Ditch Dodgy Assumptions, Save Your Project
When you’re trying to persuade government of anything, you need to know how, which means you need to know with whom you’re dealing.
Everyone knows public servants are lazy, uninterested in serving the public, and intent on building their careers. Everyone knows politicians are inherently dishonest, and like their public servants are selfish careerists.
Except, you don’t know that. It isn’t true. You’ve swallowed the falsehoods which overwhelm mainstream and social media.
In over 40 years of exposure to politics, public servants, and business, I’ve met a couple who fit those descriptions, but the enormous majority don’t. They’re earnest and committed.
If you believe all that rubbish about politicians and public servants, you’ll make enormous mistakes when you try to pitch your idea/policy/product to government: you’ll be talking with someone who exists in your imagination, not the person in front of you.
Believe clichés at your own risk!
Public sector decision-makers – public servants and politicians both – are diverse:
- atheists, and devout
- socialists, conservatives, far-right social engineers, and everything in between
- middle-aged men, and young women
- leaders, and followers
- foolhardy, and risk-averse
- courageous, and over-cautious
- energetic, and exhausted
- arrogant, and humble.
The things that constrain, guide, motivate, and persuade them are diverse, too:
- government priorities and policies
- ministerial, and departmental, objectives and priorities
- political or stakeholder fallout
- the community’s needs and the public interest
- professional and public sector codes
- public sector processes and rules
- their personal ambitions, values, policy interests, ideology, and political beliefs
- proximity of the next election or ministerial reshuffle.
You need to prepare your proposals for that breadth of audience, not the one you imagine.
Some of the above is drawn from the new book Mastering the Dark Art of Lobbying, in which I discuss these distinctions and some of their implications in more detail.