good process, of which there are many higher up in the political food chain, will intervene, and require things to start again, even if they support the measure.

Academic literature is full of case studies of interests who have co-operated with governments to find an alternative/solution. It tends to be a win-win for all sides. It tends to take longer.

Whilst this group works, there are mental blocks for many using them.