A constant gripe from lobbyists is that officials and politicians don’t listen to my interests, nor understand me.
This is the same refrain if you work for an NGO or industry.
Yet, there are a few who walk amongst you who don’t have that issue. Officials and politicians ask for their input and often co-opt it.
Why are you not listened to
The root causes tend to be:
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You don’t make sense. This is the most common. You assume that the person you are speaking to understands the finer points of the issue x, known only to those who have worked at the coal face for 35 years, and you make no concessions for their lack of understanding.
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You/your organisation is not trusted. Often a legacy issue that needs cleaning up. Your predecessor did not follow up and provide the data he promised, and a report your organisation published was misleading and full of deliberate errors.
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You are speaking about something that nobody – except you and a fetish policy community – is interested in. The timing is not right (too early or it passed).
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You whine and grumble and don’t come up with any evidence or solutions. You are the grumpy old man in the pub who complains about decimalisation.
Solutions
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You need to make sense to the decision makers. If you can’t get over this hurdle, you may as well babble to me in Polish. I’ll not understand a word.Test out your script on someone who knows nothing about your issue. Do they understand what you are trying to communicate. If their feedback is that it is gibberish and unhinged and even after reading/listening to you 3 times, they are still lost, you need to return to the drafting table.
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If you are not trusted, replace yourself. If your organisation has made errors in the past, atone for them. Until that happens, you are not going to be heard.
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If your issue is not on the agenda, or the time has passed, you just need to wait for the policy cycle to come around when your issue comes back into fashion.
I have a sense that Brussels is full of organisations whose issues won’t be taken up by this Commission. They can only do two things.
They can wait for the policy cycle to open up for them in 2029. Keep a copy of your proposals, studies, solutions, and legislative text in your filing cabinet for the day people come knocking for your input.
They can re-taiolor heir language and messaging so that it aligns with the new agenda. This is remarkably easy to do and effective.
A lot of organisations can’t do this. It is like a psychological block – decision makers have to agree with them for their reasons, and no other. Adaptation is heresy.
4. The final group can’t be helped. They are a large group in NGOs and the industry. They have their allies in government and in Parliaments who want to reject decriminalisation. The inevitable political defeat is the work of a malign conspiracy.