Risk is a part of most business equations, but making assumptions without first doing your research is just bad planning. Several years ago as a consultant, I worked with the Executive Director (ED) of an association on a government relations campaign. He had attended many government meetings over the years but I had gotten him an important meeting an Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM).
Since the association had wanted to meet with the ADM for some time, they had lots of information to share. The ED was eager to communicate as much information as possible. He glanced at his notes again and again but he hardly needed them. He knew his issues inside and out. The trick would be to make sure that the message was being delivered with all the necessary information following a logical pattern. The ADM was relatively new to the portfolio and was an unknown to the organization. The Executive Director wanted to make sure that he captured all the nuances of the message and left a good impression. I had suggested starting the meeting with a brief description of the association, followed by an overview of the profession, but the Executive Director was concerned about inadvertently insulting the ADM by addressing things that he could easily have learned prior to the meeting.
The Executive Director was about 45 minutes into the hour-long meeting when the ADM asked a question that revealed he had absolutely no knowledge of the profession, never mind an understanding of the association. It was at this point that the Executive Director decided that he would have to do three things, 1) abandon his presentation 2) start the discussion over again with a description of the profession and 3) not make eye contact with me for the rest of the meeting.
Fortunately, we subsequently built a strong rapport with the ADM, but the story stays with me because it so beautifully illustrates what happens when you make assumptions about your audience in business.
Tips on engaging your audience:
Assume nothing about what people know
Do your research, learn as much as you can about the person you are meeting with before you meet. Look them up on LinkedIn, search the internet for their bio.
Send a briefing note in advance of the meeting if your time is limited.
Bring material that you can leave behind in case your audience has questions after you leave.
Complex messages require multiple meetings or messages.
Over the years, I have helped many clients prepare for their first meeting with a legislator. I have seen presidents of national and multinational corporations, men with billion dollar budgets and thousands of employees break out in a sweat at the thought of presenting their organization’s perspective to a Minister. I have also had clients whose complete lack of regard for the time and opportunity afforded to them by a meeting with a Minister come close to derailing their corporate objectives before they had even presented them.
In one particularly memorable case, my client who had been out at meetings with members of parliament (MPs) all morning called a minister’s office and asked the assistant to organize a lunch in time for their arrival since they were falling behind schedule. Given that the assistant in question worked for the Minister of Finance it’s fair to say that she had other things too attend to that morning, not the least of which were all of the other visitors waiting to meet the minister. She didn’t call a caterer, she called me.
When people told me government relations was exciting, I was skeptical. I had worked in politics for years and met plenty of lobbyists. While the issues were interesting and the policy solutions often ingenious, the hours were long and moving regulations or legislation is often tedious. Unless it was an election night, exciting is not how I would have described most political action. However, when my day was unexpectedly interrupted by a an outraged assistant previously known for her patience under fire, my heart rate might have picked up. There is definitely a certain amount of drama associated with trying to soothe an angry assistant, while madly pantomiming to your own assistant to call the florist and send a massive bouquet of flowers BEFORE your oblivious client gets there.
Although the client in question headed up a multi-national who could make the nation’s GDP drop when they had a strike, they were still people dealing with people. The cost of the flowers and my time while I sorted out their faux pas was negligible, but that little moment cost them a good deal of credibility. For a large corporation if you perform enough small blunders the cost to your reputation starts to take a tremendous financial toll. Whether you’re annoying a minister’s assistant or frustrating a customer, bad news spreads quickly. Social media means it spreads at the speed of a key stroke.The customer/stakeholder/follower is not always right, but they always deserve to be treated with respect.
Some Simple Tips To Keep In Mind
Consider how you might feel if positions were reversed.
Treat people the way you want your favorite human treated.
Respect the time of the people you are meeting with, including the time of their staff.
If you are going to be late, give them a heads up.
If you are going to be early, try to avoid their office unless you have no choice and then stay out of their way.
Born to Lobby – Laurel was asked, NOT to touch the flowers in the picture.
Guest Blogger Laurel Craib is an exceptional lobbyist bringing more than twenty years of experience from both sides of the political desk. Well known and well regarded in political circles regardless of the party in power she has represented a range of clients from health professionals to auto manufacturers. She gets inside of her clients issues and delivers their messages with a style and capacity all her own. Laurel recently launched her own company, Agora Consulting, named after the birthplace of democracy in ancient Greece.
I understand that lobbying does not come naturally to everyone. It does for me though.
It’s a story that I have heard my mother tell many times. In fact, it took years for me to understand its significance but not from a parent’s perspective, more from the orator’s point of view and what exactly I had begun so many years ago.
