Why most of your lobbying efforts are bound to fail, and what you can do about it

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Most lobbying efforts are going to fail.
This applies to lobbying work by both industry and NGO interests.
Backdrop

I’ve been curious why so many people spend a lot of effort on doing something that, objectively, you can know before you even start, is going to fail.

I thought failing, heroically of course, was just normal. I canvassed in elections for the UK Labour Party before Tony Blair.
And then I discovered it did not have to be like that. In my mid-20s, I stumbled on some books that offered an alternative approach. I used and adapted those techniques, and found something remarkable: winning was possible.

Why a Lobby Plan is only an Indicator

I thought I could tell if “failure” was going to happen by one key indicator: the presence or absence of a (good) written lobby plan.
I was wrong. A written lobby plan shows something more basic: do you understand what’s driving an issue, and can you pivot to persuade in actions and words that the decision-makers (officials and politicians working on the file) not only understand, but also buy into, and agree with you.
Most lobbying efforts come down to listing the points you want to say, and:
  1. going out and saying it to a small band of ready-made believers,
trying to convert people who have always opposed you.

A lot of the lobbying work ( conversion therapy) is similar to unsophisticated salespeople reciting the sales patter off by rote, with little to no interest in the customer.  Put in a personal way: A  54-year-old dad of two adult sons is unlikely to want to buy a fluorescent yellow shirt that would not have looked out of place in an e-fueled club in 1992. Especially, if the potential customer has asked for Egyptian cotton tailored white work shirts, and is not looking for a flashback to their 20s. (Enough of my trauma from shopping). 

A Checklist
These are 11 steps I’d recommend you go through.
Step 1
Listing the points you  want to say
Step 2
Finding evidence to support those points
Step 3
Providing workable solutions to any identified public policy, regulatory, or legal problems
Step 4
Listing the people who will decide the outcome of your file
Step 5
Segment the key decision-makers by  supportive-undecided-not supportive
Step 6
Identify the Values of the groups
Step 7
Adapt your language /positioning to ‘land well’ with supporters and undecided
Step 7
Address the points that each value group are likely to raise.
Step 9
Adapt your language to Value Group: Settlers, Prospectors, Piooners
Step 10
Test how your language lands. Adapt/clarify/get rid of what does not work
Step 11
Roll out – no internal meetings

Why does this not happen 99% of the time
I think these 11 steps are rarely seen for some simple reasons:
  1. People can’t imagine a world where others don’t agree with their worldview on an issue. This is a simple cognitive block that is nearly impossible for most to break through.
  2. People imagine that other people have the same manic obsession about the issue, and because of that, decision-makers must agree with them. They seem unaware that fellow experts rarely seem to agree, and most decision-makers are not manically obsessed about the issue at hand.
  3. This technique takes research. If you/your client/members have evangelical faith that only that who have seen the light, and know the ‘answer’, it is going to be seen as pointless to adapt your ‘divine’ words.
  4. This is hard work. We live in a world of quick fixes and shallow thinking. Deep work is hard. People get uncomfortable with it.I am sure AI will provide the instant answers🙂
  5. Most people don’t like to change how they have been working, even if there is no evidence that what they have been doing is working. Change is uncomfortable for many. It is easier to blame defeat on real or imagined  (political) enemies who ‘unexpectedly’ derailed certain victory at the last moment. I’ve always discovered that those goblins were known from day 1.
  6. The main reason why people don’t want to use this technique is basic. Most people only want to win if the people making the decision agree with their worldview. They want to conduct mass conversion. They don’t want any non-believers in their “chosen way” voting with them. They are evangelicals who only want support from fellow believers in the schismatic /fetish community of believers. Many an internal meeting discussing advocacy gives the vibe of a Jim Jones call for the faithful to drink the Kool-Aid.
If you want to learn more about this simple and effective technique, I’d recommend these two books by:

Chris Rose:

How to Win Campaigns