I think 95% of lobbying and campaigning comes down to this model.
“The Commission/Member State/MEP/Agency are wrong, and we are right. If they would just listen to us/read our 55 page position paper, they’ll see things just as we do, and they’ll change their minds”.
It is the preferred tactic of companies and NGOs.
The slight problem is that it hardly ever works.
How Inversion Can Help You Win
There is a useful mental model, ‘Inversion’ that can help you win. I came across it thanks to Farnam Street (link).
It is a technique used by Charlie Munger, who said:
” Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backwards. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don’t we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, list how to fail instead. Tell me where I’m going to die, that is, so I don’t go there.”
The founding father of PR, Edward Bernays, used it to introduce smoking to women in the USA. As Farnam Street describe it
“Bernays did not ask “How do I sell more cigarettes to women?” Instead, he wondered, if women bought and smoked cigarettes, what else would have to be true? What would have to change in the world to make smoking desirable to women and socially acceptable? Then he went a step further – once he what needed to change, how would he achieve that? After applying this approach, he promoted the idea of smoking as a slimming aid and linked smoking to women’s emancipation. Cigarettes were marketed as torches as freedom.”
Source: The Great Mental Models, Volume 1, pages 147-148.
How can you use Inversion in lobbying
Inversion requires you to turn things upside down.
There are two ways you can use it.
First, a traditional force field analysis would have you go through steps 1-5. It is common when preparing your lobby/campaign plan.
- Identify the problem
- Define the objective
- Identify the forces that support change towards your objective
- Identify the forces that impede change toward the objective
- Strategize a solution
When you set to step 3, you’d need to look at the issue from the opposite position. So, rather than think that your position is correct, think about why the other side’s positions are correct.
Then think about how you could make sure you could avoid the conditions that led to the proposal;/amendment. Think about how you could solve the problem or make it better.
When you do this, three things happen:
- You get a better understanding of what is driving the Commission/Member States/EP
- That understanding likely prompts some ideas on how you can do something to avoid something really bad.
- You are far better prepared to respond to their concerns than you would be by just saying you are right and they are wrong.
A second way is how I used it today. I’m doing a line-by-line review of an Impact Assessment. I’m looking at it from the perspective that the Commission’s basic idea is right. That’s liberating. I then just look at the evidence they’ve presented to support the initiative. I have an easy job and just to the original sources. And, through this, I notice the inner contradictions of the proposal from the Commission’s own perspective are way more serious than anything others could throw at them.
This is especially useful in the Brussels context. If the Commission table a proposal, most of the time (90% +), they are going to get what they want in the final law.