The Map is not the Territory

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If you are going on a road trip, you are likely want a road map (or an accurate GPS).
You want to get your bearings so that you know the best way to get to where you want to be, safetly and on time.
If the map is outdated – the road is closed – or there is no dynamic updating for 100 km traffic jams, you may find that you turn up late.
The map is not reality. It is an imperfect representation of reality. Maps need to condense the territory you are going to navigate. And, even if imperfect, they are still better than the alternative of driving blind.
Working on any legislative or regulatory file is similar to going on a very long road trip. Often a few years. If you don’t know the steps in the journey or the key windows of opportunity to intervene, it is as if you are driving blind at night.
What I’ve realised over 30 years, is that many people in Brussels don’t think they need a map. Their view is that their issue expertise or self-imagined political importance is all this is need to deliver the right outcome. Maybe they are ‘special’ and are being directed by spirtual forces?
I used to understand the journey of a Ordinary legislative Process via this chart.
Over years working on legislative files, I fleshed out the journey to something that looks more like this. And, over time, I realised that there were only a few windows of opportunity that you can act on to influence outcomes.
If you, or your lobbyist, don’t know the steps in the journey, let alone the steps that are the key windows opportunity (shout out to John W.Kingdon), or what to do for each step, you are at very least not going to get to where you want to be on time.
In practice, you are going to give up the journey, or crash off the road and get badly – politically /commercially – injured.
Even the most up to date maps need to be checked against reality. You’d want a driver (lobbyist) who knows where the pot holes and slippery patches on the road are. That expertise is only based on real world experience. That’s the person who is going to get you where you want to be, on time, and safetly.
Personally, I keep a set of maps – along with casde studies and SOPs – for the few legislative,  public policy, and regulatory files I work on. I’ve reached an age where spirtual direction from forces unknown speaking to me makes me nervous. I sense the voices from the elves are just making it up as they go along.