Why the best lobbyists listen
“The best way to persuade someone is with your ears, by listening to then” – Former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk
Do you want to be able to walk into a room and know what people need to know to change their mind in 2 minutes? I know a few lobbyists who do this. There are not many, but the best lobbyists do this by listening. The key for any productive political and policy conversation is to listen. It happens too rarely.
Too many lobbyists go for what can only be likened to a verbal bombardment. They think that the white noise of quick and pushy words will persuade. That the chances of this working are at best slim does not put people trying it.
How you can listen
Tom Peters devotes a chapter in ‘The Excellence Dividend’ to listening. He thinks it that important.
He provides a helpful summary of the good listener’s rules:
- A good listener exists totally for the given conversation
- Listening success = Fierce attentiveness
- Keeps his or her f-ing mouth shut
- A good listener gives the other person time to stumble towards clarity without interruption
- A good listener never finishes
- A good listener becomes invisible; makes the respondent the centerpiece
Go and listen to them
The most useful I do when taking on a new issue is listen to the client, let them explain how they see things, and why they think there is an issue or a problem. After that, I go and meet the key officials and legislators working on the issue and ask them to explain how they see things and why they think there is an issue.
I’ll just sit there, ask a few questions, take a lot of notes, and listen.
It’s best to keep the conversation for background and treat in confidence.
From ‘listening’ I learn a lot. I learn that most sides never actually take the time to listen to each other. Why someone thinks someone else is against or for them is hardly every the case. This would not really matter if it had no consquences. But, that’s rarely the case.
For example, the challenge to the renwal of glyphosate in Europe has been portrayed as if it is about cancer. This may well be the story the media has covered. Yet, if you take the time to listen to the people working on this from the NGO side, this campaign is about industrial farming.
Listening is not easy
Effective listening is not easy. It is not a passive exercise. You need to deploy all your focus to genuinely understand what the speaker is convenying.
You are not just listening to their words, you are listeining to the tone and emotions they convey. They convey more meaning than the words themselves.
Adler is, as ever, on point “If we use only our eyes and ears to take in the words, but do not use our minds to penetrate through them to the mind tht delivered them, we do not perform the activity that is essentail to either reading or listening. The resut is a failure of communication, a total loss, a waste of time”.
Lap it up
Sometimes you may sit through some very tough conversations. Officials and politicians may lay it out on the line and tell you every reason why they are against you. Lap it up. Resistt the urge to respond. These moments are like manna. In my experience, the best thing is to sit back and take notes. You’ll land up learning the real reasons why a politican won’t support you or why a proposal is being tabled. See this as an amazing opportunity.
Silence is not a bad thing. Every so often, you can prompt the conversation – you are there to learn – and when this happens use the magic word ’why’. If do this, you will find out what is really driving the debate. You will then be able to prepare the answer to the questions decision makers need to know.
Winning Business
Listening is helpful for winning new business. The RFP is often a pretty jaundiced document. Speaking to the people in the company what really is driving them to spend scarce resources on the issue. This will give you the edge.
Listening to the public debate
It is unlikley that your issue is not being played out in spendid isolation. If there is a public debate happening, the political animal spirits may well take over.
You neeed to be listening to this public conversation. If you don’t, you are likely to be caught unaware, and be left flaying around to respond effectively.
If you don’t respond early on, you run the risk of the issue going to far before political action is taken. Once that train has left, the chance of stopping or diverting it is limited.
Whilst this is not easy, it is possible. There are good services, like SIGWATCH, that provides a good issues tracker for what NGOs are working on.
There are certain journalists who have an unacanny ability to tap into the public zietgiest. When you find them, read them. George Monbiot is one of them. Whenever he has written a story on a campaign I am working on, the Europe wide pick up is tremendous.
The trick here is to avoid your own cognitive bias. If you only listen to people you agree with, you are going to spend most of your time in an intellectual belly botton gazing competition. It’s better to spend time listening to people who you’d don’t agree to. If pro-Europeans had spent a little more time listening to ’swiveled eyed loons’, (as David Cameroon’s term for Brexiteers), the UK may not have voted to the leave the EU.
For emerging scientific issues, I find the specialised press, and popular scientific press, like New Scientist and the National Georgraphic, helpful.
For substance issues, following the emerging scientific consensus through the peer review journals, and presence at the reserach communities meetings is vital.
Yet, again, the best way to keeping on top of emerging issues is to go and meet the key people working in your field and listen to them. When you do this you’ll learn what’s on their agenda, who they are listening to and following. Often, they’ll tell you what’s going to happen 6 to 12 months before it happens.
Reference
Mortimer J. Adler ‘ How to Speak and How to Listen’
HBR https://hbr.org/2016/05/listening-is-an-overlooked-leadership-tool
Tom Peters, The Excellence Dividend, Chapter 13