Let’s talk about negative media

I’m going to begin, in all fairness, by stating up front that I’m probably blowing this all way out of proportion.

I usually don’t get worked up over headlines. This far into life, there’s not much that comes out of media coverage that can really make my blood boil. But this week, I’m not embarrassed to admit, I got a little testy over this headline:

SpaceX gets almost $900 million in federal subsidies to deliver broadband to rural America

Originally posted on CNN

Let me start with a question: as a taxpayer, what are your initial reactions to that headline? If you support free market approaches to innovation, you probably had a bit of a negative visceral reaction to a very specific word: subsidies.

Let’s start with some context.

I think we all recognize that high-speed internet access, already a major issue for communities of all shapes and sizes, has taken on a special saliency in the world of COVID-related remote learning. Cities, suburbs and rural communities alike are facing a critical access issue. Yet even before COVID brought these challenges into stark relief, the federal government had been seeking ways to bridge the digital divide across our country.

For years, groups such as Connected Nation (their Ohio affiliate is known as Connect Ohio), have been seeking significant infrastructure investment, as well as administrative rule changes that will level the playing field between communities. Throughout, many have stressed government funding should remain technology neutral, setting a broad standard for program contractors to attain minimum levels of service and latency.

The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) is one development of the successful lobbying efforts of those interested in addressing the critical access issue facing so many in our nation. On 12/7/2020, the Federal Communications Commission released the final list of 180 successful bidders (out of 386 competitive applicants), including SpaceX’s contract award of $856 million.

To the reporter’s credit, in the course of the article she applies the nowadays pejorative “subsidies” universally throughout her article. Further, she goes on to address the selection of Charter Communications as the largest award under this program, to the tune of $1.2 Billion.

But why the singling out of SpaceX in the headline? Regardless of one’s view of the role of government in fostering innovation or opening new markets, I think most of us can agree that subsidy has assumed the categorization as a four letter word in our public discourse. It’s a go-to dirty word for just about every group trying to attack their opponents when federal funding is involved.

If you want to debate whether the federal government does or does not have a role to play in this issue, fine. BUT – if we’ve already ceded the ground and a competitive contract process is out there, why is the media pointing to one out of literally hundreds of successful applicants? That seems to move past reporting the news, and right into the realm of editorializing the value (goodness?) of some applicants over others.

It grinds my gears.

And then I remember this is actually not a terrible thing for SpaceX. Since its creation, SpaceX has had to carry the mantle of underdog, challenger, David facing the proverbial Goliath of government contract favoritism. With all that SpaceX has accomplished, especially in 2020, some are beginning to argue that they have become the Space Industrial Complex, that which they sought to destroy.

Then comes along this little nugget, revealing that there may still be some trying to hamper their progress, and call into question their value. Let’s face it, $900 Million is a BIG number even in today’s trillion dollar budgets. It’s so large that most can’t comprehend it in full – they just know it sounds really big. Coupled with the scroll-happy mentality of modern media consumption, many are beyond the habit of actually reading an article. They’re happy to digest the headline like a tweet and move on.

And I think SpaceX understands that on a very basic level. They also understand it’s to their own organizational culture to keep a chip on their shoulder and the mentality of a startup challenging the big guys.

SpaceX seems to have largely ignored this story. They didn’t fall into the trap that I did and get worked up. Instead, they pressed ahead with a successful test of Starship SN8. You should watch the video here (go ahead and fast forward to 1:47:30 to avoid a lot of waiting).

If you watch the video through to the end of the flight, you’ll note a very special ending when SN8 experienced a RUD (Rapid Unplanned Disassembly, i.e. it blew up when it landed a little too fast). That fiery ending honestly means nothing in the grand scheme of SpaceX’s approach to testing. Their team was ecstatic for all that was accomplished in this flight – even, notably, how the newest crater to adorn Boca Chica, TX was located right where it was supposed to be.

I think there’s a lesson for us all in this mindset. SpaceX is accustomed to failure and setbacks. They get it. If you aren’t failing, you’re not innovating enough. The same can be said for each of our organizations. It’s fine if we get bad press from time to time. It’s fine if we get singled out as industries – because that’s just one type of setback. And the really good organizations keep being scrappy underdogs with the right mentality to move past bad press.

Political Action Plans: Tactics

If you’ve been checking in on this series about Political Actions Plans, you’re well on your way to identifying who you need influence in the next year to advance your agenda. But what are the tactics you’re going to use to reach them?

