Smart Lobby Firms Need an Open Mind

My latest post on LinkedIn:

Knowing someone who can frame an issue in your language and make it relevant to your immediate concerns or plans is incredibly helpful, as is having someone on the outside you can speak with to get a safe read on the external landscape.

Self-serving?  Maybe, but it's also sound advice.  Altruism, after all, is selfishness that plans ahead...

Open Instant Hansard

Few people read Hansard.  By and large, they aren't missing much - it's scripted, melodramatic street-theatre.  It used to be that where the real action happened was committee, which is often going in camera these days - and even then, it's still scripted street-theatre.

Those who do pay attention to Hansard are Government Relations people, for obvious reasons, political staffers, same, and issues-managing public servants.  For some, it's a job; for some managers, the transcribing of Question Period is a value-add product they can offer their bosses.

Which is interesting, because Cabinet Office already does this; if you're on the inside, you get a rough version in relatively short time, while the polished version gets made public later.  What's the point of individual Ministries duplicating work done by Cabinet Office?  How many work hours get wasted on repetitive tasks that, because there's no time for polish, results in duplicated work of lesser quality?

This is why I was fascinated to be asked by Gnowit, a start-up looking into government issue monitoring through new tech and digital tools, what I thought about real-time speech-to-text tools as a service offering.

Of course it would be a great tool for anyone who monitors government issues to have, but taken further: imagine we could automate and make real-time available all government proceedings for everyone - stakeholders, bureaucrats, the public?

That would be an amazing step in the direction of Open Government, which is where we're supposedly heading.  As it happens, the tech to do this already exists; some of it is costly, but certainly no more so than the number of person-hours that go into transcription.  There are alternative, cheaper versions being made available for folk like teachers, too - also of use to students.

It might sound like a simple thing, but it isn't.  Instant, tech-driven Open Hansard would involve a massive culture change, a reduction of relevance in the work of many public and private employees and a loss of control and supposed "value add" on the part of many a manager or consultant.  

As such, this is the kind of change that would be resisted.  The tech could be questioned, the importance of body language nuance that escapes tech emphasized, so on and so forth.  From an economic standpoint, lots of people would be looking for new work to do if they lost this piece, many of them potentially from the street.  Municipalities that have never recorded their sessions and, therefore, never been truly open would certainly drag their feet on implementing any new policies or tools related to openness.

Still, it would be better for democracy.  It fits within the mandate of Open Government.  The tech exists and, frankly, we're starting to move that way regardless.

I'll be interested to see how this progresses moving forward, but guarantee - those too stuck in traditional methodology and the influence it gives them will find themselves left behind.

The Best Ideas Don't Have to Cost a Fortune

1. Ventilateur ‏@gofango  3h 
   

   @OpenCommunityTO @ResultsJunkie It would be great if there was a readable source for us dealing with financial things for the first time

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"I don't think about anything unless I'm paid to."

That gem was once uttered to me by a successful, respected, wealthy government relations consultant.  He meant it, too - this guy, like most government relations or public affairs or management consultant folk bill by the hour, or even by the 15 minute time increment.  

They're consultants - they are experts and their expertise costs money.  If you want some of their time, you have to pay for it.  

Since they are paid for their advice, advising is their focus.  They may offer added value to keep a contract - a bit of writing here, a few words in political friends' ears there - but by and large they are financially fixed on the idea of offering advice and moving on.

The problem is, their commitment is to the activities that bring them money.  They have no reason to stay engaged with a topic before or after they get paid to care about it.

Traditional high-priced consultants come at problems from the outside, offer their wisdom, write a report, collect their paycheque and move on.  Nowhere in this transaction is a need to map their consultation to reality; behavioural economics, design thinking, iterative process and community relationship-building aren't in their mandate.

So how many super-smart (or at least, super-successful) consultants have been paid top-dollar for reports or advice that goes into reports that are subsequently shelved?  How often do ideas implemented not stick, because they weren't grown from the ground-up?

We spend a lot of money - tax payer dollars, which are supposedly valuable - on advice that sounds nice but doesn't reflect the real word and won't be acted upon anyway.  The theory of transactional politics is that the advice offered is a consumable product that one stakeholder or another may decide to carry forward, while others may oppose it.  

Such was the case for the Drummond Report - lots of ideas were presented, with interest groups picking the ones that mattered to them and pushing for action/insisting that action not be taken.  Politicians were the ultimate recipients of all this lobbying activity and based their go-forward options on what they felt was in their best political fortunes, which theoretically maps to the biggest voices from the public.

That's how democracy works, right?  Everyone pursues their own interests and majority rules.

