It dawned on me that many interests in Brussels are content in being ignored.
I’ve listed some of the most common telltale signs below.
There is nothing wrong with being ignored most of the time. It is only an issue if you are here to influence the outcome of public policy and laws. If you choose to be ignored, you are, for the purpose of seeking to change outcomes, choosing to be pointless.
Many interests in Brussels operate with seemingly no interest in influencing the public policy debate, regulatory actions, political decisions, or seeking to change laws.
Some of the telltale signs
I’ve listed below just some of the tell-tale signs you are being ignored.
You can use it as a checklist. Let me know how many you tick.
1. Turn up late or not at all in the process.
2. Refuse to reframe your case so it speaks to the current policy/political agenda.
3. Are rude, abusive, or threatening in your actions or language.
4. Don’t do your homework. Shoot from the hip.
5. Put out statements in public that are either contradictory, partial or unhinged.
6. Use disingenuous evidence to support your case,
7. Are not ready for when the ‘window of opportunity’ arises.
8. Don’t have the objective evidence, public policy and legal solution sitting in your filing cabinet for when the window of opportunity opens.
9. Don’t know how laws and policies are prepared and when to step in to influence their outcome.
10. Don’t have a constructive working relationship with the key decision-makers on the file you want to change.
11. You are not trusted by the people deciding on your file.
12. Use people to front your case who play to every stereotype of your case, which tends to irritate the key decision-makers and influencers. Their face does not fit.
13. Use people with a maniacal look in their eye, who are true believers, and are unable to countenance that heretics (non-believers or agnostics to their case) walk amongst us.
14. Communicate, both in speaking and writing, in double-Dutch.
15. See adapting their game blame to current realities as tantamount to a mortal sin.
16. Think that everybody is obsessed with your issue based on nothing more than the voices in your bubble chamber.
17. Think that constructive dialogue is a conversation with your belly button.
18. Can only speak to those who believe in what you believe in.
19. Reject working across mainstream political groups and only with fellow believers.
20. Have no idea that you are being ignored.
21. Spend most of your time in internal meetings.
22. The Roger Helmer Effect. Think that Parliamentary Questions/Events from marginal political voices mean mainstream support.