Today, we’re talking tactics. I’m not talking about a whiz-bang data tool, or how to create an effective briefing memo. Rather, let’s talk about the principles and basics that will set your team apart from day 1.

Below is the excerpt on tactics from my introduction to Political Action Plans which you can read in full here.

Tactics

If we’re equating advocacy planning to project management in the business world, tactics aligns best with resource management. The tactics you develop within your political action plan should balance the roles your internal stakeholders can assume in the process: grassroots volunteers, PAC resources, communication and consumer education specialists, etc.

Identifying which of your resources can best position you to get to your “ask” is a difficult balancing act, and one we’ll explore in another post. But conceptually, your planning team should be taking measure of your existing relationships, touch points you can adopt easily, and what you don’t have capacity to pursue.

Last week I hinted at today’s discussion by highlighting two important principles:

  1. Education is advocacy
  2. Good advocacy is effective because it adds value for your targets

When developing your tactics you’ll utilize over the life of your action plan, it’s important to revisit these principles often to keep your team grounded and properly oriented.

The reality of political advocacy is that there has never, or will there ever be a one-size-fits-all solution to winning decision makers to your cause. There is no relationship management database, piece of literature you can produce, or podcast you can share that will impact all of your targets. You have to make it personal, and to do that you need a broad approach to your tactical development.

Be Brilliant in the Basics

This concept is drilled into young Marine officers and I’ve found it a helpful mantra to carry over into my civilian professional life. It’s a given that situations can drive your tactics and courses of action. However, keying into some basic tactics and being really, really good at them allows you to adapt to broad sets of circumstances easily. These are the three that I hold closest in my own planning:

  1. Utilize local residents as your key advocates – connect them to their representatives
  2. Offer events or opportunities that make the decision maker visible to the public
  3. Do the policymaker’s homework for them

These need to be hammered into your team. They should be plastered in the room where you’re developing your plan. They will drive your team toward adding actual value for your targets.

Leveraging Locals

Legislators, administrators, and staff are all people first. Read that again. One more time.

As ridiculous as that sounds, I can assure you that far too many activist organizations forget this. Critically, those who do forget it often fail to foster relationships between elected officials and those they represent. Too often as a staffer I heard stats and not stories. Those stats were informative for sure, but they fell short of making the personal connection that naturally capture’s a person’s attention in meaningful, longterm ways.

The really successful organizations, the ones I would reach back to as subject matter experts, developed key strategies to tell personal stories, and to place their clients/members in reach of our team. For instance, while they would bring new faces to each engagement meeting, they specifically identified a “district captain” who was my primary voluntary point of contact – often not employed by the organization – who acted as an intermediary and source of personal expertise on the topic.

Public Opportunities Without Fanfare

More than someone who would organize letter writing campaigns, this district captain was someone positioned to come into our team as a trusted confidant. They would help identify ways in which our agendas overlapped, and they offered opportunities for us to show our constituency that we were leading on an issue. It took time and investment to get to that point, but it paid off for those groups’ agendas.

One tactic they would leverage was in the realm of public events. Those events never had to be extravagant – especially in the modern world of social media. They were simple tours of facilities providing service to clients; morning coffees with 5-8 volunteers; time to address their board of directors during regular meetings. Each of these played into what the organization was already doing through client/member engagement, and thus constituted a light lift for them.

Now more than ever, Shakespeare’s observation that “all the world’s a stage” should be leveraged for your advocacy plan. When you can post photos, videos, and short thoughts in real time on countless platforms, even a simple car ride to a tour is an opportunity to highlight an elected official’s involvement with your issues. Make a habit of recognizing them in small ways – you’ll have an outsized impact.

As Best As You Can, Think for Them

Building on that impact is easy when you can feed them the information they need to successfully communicate your message broadly. You successfully get them to that point by doing their homework for them.

How does your issue directly impact their district/city/constituency? Is your proposal going to generate economic development and job growth? Will your policy expand services to groups of their constituency in need of assistance?

Finding answers to these and some other basic questions will help you create tangible talking points for a person stretched beyond capacity. So as you’re developing an idea for events in which you’ll engage a leader, evaluate their agenda and what projects they’re working on right now. Can you create a meaningful connection, do the analysis, and provide them a clear picture of how you are already working toward similar goals? If so, you’re helping them and their staff move along the spectrum from novice to champion of your cause.

