Darcy Nicolle - The Secret Art of Lobbying: The Essential Business Guide to Winning in the Political Jungle

H ow do you deal with political risk? What do you do about politicians making decisions that will inevitably fall on your business? Just sit there waiting for the inevitable? Grab an umbrella and hope the storm will pass? Or do you get out there and make your own political weather? This book is all about how you can get out there and win at the lobbying game.

The lobbying game is not the reserve for the privileged few with deep pockets, personal contacts and an encyclopaedic knowledge of politics. All that is needed is the confidence and the wherewithal to go out and make a compelling case, at the right time, to the right people.

Political decisions can earn your business money, save you money, open or close markets, or indeed destroy your reputation and business. Why leave this to chance by staying out in the cold? It sounds dramatic to say that if you are not in the corridors of power, your enemies will be, but even if you are lucky and they are not there lobbying against you, politicians will be making uninformed decisions that could impact you.

Lobbying is about dealing with a group of outsiders politicians that you cannot afford to ignore (much the same as dealing with investors, backers, legal complaints, the press or trade unions), regardless of whether your business is running a company, operating an association, or organising a charity or an interest group.

What does good lobbying look like? It is being asked if you agree with an imminent decision, having been the one who put it on the table in the first place.

So to become an influential player in the corridors of power, you must know what decisions are going to be made, who will be taking them and how to shape the debate and the decisions.

This sounds simple enough to say, but in fact all you need is to be systematic in your approach and positive in your attitude.

To fill you with confidence and thoroughly equip you for your journey in the corridors of power, this book covers the whole range of skills, capabilities and basic political knowledge you will need to win at lobbying whether at international level, in a national capital or your local region, for both European and US organisations.

It will teach you what makes politicians tick, as well as how to: plan your campaign and learn lessons from other successful campaigns; gather your arguments; leverage your influence; deal with political crises; be persuasive under pressure; and relentlessly focus on finding and using the levers of power and influence.

First off, though, when I use the term politicians, I do not just mean the ones you imagine holding grand parliamentary debates or attending international summits. Politicians covers the whole gamut, from ministers and bureaucrats to mayors and agency officials they are all making political decisions, whether they are elected or not.

Secondly, I will refer to political arenas quite a lot this is a shorthand expression to encompass all the political players that influence a specific political question. Covering not just the politicians, but all the other companies and industries, campaigners and pressure groups, journalists, academics and think tanks involved.

And lastly, political decisions essentially come in two forms, as famously phrased by former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The first type is an undecided political decision that you can anticipate and plan for. The second is a political crisis that you cannot predict, but will probably trigger political decisions for which you can nevertheless prepare.

Lobbying is all about influencing political decisions before they are made. This book will show you how to get on the inside track, make your presence felt in the political arena and make politics work for you, so you are not the one left outside without an umbrella to protect you from political storms.

The first step on your journey to the corridors of power is to assess yourself and the political world the politicians you will need to persuade to get real political leverage and the arena you will be operating in. Building on this foundation, this book will equip you with the tools and skills to go out and perfect the art of lobbying.