But we all know that isn't how it works - the loudest voice can come from the smallest groups, if they are well-funded.  I remember once sitting around a board-room table with a bunch of political organizers who talked about how they wanted a commission created and who they wanted to have on it, but how they would shape the recommendations regardless.  Their clients would then be well-positioned to get what they want, whether it was in the broader public interest or not.

That's not democracy - that's transactional politics.  Which is what we get when the smart people only care about what they're paid to care about.

This is why we have so many boring, unsexy or complex structural issues that never get addressed or, at best, get token solutions so that a government can't be accused of not caring.  In the worst possible scenario, transactional players actively want problems to persist so that they can keep getting paid to address them.  

Why on earth would I try to solve lead poisoning when I make my money curing it?  That'd be like putting myself out of business - or forcing myself to adapt.

This is why the best consultants aren't the people paid to think, but the people who live a given problem every day.  They have insight into how the problem impacts them on multiple levels, can walk policy-makers through their challenges and offer ideas that are grounded in their world, rather than imposed from above.

Far too often, public consultations is a PR exercise - something to keep the plebes happy, rather than an actual attempt to gain insight and ideas.  It's too bad, this, because there are a lot of great ideas brewing among the people policies are being designed to help.

Why?  It's easy - solving their problems isn't a think they get paid for, it's their life.  This is why the best, most passionate and most dedicated advocates for any cause are people with lived experience.  Think Clara Hughes.  Heck, go bigger and think Helen Keller, or the likes of Martin Luther King Jr.  They weren't motivated by money to change the world - they wanted to change the world so that they might equitably live in it.

As is often the case, what helps the most disenfranchised helps the rest of us.  The Labour Revolution was about sustainable living for hard-pressed employees; it ended up improving productivity, quality of life and spun off whole new industries.  Emancipation in all its forms has done the same thing - reduced poverty and crime, expanded the workforce, created new markets and brought new ideas to the table.

My favourite example, one we continually seem to forget - the more rights and equitable opportunity women get, the more peaceful, stable and successful our societies become.  You don't get that when the Alpha Males just focus on what they think matters, do you?

Society is becoming increasingly stratified into haves in competition and have-nots that serve as collateral damage.  The former tell the latter to suck it up, try harder, do something more to earn a spot at the big boy's table.  

Meanwhile, those without access, sophisticated training or a familiarity with jargon are telling us what they need to succeed.  Deemed inferior by the Alphas, these voices are too-often ignored, dismissed or ridiculed, which is an opportunity lost.

While the consultants independently mull what to do about youth disengagement, financial literacy, youth employment, declining voter turn-out and sluggish economic growth/a lack of innovation, we have people like @gofango, hinting at shared solutions for all these problems - solutions rooted in modern tools that she will understand far better than the seasoned vets who grew up with type-writers and see excessive ink as a way to demonstrate wealth and success.

It's time we flip our consultant model on its head and rethink how we define expertise.  We need fewer consultants who only think about what they're paid to and more who believe that the people have the answer and serve as conduits/translators for them.

Best part - the people who do something because they believe in it don't want a ton of money.  They need sustainable living, tools and the opportunity to own what they do.

Is this the way things work?  No.  It would be a new way for government to engage, bypassing the usual suspects they have relied on for so long.

Governments needn't worry, though - there are plenty of people on the front lines of society who would happily walk politicians through this process for the first time.

Committing Sociology in Government Relations

 

“I don’t consider this to be the first and last — I consider this to be the start of a trend,” he said. “The message to lobbyists is to wake up and be careful. It’s a wake-up call.”

 

I find this very interesting. 

 

To imply a trend is emerging suggests there are other examples of GR misbehaviour just waiting to come to light.  How could that be, though?  Surely tough laws and some examples of justice served would be sufficient to course-correct bad behaviour in the industry, right?  If not - if tough-on-crime doesn't result in greater law-and-order - why not?

 

If you felt so inclined, you could profile the sorts of people who get into these types of ethically sticky situations.  With a bit of probing, you could get into their headspace and figure out what fuels the type of arrogance that assumes rules only apply to lesser people.  If you felt ambitious you could even do something about it.

 

But we won't.  That's not our style.

 

We don't look for patterns of behaviour - studying trends is a bit too much like committing sociology.  Looking at broader, historical cycles has nothing to do with the price of rice, so we don't bother.

 

In the end, though, it doesn't matter whether we consciously adapt to the changing social dynamic out there.  Systems have a habit of eventually finding balance, given enough time and iterations.  It just happens that the early adapters tend to be the ones who thrive; the inwardly-focused laggards fall behind.  That's just how evolution works.

 

Social media and real-time accountability are changing the dynamic of political power; we can no longer act first, think later and not expect to be called on our inconsistencies.  As a result, we are going to have to put a bit more forethought into what we say and do.  This isn't a curtailing of freedom, as some might decry; it's about efficiency and value-add. 

