Aside from the normal activities of the office, lobbying has
been by far the most difficult to prepare for and surprisingly the easiest to execute.
A few weeks back, I was tasked with constructing a
professional brief complete with industry data, trade analysis, and a policy
impact study that would be used to lobby our Arizona congressional delegation
on the importance of supporting Trade Promotion Authority. If you’re unfamiliar
with TPA, in a very basic sense, it is Congress formally granting the President
permission to negotiate trade agreements. For the hungry intern, the task was an
ambitious feat and a challenge too exciting to pass by.
Together with my colleague, also a graduate student at ASU, we
began data mining for data that supported our interest in showcasing the
importance Trade Agreements play in facilitating international trade for
Arizona companies. The process although grueling, brought up some interesting
points. A) Our data made no sense in supporting our case; we had countries with
no trade agreements but high export numbers and countries with existing trade
agreement whose numbers were negligible. B) We just lost 2 days of productivity
on a dead end.
At this point the first meeting was in a day and we had
nothing… to make matters worse, the time spent on the data mining led a long
list of assignments cued up in each other’s inboxes. Here we go... back to the
drawing board.
Changing the appointment was practically impossible and turning
up to our leadership with empty hands was pretty much unacceptable. With a
limited set of options, instead of forcing the argument “if you don’t do this,
these will be the consequences”, we flipped the script to “We’re not asking for
anything new… we’re asking for you to support U.S. products.” Viola, we
consolidated the package within hours of the meeting.
Fast forward to meeting the congressperson… these were the
first words out of the congressperson’s mouth, thanks for coming down, I was
planning on supporting TPA anyway. And there it was weeks of stress balled up
into a 5 minute sit-down with no mention of my research. And just like that I learned
the biggest lesson of my internship thus far, being effective in lobbying doesn’t mean
be comprehensive, it means know your audience. If I’d taken my time to really
understand the congressperson’s views the memo could have said anything, at the
end the mission would have been accomplished either way.
Just like that I was thrown back to the first lesson of 3rd grade language arts. Always know your audience.
Knowing one's audience is every bit as important as knowing what one is going to say. There are many different ways to deliver a message; and to whom one is delivering the message determines how it should be delivered. No matter how well a presentation given, if the audience does not get it, it does not mean a thing.
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