Recently, I was asked how I developed expertise/knowledge in the few areas I work in.
This is a summary of my reply.
There was a time I knew little to nothing about some of the things I now see as my small circle of competence.
As a lobbyist, you need to develop expertise on things you know nothing about, often very quickly.
This means you are going to have to do a lot of research by reading. If you don’t like reading and learning, I suspect lobbying is a miserable profession.
And, you need to be accurate in your recommendations. I nearly cried when I learned that someone had been told that to block a Delegated Act in the Council, they only need a traditional blocking minority. The whole basis of their work was based on the false assumption that they did not need 20 Member States to vote against the Commission’s initiative. By the time they found out, it was too late. And, sadly, these basic processes and structural mistakes happen too often.
You may be tempted to leave it to AI. You’d be mistaken.
Truth Filters
What do you use to analyse facts/reality?
You are only of use if you understand the process, politics and people involved in the file and have a good (not expert-level) understanding of the technical issue.
If you don’t have an excellent grasp of the process, politics and people, your advice is worthless. You won’t be able to guide your client to get them the right time, right place, right people, with the right evidence and solution.
If you only tell your client what you think they want to hear/believe, you are doing them a great disservice.
So, these are the 5 stages I tend to find myself going through.
Stage 1 – Basic
Read the Proposal and Explanatory Memorandum
Understand the structure and contents of the proposal and cross-reference the supporting evidence and explanation
Read the Impact Assessment and supporting studies.
Read the RSB Opinion.
Read high-quality submissions made during the public consultations (Road Map and Public Consultation).
Read any Evaluations and the Court of Auditors’ Report.
Study the legislative and political history of the initiative, e.g. draw on Parliamentary Questions.
Study OECD analysis of the issue.
Read reports on national schemes.
Read respected Think Tanks analysis/reports.
Cross-check with the Better Regulation Guidelines and Toolbox (they are updated).
Read a popular writer on the area who will give you a good introduction to the issue, e.g. Smil on the Energy Transition.
Note down any questions you have – what is not clear, what contradictions are there, what points favour you, what don’t.
Summarise in your own words what you have understood.
Stage 2
Read the reports mentioned in the footnotes of the Impact Assessment and the supporting studies.
Read the experts that are mentioned.
Write down a series of questions and queries you have.
Call up the experts/academics whose works you have questions about.
Call up the desk officer/member of the Inter Service Group with any questions
Look at previous votes in the EP and the Council on the file via EUMatrix or looking at the raw voting data.
Look at the timelines and process of similar files and visualise them.
Stage 3
If you want to understand the political dynamic ‘deeply’, use FoI to access the legislative workings of the legislative file of the previous law. This will reveal where governments and Parties stood last time and why.
Step 4
Confirm every ‘hunch’ by speaking to the person whom the experts go to for clarification on the issue. For example, when I worked for Anita Pollack MEP back in 1997, the Chair of the Environment Committee, Ken Collins, recommended to find out the answer to a question to then a S&D Group Adviser, Richard Corbett. I did. Richard was one of the only people in the Building who knew the answer and who, just as importantly, could explain the answer in Plain English.
On important points, I like to check with 3-5 people to check their understanding.
I don’t recommend asking 3 people who come from the same group/sector. There is a temptation for groupthink and confirmation bias. They will be trying to sell you their ‘world view’, evidence be dammed.
Avoid partisan players, or people you know who will spin you a tale, and ignore reality, to suit their own agendas. There are a lot of them.
Of course, ignore charlatans. These are the people who will often publicly claim that they had a ‘HUGE’ influence on a decision. Yet, when you speak to the people who held the pen, they’ll have no recollection of them.
Step 5
You will explain your understanding to someone who has no idea about the matter, and if they understand what you said, you are going in the right direction.
Then you’ll explain your understanding with an expert or key person on the file, and if they understand what you said, you are going in the right direction.
You’ll then summarise it on paper in two versions. The first is explaining it to someone who knows nothing about the initiative.
Then, you will do another version for an expert.
It helps to visualise your understanding in a process chart, listing the steps by steps similar initiatives went through and what this initiative will go through.
Set Aside Time
This involves a lot of reading: books, studies, and debate reports.
The answers are often in the books.
It takes time. No 2-minute blog post as the sole source or a 30-second TikTok video. I guestimate 40 hours.
Understand what is going on – understand the technical language and key concepts.
At the end of this, you won’t ne a real ‘expert’, just able to talk to experts. Not asking them pointless questions and annoying them.
If there is an easier and faster way to get to basic expertise/core understanding, please let me know.