 

This will have particular application to GR and other folk who interact at high levels with government; it will have great meaning for government itself as well.   

 

I really don't see anything new in this - but don't take my word for it.  After all, I'm just looking for trends.

 

Mental Health: A Business Opportunity You'd be Crazy to Miss

Only a decade ago, to suggest mental health was a critical issue for Canadian businesses would have seemed ludicrous. That sentiment seems to be rapidly waning. With its announcement earlier this month of a national standard to help businesses put in place policies that improve employees’ psychological health, Ottawa highlighted what many had long suspected: There are far too many Canadians with mental illness for the business community to ignore them.

 

Know how business has begun to realize supporting gay rights is, well, good business and is starting to go where early adapters in society have already gone? 

 

Mental health is a bit like that. 

 

We're just passing the innovators stage, with programs like the federal psychological workplace standards now available for consumption.  The early adapters who turn this trend into business opportunities soon will reap the rewards - as will everyone, as this is one of those shifts in social conscious that help everyone move forward.  

 

Many a smart advocates and entrepreneur are there already.   

 

If you want to learn more, let me know.

Occupational Mental Health Now

Nurses know changes are needed. Hospitals across the country are at overcapacity. A generally accepted standard of safe hospital occupancy is 85 per cent, yet most hospitals are working at a 100 per cent or higher. The results of overcrowding include compromised care, high rates of hospital-acquired infections and unnecessary rates of hospital readmission. Another result is dangerous levels of workload, and the resulting vicious circle of working short staffed.

The sheer pressure being placed on our national healthcare silos (because there is no system, not nationally, not provincially) is unsustainable.  The people delivering our health services are cracking at the seams, but the burden just keeps growing.  Plus, the cost keeps rising, too.  Something has to give.

When you need to deliver more, but can't afford more, you need a third way.  You need structural change.  The question we need to ask ourselves is, why is there such high demand?  What can we do to reduce demand rather than attempt impossible service increases?

If you want to find ways to keep people out the healthcare system, you have to do two things - give them more knowledge and access on the front end (education, health promotion) and reduce the factors that aggrieve illness in the first place. 

How do you do that?  We've looked at obesity and smoking, promoted healthy eating and exercise.  There's decent health and safety standards in place, some going to far as to impede people from developing resistance and resiliency. 

What's left?

Everyone's acknowledged there is a global mental health crisis that impacts poverty, quality of life and illness - all of which increase the burden on our healthcare system.  There is an appreciation of how "management styles" and work flow can exacerbate or even cause illnesses like anxiety and depression (if it frustrates you that I call those illnesses, ask yourself, why?)  Now, we need to connect the dots between mental health, occupational health and health care.  It's a pretty easy link to make; it's the implications that give us pause.

There's an appetite for changing the way we look at mental health, work and healthcare - there's also a dire need.  The politicians who seize on this topic and run with it can not only score major social wins; they can achieve some major political wins, too.

We're going to be hearing a lot more about cognitive labour as the engine that fuels the information economy.  It's something the smart business and political folk are already becoming conscious of.

Government Relations: Challenge and Solution

The changes would give the Integrity Commissioner the ability to ban someone from lobbying, to order individuals to testify and to force lobbyists to provide documents.

The government of Ontario is continuing its crack-down on lobbying.  Any reforms implemented will make it more challenging for those in the lobbying industry to do their work, therefore making lobbying less profitable.  A sidebar will be less organizations willing to use external lobbyists from fear of getting caught in a scandal; at the same time, politicians will be more wary of seeking the advice of lobbyists, because they won’t want to suffer the slings and arrows of social media, either.

Done properly, there is a definite public benefit in terms of transparency and accountability.  It’s kinda nice to know how policy decisions are being informed and who’s playing a role in deciding the public’s fate, as well as knowing where on the margins our tax dollars are being spent.  There’s a real big negative to the track being followed, though – lobbying is being turned into a dirty word.  If a lobbyist is brain-storming with a client and throwing out far-fetched ideas to build context before settling on a direction to take, would that kind of information be accessible to the public?  Would it be presented with context, or in a way that validates the narrative of a journalist/politician/interest group?  How would bans work?  Would they be permanent, would they involve remediation?  If a politician needs to understand how a complex set of issues impact a sector in language they understand, who will provide them with that insight?

While there are real and justifiable concerns about how lobbying works, we have to keep in mind just what the role of an effective lobbyist is.  The good ones aren’t just meeting-arrangers or influence-peddlers; they’re translators.  They speak the languages of business, of specific sectors like health care or education and they speak politics.  This is no small thing; we have a silo-based system of governance and silo-based industries that really don’t know how to communicate with each other.  It's not as easy as one might think to pick up the phone and reach a Minister, or a Deputy Minister, or even an MPP.  Besides, when you get them, what do you say?  How do you frame your message in a way that connects with the political folk?  How do you resonate?  Do you understand their specific position and what's informed that position?  This is the gap that good lobbyists fill.  Without them, who will?