I’ve found it helpful in my own planning to set aside time within the action plan to re-set as a team, re-evaluate the situation around us, and adapt the materials we are using to fit the moment for an individual member. In the coming weeks we’ll look at these re-set times and how they can be used to test your advocacy plan and determine if you need to adjust. For now though, take a look at your plan from a quarterly perspective. If you aren’t pausing at least one week in a quarter to evaluate, you’re likely not setting yourself up for success.

So, what are you thinking? Are you leveraging locals? Are you creating public facing opportunities? Are you doing their homework for them? If not, your tactics – whatever they may be – are likely falling short.

I’d really like to hear from you in the comments. What are some specific tactics you’re using in your own advocacy? What have you seen other groups do? What’s resonated with your targets? If you comment below on this week’s post, I’m going to put you in the running for a special gift from my favorite coffee company. How about it? Let me buy you a cup ‘o joe – take a moment to like and comment below!

The suburban adventures of a natural explorer

Have you ever tried to wrangle a two year old for a photo? There’s a good chance that many of you have and are fully prepared to mock me for any misery I may have experienced along the way. But the reality is I’m still pretty new at all this. And as ridiculous as it seems, even at 2 years old, I’m still only just realizing my daughter has a lot of firsts ahead of her.

This winter seems to be one of those firsts – the first winter we’ll really get to enjoy together. As it turns out, she may have just inherited my love of the cold.

Lennon and I had a lot of time together this weekend. Say what you will about 2020, its ability to deliver lazy Saturdays and Sundays remains unimpeachable. And this weekend, the clouds broke just enough to let us catch just a hint of some great time outside, enjoying the crisp late autumn air of central Ohio.

With the recent snow melted away, sidewalks clear and our heavier clothes donned, we stepped out into the relative wild of suburbia. And let’s face it, any time we’re leaving the four walls of our home seems so much more…adventurous…these days. Even if that adventure is less than a mile down the road to the local playground.

My little daredevil lives for these moments at the park (imagine her hollering that word, a barely audible “puh”, drawing out the long arrrr, and ending with a cutting “k” at the end), the times she can push her boundaries and try new things. I’m seeing the natural explorer break through in her personality as she tries to keep up with the physical abilities of some other children more than twice her age.

And in moments where she’s chasing, yelping and clamoring after those other brave cold weather warriors, I’m realizing more and more how much she’s missing out during the course of COVID. It’s tough to watch all of these children try to develop socially in a forced, less natural time.

But in almost the same breath, I’m seeing that she is resilient, she is curious, she is undaunted.

And thanks to the beauty of iPhone portrait mode, I’m finally capable of capturing enough of that to share with you today.

None of these photos are that “perfect shot” I was looking to capture. (Here’s where the wrangling comes in right?) I never did get that shot. But as I laid on the mulch with her at the park, trying to get that unforgettable angle I realized I was already getting it. The angle was right there in front of me as it so often is.

That perfect angle was found in capturing her just as she was in that moment, not in capturing a fabricated moment of what could have been. Social media is rampant with those fabrications. Instead, I was able to have real moments with this little girl who is never going to be just as she is today ever again.

(Smiles be damned, the real story of our night’s sleep is being told by our hair)

I mean, how many more imperfect moments like this am I going to have with her? Moments of bed head and morning cartoon time. Moments of tears after taking a tumble on a walk. Moments of her cherishing the little gifts we’ve been able to give her along the way…

Or this moment of her taking on her world…

Thank God I’ve not yet figured out how to catch or wrangle this adventurer. And I’m not sure I ever will; she’ll be too busy conquering.

Political Action Plans: Developing Targets

Two weeks ago, I started a discussion about formulating political action plans. In that introductory post, I shared what I call the 4 Ts: Targets, Tactics, Timing and Testing. In today’s post, I plan to share more on the concept of identifying and developing targets for your agenda.

I know we’ve swerved away from advocacy in the past few posts, so here’s a quick refresher from that post, which you can read in full here.

Targets

Likely the easiest to understand, Targets are simply the people you will try to influence to implement your policy agenda. Targets aren’t just decision makers like legislators or executives. Targets can include the media, social influencers, donors – and early in your plan you may also be targeting your own volunteers for education on your issues.

When you have a clearly defined set of policy priorities, an early step is to evaluate how those policies will have to come into being, and who can help you or hurt you along the way. You won’t always need a piece of legislation, many times an administrative rule will do. Identifying the who’s who of your action plan will align you correctly to start developing your tactics.

When you’ve developed clear policy priorities for your team, it’s time to dive into identifying those key players who you’ll need along the way.

