4 minute read
Boundary scanning and forward planning: unlocking the future of lobbying
BY AHZAZ CHOWDURY, SENIOR PARTNER, NUDGE FACTORY
The public affairs agenda has always been and will always be wide-ranging.
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The ever-shifting tectonic plates of public policy provide endless challenges and opportunities for lobbyists and those they represent. That’s one of the reasons our roles are so demanding, diverse and fulfilling. But two vast grey clouds have loomed overhead in swift succession: Brexit and Covid.
From the pre-referendum rumblings in 2016 to the decisive Conservative victory last November, the leave/remain agenda dominated news cycles and infused every nook and cranny of legislative and regulatory machinery and machinations. We had a brief reprieve in Q1 of this year, an interregnum, if you will: and then Covid.
Our responsibilities in representing the organisations and industries that are trying to survive or thrive through this are evident: we must maintain a level-headed and clear-eyed approach. It’s easy to get sucked into the vortex and fail to perform our most basic function: understanding what’s going on, and looking ahead to see how changing policy pressures and perspectives are likely to shape the future.
That’s why I believe the lobbying industry must refocus on boundary scanning. We should leverage our experience, understanding, and judgment to help guide those we represent to make sound decisions and take sure steps.
Let me make that tangible. Unsurprisingly, the government has an increased emphasis on health. Rather than making holistic decisions, its choices are made unrelentingly through the prism of ‘the science’.
That stance, combined with the devastation that Coronavirus is wreaking on our economy and society will prove decisive in shaping the public policy agenda. So, if you represent a business that isn’t keeping ahead of this curve, it is incumbent upon you to help shape their strategic thinking, their research and development, and their brand positioning and communications. We must be proactive.
Political boundary scanning is a wide field, encompassing environmental, societal, technological, legal and economic considerations. Some aspects will be more relevant than others in your own context. The future of work is one realm that will
almost certainly occupy you and impact your agenda. Many roles that are plentiful today will cease to exist within a few years — and new jobs will emerge that we haven’t even foreseen.
The rise, refinement and deployment of artificial intelligence, big data and scientific innovations will cause an exponential increase in automation, which won’t just affect manual jobs. Professional workers may soon be disintermediated or made redundant by technology. From the shop floor to the accountancy office, we must be attuned to help our organisations navigate through these macro-environmental shifts.
Public affairs practitioners have always had to straddle policy and politics, communications and messaging, and many other functions besides. But now we must also absorb the skillset of the chief strategic officer and the management consultant. The natural order of change has accelerated and the ‘new normal’ is anything but.
The economic impact of Coronavirus will be greater than anything we’ve seen in our lifetime. The fallout from businesses going bankrupt is evident: we may face mass unemployment and the hardships that come with it, with job losses inevitably resulting in tears in the fabric of society. Received wisdom is that the government will be faced with a binary choice: hike
taxes or execute the sort of swingeing cuts that would have been unimaginable even during the depths of austerity.
The latter has been ruled out, but are tax hikes and increased government tariffs inevitable?
Some optimists believe that a buccaneering, outward-facing Global Britain can trade its way into the postBrexit, post-Covid era, but theirs remains a minority opinion. Lobbying doesn’t have the answer, but our industry is ideally positioned to see the writing on the wall before others, and play a crucial role in shaping the course of business and economic success.
Automation will make mundane tasks easier and remove process-orientated effort, but the coming years will see an increased premium on three aspects of our capabilities: experience, judgment and interpersonal relationships.
Lobbying helps the democratic process. It provides information to legislators and those who advise them, it prosecutes the arguments for and against national infrastructure projects, increasing regulation or cutting red tape — and thousands of other decisions. These cases must be based on evidence, but articulated in ways that show the authentic impact on communities, organisations and, crucially, individual citizens.
Lobbyists’ arguments are forged in the disciplines of research and storytelling, but founded on a depth of knowledge and understanding of history and context. And, while relationships are no longer our primary stock in trade, trust remains utterly vital. No algorithm can alter that, no robot can replace it, and no process can remove the personal touch.
The successful lobbyist will leverage all that tech has to offer, but continue to build rapport and credibility with a network of stakeholders. Until artificial intelligence can replicate, simulate or replace authentic human interaction, good public affairs professionals will thrive. And when developments in AI get to that stage, worrying about our careers may well be the least of our problems...