In 1968, my mother bravely took me downtown Montreal to watch the Santa Claus parade. Better known as the Défilé du Père Noël, Montrealers would line both sides of Ste. Catherines Street, as marching bands and decorated floats thrilled the crowd of spectators who overflowed onto the streets from the sidewalks and storefronts. I was about 4 years old, and my mother had dressed me in a white fur coat, a white fur hat, and white fur muff for my little hands. A little angel, she thought, as we headed out for our special day together.
The way she retells the next series of unexpected events is always scattered with incredible laughter albeit stemming from her ultimate embarrassment.
“I am a good girl, right Mommy?” I stated. “Yes you are”, she answered, beaming with pride.
“I never say %#@!!!. And I don’t use the words &%$@@ or *&%%, do I Mommy?”, to which she replied a little red faced in case someone in the crowd overheard , “No you don’t”, and she hoped it would end there. I admit that even today that response would never silence me.
I continued. “I hear some people saying #@!$$ and other people saying &&*%%, but I don’t say those things, do I Mommy? I am a good girl, right?”. Silence in response from my Mom this time. Huge mistake.
My voice raised, just in case my mother did not hear me, I persisted. “I don’t ever say &%%#@.” Getting louder still, “and I NEVER EVER SAY **&&* @@##$, BECAUSE I AM A GOOD GIRL, RIGHT MOMMY?”. And then whoosh! My Mother had whisked me into a storefront alcove where she promptly instructed me to say every bad word I knew then and there. Apparently compliance to my mother’s request took several minutes. I must have stock piled an arsenal full of expletives for this special occasion (I will call this my research). With onlookers giggling and shaking their heads, my red faced mother asked me one final time if I had any words left inside that I wanted to share as examples of me being an upstanding young person. Apparently I did not. I had made my point. I was a good girl, now let’s go watch the parade!
Indeed I had made my point, despite my unrefined delivery. At 4 years of age, I was advocating for myself, the good girl and on that cold December day, I was determined to influence my mother of the same. What I had effectively just done was lobby my mother. She was my first audience, and I knew her well. Why, she had even agreed with my premise early on in this advocacy exercise. Mission accomplished! What I had begun, maybe on that very day, was the beginnings of my career and passion for lobbying.
I have taught many courses on how to effectively advocate and what lobbying is for a little over 8 years. My audience is mostly made up of board members, CEOs, Presidents and representatives from many varied professional organizations. I consistently hear from the participants in my course the uncertainty and fear that they feel about lobbying on behalf of their issue, organization or policy. Most are concerned that about their messaging, their delivery, their relevance, their impact. I often hear, “Why would they want to hear from me anyhow?”. The truth here is that if you have decided that you are ready to bring your issue front and centre with government, you probably feel that change can be made and who better to articulate your premise than yourself.
So allow me to suggest ways that will make your advocacy exercise less frightening;
– Don’t be afraid of your audience. First of all, do your research. Most politicians and senior bureaucrats have their biographies available online, or through professional social networking sites. Make sure that the senior officials that you are meeting with are in fact interested in your issues. You would not seek to meet with an official at Fisheries and Oceans if you want to discuss tariffs. Also remember that these people are quite likely someone’s mother or father, sister or brother, aunt or uncle. That is, they are just people.
– Don’t be afraid to be passionate about your issue. Speak about your experience, education and knowledge within your field of expertise and how it relates to your reasons for lobbying on your particular issue. Your passion will come through loud and clear. People listen to interesting and invigorated speakers.
– Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Much like my mother who forgave me fairly quickly for the embarrassing exchange on a crowded downtown sidewalk, senior officials are just people who also make mistakes. The more that you engage in advocacy exercises, the easier it gets. Don’t forget to start with the appropriate pleasantries, but quickly get to your point. This gets the conversation going, allowing for questions and open dialogue about what you are trying to accomplish.
I like to remind the participants in my course that the elected and non-elected officials have a responsibility to listen to stakeholders and that as an experienced and educated professional, they want and need to hear your input to be better informed in their decision making. Stage fright can also creep in your early phases of a lobbying exercise. While I have never suffered from one single bout of standing in front of an audience, I have witnessed many inexperienced advocates go from shy wallflowers in the first several minutes of their discussions to become full fledge scene stealers once they get in the groove. The positive feedback from your audience, whether verbal or simple body language, will prompt you to continue. They might even try to shut you up at some point, much like my mother did.
While I do know some lobbyists who swear like sailors, I no longer personally use such flowery language when I am face to face with an elected or non elected official. But that goes without saying.
For me, this just comes naturally. It flows like water down a slope.
Of course, most lobbying is not directed towards our mothers….if it were, it would be relatively easy. We would already know our audience, we know that they already like and wont judge us, and we know that they will most likely listen attentively and hear our case.
