“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9
I think the real role of a lobbyist is to bring about a peaceful agreement. To do that you need to broker information and knowledge between different sides and facilitate understanding. They bring a depth of understanding that drives every player around the table that brings real understanding to participants.
Understanding is not about converting one side to the beliefs of another. That’s the business of religious conversion. I am skeptical that the laying on of hands or the words of one person will bring about instant conversion. To be honest, I have not yet anyone with those skills of persuasion.
Copy this man
In many ways, the role of the lobbyist is akin to the role peace negotiator. The peace negotiator help sides understand where the other is coming from.
A good model is Jonathon Powell. He had a key role in brokering peace in Northern Ireland. He managed to discard his hand ups and prejudices. In his book about the Good Friday Agreement, he displays a remarkable ability to get into the heads of those who he was negotiating with and bring about greater understanding between, at the time, often mortal enemies. His book is excellent (link).
Any man who can help bring the late Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley cross the rubicon to peace and afterwards friends deserves to be studied.
A more popular option is to for the slightly flabby grey back gorilla who likes to thump his chest, often impotently, at anyone who disagrees with the client of the day. It may look an impressive sight to some, but to the people who make or influence decisions, the grunts are a sound of weakness.
# 3 Lessons
It is clear to me after 20 years in Brussels working on legislation, policy and political campaigns, the better, yet harder, approach is to opt for the peacemaker model.
It has the following advantages.
First, if two sides don’t speak it is unlikely, although not impossible, they’ll understand each other. I am constantly struck by how few people take the time to understand the other sides positions. The easiest way to do this is to speak to them. If you don’t do this, it is likely you are just guessing and guessing it wrong.
Second, if you go for a zero-sum game, if you lose the pain is going to be a lot more. If you are taking on a well resourced NGO, they probably have more resources on hand than you and a longer time horizon to grind out the issue than you do.
Third, if you sit down with the other side, you may discover you can come to some solution that does not take the issue off the table. Good examples are the creation of the MSC and FSC. The collective energies of a NGO and company was diverted into delivering a solution, and not attacking each other.
This is not the easy option. There is tremendous internal opposition within both NGOs and industry to sitting down and delivering a solution. Indeed, you should expect acts of sabotage from within. Yet, the outcomes are often worth it.