The sad truth is, nobody will.  That level of communication will just cease to happen or even worse, be driven so far underground that only the bad apples who are spoiling the industry will take the risk of skirting the rules and make bigger bucks for doing so.  Meanwhile, tri-sector partners will circle each other like heart-breaking best friends, wanting to reach out but not knowing how.  The duplications, gaps and overlaps of our system will expand; the distance between our social silos will grow wider.

There's a better way, but it's not an easy one.  It requires all parties to shift their thinking a little bit and get past the demand for elevator-pitch explanations.  Lobbyists will have to want to be transparent in the way they work, but doing so will also help build their brand.  They'll have to develop goals beyond profit that they work towards, holding themselves to rigorous standards.  For its part, the public will have to be open to the idea that politics isn't simple, that translation is necessary and that it's not a bad thing to have third-party mediators connecting not just government and the private sector, but the Not-For-Profit sector as well.  After all, you can't develop win-win solutions without a bit of give-and-take.

Believe it or not, the model to follow on this was innovated by The Courtyard Group.  They started with an idea - improving healthcare - and focused all their attention, all their expertise on that sphere.  They made money, but they did so in the context of solving a problem.  Were there issues with how that idea played out?  Of course there were; that doesn't invalidate the idea, but rather provide a lesson to learn from.  Firms of any sort that follow a practice-area model develop specialized expertise in both subject-matter and communication, which is an invaluable tool for everyone.  The trick now is for everyone to dedicate just a bit more effort to considering the broader context and both how they git into that matrix and how that role will be perceived.

This is the model that is being pursued by the rising number of social entrepreneurs in Ontario and across the country.  These are people who have figured out it's possible to do the right thing and make money at the same time.  They don't see admitting mistakes as putting blood in the water, but as an opportunity to share and learn from collective experience.  I myself fall into this category; I know where my passions lie and I have the skills, experience and connectivity to turn them into positive solutions. I'm also conscious of the fact I don't have all the answers and can only achieve my goals through strategic collaborations.  The future of GR will, from necessity, embody this approach.  It might be a harder path, but ultimately, a more rewarding one both selfishly and altruistically.  Consultants conscious of their place in a societal network will focus less on getting rich quick and instead, put more emphasis on building a lasting, positive legacy. 

The Future of GR (The Government Relations Industry)

Had a former political staffer friend of mine ask me a couple questions about Government Relations today.  He wanted to know if it was possible to start your own GR shingle these days and what was better - to slug it out on your own or to accept the limitations of working for someone else?

For what it's worth, this is the answer I gave him:

Here's the reality; GR, as it has evolved over the last decade or so, is in decline.  Government rules are tight (and are only going to get tighter) and with the prospects of global economic uncertainty for the foreseeable future, businesses are hesitant to try new service providers.  When the pressure's on, you go with known commodities.  Plus, there are way too many newbies on the market, trying to make the cut.

What I'm seeing happen is that existing firms are either petering out, merging (or at least engaging in more partnerships) or growing.  Those trying to break into GR independently are doing piecemeal work offering to do everything from database management to press releases in addition to standard GR.  Potential clients see what's happening and are encouraging pro-bono work, suggesting if they're going to pay money they might as well go with the established experts.  This pro-bono work leads to either businesses bringing talent in-house or bigger GR firms snatching them up.

Even the bigger, successful GR firms are branching out into business management, more PR/Comms, that sort of thing.  The water hole is shrinking, so it's diversify/evolve to survive, or fall behind (there's a lesson for the CPC in here). 

If you really want to break in as a fresh face, you're going to have to develop an untapped market to play in.  To this end, look at what's going to be needed down the road and start laying seeds now.  The Knowledge Economy is the next big thing; that means education, workplace development, cognitive development and that great social taboo, mental health.  Also keep this in mind; the future of the industry won't be two-way chats between Client and Government, but multilateral conversations that connect Government, the Private and Not-For-Profit Sectors in collaborative, initiative-driven opportunities.

It's a tough row to hoe, but if it's what you want to do, go for it.  To last, though, don't go in it for the money.  The model to follow is teaching - find what you're passionate about and pursue that.  You'll end up happier that way, too, whether it pays big bucks or not.  Expect it to be an uphill trajectory, though - the best approach is to have another gig and then slowly build a brand for yourself from there.

Cheers,

CCE

I wouldn't say I'm an expert on GR, but there are seasoned vets that peruse this blog.  What do you folks think?