Do you have an interesting story to share where you had to overcome some element of your advocacy campaign? Have you faced fear, or been uncomfortable with your audience or subject matter? I would love to hear about your lobbying successes and challenges.
Lobbyists are liars, cheaters focused on bending government to their personal interests. They are the dark side of any political engagement. When they are very good at their jobs they can influence not only government policies, but also force cultural change and remove our essential rights.
Rights like, the right to drive drunk, the right to litter or the important right to abuse our children. In Ontario, they have already stripped us of the right smoke in our own cars when children are present and to smoke where people have to work. What about those lobbyists who insist that recycling is better than building bigger landfills or those slimy buggers who lobbied to make us wear seat belts?
OK, misconceptions about lobbyists is clearly a pet peeve of mine and no, not all lobbyists are as pure in their pursuits as those just mentioned, but neither are they evil doers bent on shoring up corporate interests. Despite this, the myth of “bad lobbyist” is a persistent and frustrating one. Like every profession there are those individuals we could all do without, but generally, lobbyist are a smart and strategic group of communicators doing good work. I’m quite proud of that aspect of my career and it completely lines up with my current work for a national charitable organization focused on serving Canadians.
Lobbyist are often officially defined as those paid to represent a particular group or interest. Given the complexities of the government, it is not unreasonable to assume that an organization might seek the assistance of those who specialize in understanding government to represent them. Paying someone to lobby or accepting money in order to lobby is not suspicious behavior. Despite this, lobbyists carry with them the expectation of bad behaviour. I have actually had people laugh in my face when I’ve raised the issue of lobbying ethics, but keep this mind the next time you think about lobbyists. What other communications professional is obliged to complete a public explanation of their activities and intent before and every time they initiate their business practice?
Another pervasive myth that surrounds government relations is the discussion of access. The myth runs something like this, a good lobbyist is someone who can get you access to government officials. What this implies is that access is limited, content irrelevant and objectives extraneous. It says that your issue, its effect on the public and any informed solutions you may have to offer are irrelevant if you don’t have a personal friendship with the right government official or enough cash to hire the right lobbyist.
If that’s true, I want to know who died and left professional lobbyists in charge of my rights as a citizen? Having a lobbyist with good contacts in government can facilitate the timing and effectiveness of your meetings, speeding things along, but it shouldn’t be and rarely is, a requirement for meeting with elected officials or civil servants. If effective government relations are reliant upon hiring a lobbyist who has some prior affiliation with the ruling party, do you really want that government? Fortunately, if access to politicians ever becomes reliant on prior relationships it’s easy enough to fix. Remember who your friends are during the next election…
Lessons Learned
Great things can come from lobbying.
Real lobbying is not about selling access.
Good governments (and good politicians) are never afraid of hearing your opinion.
I was on Parliament Hill recently and as my colleagues and I fanned out to share our messages I kept thinking about all the possible outcomes ahead of us. We had the same message to deliver, but personal style and approach can make subtle changes occur that effect comprehension, reception and even perceived objective. This means that when presenting an idea, the question of knowing EXACTLY what you want is critical.
Whether presenting to government, an interviewer or potential client, it can mean the difference between success and failure. If you are unclear about your issue, or do not ensure that your audience is clear on what you want, you may find yourself achieving an outcome you didn’t anticipate. As time management expert Alan Lakein so succinctly put it, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Take for instance the consumer advocate groups that lobbied the Canadian federal government for years on the issue of labelling of cigarette packaging. They asked government to ban or restrict the word “light” from cigarette packages. They were concerned that the use of the word would lead the public to think that these cigarettes were somehow not as bad for them as “regular” cigarettes. In December 2004, then Minister of Health, Ujjal Dosanjh, was pleased to announce that the use of the words “light” and “mild” would be prohibited from use on future cigarette packages. Imagine his surprise, when on hearing his announcement, the various associations in question responded with criticism. It seems that they were actually using the “light” discussion as an example of the kind of wording they did not want used. As it happens their “ask” was a good deal more complex than the use of one or two words, they were quite legitimately concerned about the use of any language or imagery that might be perceived as misleading, this included the use of numbers or coloring. Subsequently, they did not see the change as sufficient.
By February of 2005, a grassroots campaign had been launched to tell government that their announced changes hadn’t gone far enough. The subsequent nature of the relationship between the Minister and the associations following these events can only be speculated on, but needless to say a good deal of engagement would have been necessary to maintain good relations.
