I’m a fan of Malcolm Gladwell. His storytelling style, both through his written works and his podcast Revisionist History, resonates with me. Are you familiar with his work? Even if you’ve never read one of his books, you may hold a passing awareness of a concept he laid out in the book Outliers.
10,000 hours. That’s the estimate, now a relatively accepted belief, of how many hours it takes to attain expertise in a specialty. Ten thousand hours – five working years – seems like quite the undertaking.
Now imagine someone asks you to participate in politics and government advocacy. The vast majority of us don’t spend more than a few minutes per year thinking about how we will vote in an election, let alone how to talk to our representatives. And if you ask me, I think this is the root of the hangup we so often hear from those we try to activate: “I don’t have the time.”
Sure, that prospect may be thinking about the physical time it will take to sign a letter, make a phone call, or even participate in a lobbying day. But I think it’s a bit of a logical leap for us to assume that as the primary time-based reason for someone to avoid participation.
Advocacy organizations have adopted new technologies over the decades. Form letters became form faxes became form emails became text activations became social media blitzes…Over the course of a generation, the game has become so streamlined that one can feel included in the advocacy process if they do so little as like a post on their preferred social media network.
And even though I’ve discussed the short term nature of those advocacy methods in previous posts, they do play a role in advancing someone into a higher level of advocacy engagement. But when our prospective advocates are telling us they “don’t have the time,” I think it’s representative of something much deeper: they don’t want to feel inexpert to the task.
Advocacy organizations have a duty to remind would-be advocates of this basic fact: they aren’t expected to become policy, process or politics experts. Rather, their participation in advocacy efforts is valuable precisely because they are expert at something else.
This is a high hurdle. Go stand in the rotunda of the US Capitol and try to feel “empowered” if you don’t know the basics of the process. The atmosphere in that environments is more than intimidating, it’s humbling. I think we can forgive our prospects their desire to become a little more skilled. But how do we get them to take the first step?
I’ve written a lot about storytelling. It’s time for you to adopt this mantra: we are here to help you with the process, but you’re here because your story will change minds – the only thing we need you to master is your own story. The beauty of placing your own twist on that recruiting line is simple: it happens to be the truth.
A paid lobbyist, a grassroots manager, or an association executive may have experience in process – but those we serve are the folks living the issue and it’s complexity. Whether they’ve put 10,000 hours into learning politics or not, we know they’ve done that and much more while working through their own life’s challenges. Take the burden of “politics” out of the equation, double down on storytelling, and watch your most hesitant prospects turn into skilled advocates.
Part of the Possible 