What’s the question you don’t want to know the answer to when lobbying?

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I came up against this excellent question “What’s the question you don’t want to know the answer to?” It is a question I encountered when dealing with oncologists. Asking that question is not something you want to do, but the answer is a lifesaver.
I like the question so much, I think it is needed for lobbying and campaigning. It is the sort of tough question you need to ask yourself and work out the answer to.
Key Questions to ask in lobbying
In lobbying, these are the tough questions you need to ask:
  • Why are we losing?
  • Why do they not support us?
  • Why are we not trusted?
  • Why does no one take our case/evidence seriously?
  • Why do we not have enough votes to win?
What are the real answers?
The answers you arrive at will help you get what you want. But, unless you go through the deep thinking, you are going to continue making the same mistakes,  and getting the same outcomes.
When lobbying efforts and campaigns fail, and it is common that they do so, I encounter many reasons for the loss. They often come down to a conspiracy or the loss of minds of the co-legislators.
Reality is more mundane. The real reasons failure knocks on the door are:
  1. You turn up late in the day. This is the most common. Decisions are often made way in advance of the decision being publically announced.
  2. You don’t bring the right, or any, information and evidence to the table early enough to influence decisions.
  3. You have found the missing chapter of Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’. This is the one that says being rude, arrogant, and misogynistic in meetings and letters works.
  4. You raise irrelevant matters.
  5. You don’t answer straightforward questions.
  6. You don’t have a plan.
  7. You communicate in a way that the intended audience has no idea what you are talking/writing about.
  8. Ignore the process for the adoption of a decision.
  9. You don’t speak to the right people, at the right time, in the right way.
  10. You are not considered trustworthy. This is tough. If you are not trusted, people are not going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and likely vote against you as a default option.
Why you should ask the question
I’ve been struck by how rare it is to ask the “why did we not get what we want?”
It is a good question to ask.
It is not an easy question to ask. Some find the idea of defeat too much. It is better to deny defeat than admit it. Some don’t like to tell colleagues that they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
The faster you ask the question, the quicker you are likely to win.
What does success look like
In lobbying and campaigning it is easy to measure success. I think the key endpoints are:
1. Did you get the final law on the books that you wanted?
2. Did you get the policy, Commission decision or Commission proposal you had worked for?
Getting an amendment tabled in Committee means little if it is not part of the final law.
Ask the same question if you win
Ask the same question when you win. It is useful to know why victory was obtained. Maybe there are lessons there to help you again.
Common reasons for success include:
  1. You step  in early with a solution
  2. You bring strong independent evidence and studies to the table ahead of time
  3. You use evidence and studies that mirror the Commission/Agency own guidelines
  4. You have an established  reputation of being trustworthy and solution-focused
  5. You know  the rules of procedure and provisions of the law and policy you are working on
  6. You are seen as being constructive and helpful in meetings. You are not partisan.
  7. You answer questions clearly and concisely and follow up quickly with supporting information.
  8. You communicate clearly in writing and speaking, and use relevant props,images and video to present your case.
  9. You provide relevant information way ahead of meetings (7-14 days)  so that you focus on getting an outcome.
  10. You speak to the right people, at the right time, in the right way.
I’ve worked on issues when many have claimed the responsibility for success.  . It is interesting to hear from someone how their hard work brought about success. But, when speaking to the small hand full of people responsible for taking the law through,  you find none of them has any idea who this person is. Being near a victory does not make you responsible for the victory.
If you find this root cause analysis too painful, you are likely going to repeat the same mistakes, and getting the same outcomes.

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