Knowing exactly what you want before you initiate anything, from a meeting to a full communications campaign, provides you with a path. Waiting until you are at a critical meeting or juncture is not the time to to determine what you want. Brainstorming in tight circumstances is unlikely to be productive or successful. Its also likely to lead to frustration for you and those around you. If you know precisely what outcome you are trying to achieve, you are also in a better position to spot options or opportunities, it gives you the flexibility to take short cuts that will satisfy your objectives. Knowing what you want means you are also in a better position to anticipate how long the process will take and what you will need to do in order to be successful.
When have you planned and succeeded? Have you been taken by surprise by an outcome? Have you ever failed to plan and subsequently missed an opportunity?
There’s No Such Thing As A Typical Meeting With An MP
There is no such thing as a typical meeting with a Member of Parliament (MP). While all MPs may share the same job, and some share the same party membership, that’s about where their automatic resemblance to each other starts and finishes. It’s not that you can’t have similar meetings with various MPs, but if you start to think that there is a set of rules or expectations on what will happen in meetings the only thing you can count on is that you will run into trouble.
How the meetings unfold will depend on a number of factors, not the least of which is the personality of the individual. The meeting will reflect what’s on their mind, their impression of you, what time they have, and many more issues you cannot control or even be aware of. Let’s not forget what you bring to the meeting with you.
I was once doing a series of MP meetings, about 50 one on one meetings in a three-month period. During the course of that process, I encountered MPs who knew all about my issue long before I got there and had done significant research after my meeting request was received. I also met MPs who didn’t know anything about the issue and not much more about the organization or group I was there representing. During the same round of meetings, one MP told me that I should never talk to the constituency MP (himself) but instead, I should talk to the party critic. Another MP suggested that I should never meet with MPs unless I brought a hired a lobbyist. I should mention that the particular MP had formerly been the owner of a lobbying firm.
One MP was only interested in talking directly to one of the professionals I was representing. Still, other MPs thanked me for bringing the issue to their attention and committed to speaking to folks in their caucus and in their constituency about the issue. The range of reactions I received as I met with these MPs was as varied as the faces I was sitting across from. I liked some and disliked others, but although they had all received the same information in advance, none of them responded in the same way.
Having made it clear that MPs are as unpredictable as most people, there are a few things you might expect when meeting an MP.
Lessons Learned
They will want to know who “specifically” you are and what it is you want from them.
They will expect you to explain as clearly as possible what your issue is.
They may ask you to suggest a solution or that you will provide one as part of your explanation.
The MP may oppose the position you are supporting and consequently may decide to argue openly or simply not commit to doing anything to help. In this case, note the position or acknowledge it if they share it with you. State your position, but do not engage in a back and forth argument.
Always offer to serve as an information resource.
Remember to take the opportunity to ask the MP for his or her thoughts and how you can help.
Always remember to thank them for taking the time from their busy schedule to meet with you. If there are any follow-up activities don’t forget to do them.
As a consultant I have walked into rooms where the temperature was so cold I debated getting gloves, but whether I’m lobbying or speaking at an event, I always warm up my audience before delivering my message. When they’re warm, I’m hot.
A Story from the Field
The CEO of the large pharmaceutical company was anxious to meet with an Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM). His company had considerable concerns around a regulatory process and he wanted to share their proposals towards addressing that challenge. He knew that in the weeks prior to his meeting there had been quite a bit of bad press about the program the ADM was responsible for. What’s more, the bad press had resulted from many unfortunate and accusatory comments leveled directly at the ADM by another pharmaceutical company. It was of little surprise to the CEO when he was only granted 30 minutes for the meeting, and even less of a surprise when 30 minutes was reduced to 15 minutes once he arrived.
Rather than launching into his proposal, he started the meeting by explaining that he understood the challenges the department faced. He explained that he thought the press coverage unfortunate since it did nothing to contribute to an open dialogue between his industry and the department. The ADM who had started the meeting with her hands folded across her chest and her lips so tightly pursed she might have produced diamonds from coal, slowly began to relax. When her assistant came into the meeting to get her after 15 minutes, the ADM shook her head and the meeting proceeded. By the time the CEO explained that his company funded a group of independent scientists who would be available for an exchange program with the department due to their specialized knowledge, 45 minutes had elapsed. The ADM was leaning forward attentively and asking about how the scientists were chosen and how the exchange might work. The meeting ended after an hour and there were smiles all round.
As government relations exercises go, I have rarely been so impressed with a client for turning what could have been a disaster into a triumph. When we were told we had 15 minutes I wasn’t sure if he would stay or walk out, but he was a total trooper. Its a lesson that has stayed with me.
Three Tips For Managing First Meetings
Assume nothing about your audiences knowledge of you; make sure your position/attitude is clearly stated at the beginning of the meeting.
Read the body language of the person you are meeting with and respond to it.
Establishing rapport will serve you better than any well practiced pitch.
