This week I had the opportunity to do something I truly love. I got to spend a couple of hours working with students at my alma mater.
Now these weren’t just any college students. These were folks in the John Glenn College at THE Ohio State University, studying public policy. These are MY people. People committed to the idea that the best way to protect our republic is to participate in it. So much so that they are seeking advanced degrees in the theory of how our system works.
But when I get to spend time with them, I get to share my own experiences of seeing the rubber meet the road.
Over the course of a couple hours I beat the same drum that I beat with every group of prospective advocates: that successful advocacy is a cumulative and iterative process, and that like any great craftsman, a successful advocate has to fall in love with the work of perfecting their craft.
There are no short cuts, no easy buttons, and no magic formulas to get the job done. All our field promises is an infinite game of changing players that offer new challenges each and every day.
But when we got to some Q&A, one student asked me a great question that I thought I’d share here today: “how do we go about holding those elected officials accountable?”
For context, we had just been talking about crafting good “asks” for officeholders. I shared with them my standards: clear, actionable, and measurable. A good ask has to be easy to understand, relevant to the office, and able to be tracked with a deliverable.
Here’s a BAD example of an ask:
“I’d like you to get educated on this topic.”
Educated? How? To what extent? Who should I seek out as an expert? Oh and most importantly, how will I demonstrate I’ve done it?
Good asks look a little different. They start with what’s relevant to a position, get spelled out in undeniable terms, and show a measurable outcome. For instance, if you’re talking to a member of Congress, a good ask would be more like:
“I’d like you to co-sponsor HR 5089, the Next Generation Fuels Act, which promotes cleaner fuels and will protect the long term health of our rural economy.
A clear, relevant, measurable action: co-sponsor a bill. But what if they don’t do it? Well that’s what the student was asking. If they don’t do the thing we ask, just how do we hold them accountable? You’re not going to like my answer any more than those students did:
“It depends.”
Before you call me a cop-out, hear me out. When I train advocates, I key in on the concept that seeing advocacy as both cumulative and iterative allows us to do one thing really well – build credibility. And credibility is the currency of the political realm. Regardless of their party or position, public servants need partners in the process. And sound advocacy strives to meet that need.
But if you’re early in a relationship with a decision-maker, you may not yet be ready for the hard conversation on an issue. You may not yet have enough saved up in your credibility account. That’s when you must be ready for a hard decision, because sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice winning the moment so you can still win a champion to your cause.
That’s a really difficult needle to thread. Because it sucks to hear ‘no.’ It’s awful to expect one action and witness a representative take an opposing stance. It sucks to lose.
The way around that is to develop an infinite mindset for advocacy. Training yourself to think less about wins and losses and more about gaining ground can put it all in perspective. It can help you stay in the game longer – that helps you build credibility. And ultimately, that’s what separates successful advocates from everyone else: they have a way to keep showing up even in the face of ‘no.’
How do you hold them accountable? Keep showing up. Build credibility. Because the greatest way to protect our republic is to participate in it.
Part of the Possible 