Two Pitfalls to Avoid

I’ve seen too many advocacy organizations take polarized approaches to the idea of targeting. On one extreme you have those who focus their resources on known champions without cultivating broader messaging that can appeal to new targets. Just as often you’ll see organizations try to cast so wide a net that they don’t have the capacity to haul it in. The sweet spot is identifying a blend of leaders on your issues who will influence others while your team crafts evolving messages that move opponents to neutrality, and neutrals to positive support.

The second shortcoming for many organizations is that they ignore non-traditional targets – those who are not positioned as decision makers. Especially in the early days of introducing a new concept, legislatively or socially, your targets will often not be policymakers. Rather, your more pressing target will be the members and volunteers within your own organization.

Two Principles to Embrace

As you’re looking to those targets, each of their respective categories will need informed on the topic in different ways. But the first principle is universal: education is advocacy. Your volunteers will need information that energizes them to take action on your cause. Leaders within your organization will require deep dives into technical aspects of your proposal that will allow them to speak as subject matter experts. Legislators will need introduced to the topic from a more global, 50,000 foot perspective – while you simultaneously work with their staff to ensure those aides are equipped to present your information to the member in your absence.

I want you to re-read the second half of that last sentence.

Good advocacy is successful because it adds value for your targets. From their vantage point, that’s the best version of you – a trusted advocate who will add value to their work and make your policy stand out as a clear solution to a problem. This sounds pretty rudimentary, but it’s so often overlooked that it can become laughable. Too many groups fail to properly identify how a particular issue overlaps with their target’s own agenda. Subsequently, they fail to add value to that target’s portfolio, and assume the role of nuisance, falling well short of the problem-solvers that all policymakers are trying to identify.

So where do you begin?

I like to start evaluating my targets by assigning them to categories based on some basic questions. Depending on your policy initiative, these types of categories may not fit just right – but I hope they are broad enough to be applicable in many ways for you.

I. Advocates – Who within your organization, or its coterie of volunteers, is most impacted by, and energized to pursue your policy initiative? What messages or incentives effectively inspire them to take action? What varying types of messaging correspond with desired actions?

II. External Stakeholders – What other organizations exist, separate from your team, that are operating in or around your policy area? Do their interests intersect with or run parallel to yours? Are they prepared to be active engaged or passively supportive on the issue?

III. Decision Makers – Who will actually formulate, negotiate and ultimately be positioned to enact your policy? What are their priorities for the coming session? Do they hold key relationships that will allow you to pursue non-partisan/non-factional approaches to introduction?

IV. Enforcers – What agencies, departments, or partners will be tasked to implement your policy? Have political appointees within those entities established a record in your policy realm? Do department or agency heads enjoy broad credibility with decision makers?

V. Opponents – Who may be negatively impacted by your policy? (This question is important – it needs to remain broad. Not all negative impacts are immediately perceivable, so you need to force your planners to consider second and third order consequences of your policy.) Have you worked with these opponents on other issues and established credibility that will position you to alleviate their opposition?

Take note of how these categories weave together. Advocates are likely to be positioned to engage with external stakeholders. Those outside your organization are likely to engage with decision makers about your proposal in relation to their own agendas. Decision makers will consult with administrators and executive agencies who will create the rules of implementation. And those enforcers will be the ones faced with the staunchest opposition to your proposal if it successfully goes through.

As you compile your action plan, you’re better served to acknowledge these naturally overlapping echelons, and to develop tactics to reduce natural points of friction. Next week, I’ll start in on tactics to activate those different categories. But as you’re beginning to look at the coming year, start asking yourself, and your team, the questions above. I hope posing those questions to your team will help you establish honesty about blindspots you may have, and to explore how you can mitigate those blindspots.

NASA and pencils, a 3AM diversion

By now, many of you have learned just how geeked out I can become when it comes to talking all things NASA, human space flight, rockets, etc. I’m not alone in my fandom by any means, and there is no shortage of great content producers out there talking about these topics. One of my favorites is a young guy named Tim Dodd (twitter: @erdayastronaut) who produces deep dive videos, written content, and much more on his site: everydayastronaut.com.

I personally find Tim’s enthusiasm infectious and applaud him for working with so many others to make these topics more accessible to the general public. Much of what he explores can easily go over the heads of casual observers, but Tim puts in significant effort to bring the subject matter into laymen’s terms.

I had some time to read through some of his past posts again this morning as my daughter kept me awake from 3AM on and I stumbled upon a line that reminded me of one of my favorite short pieces of writing. In sharing his comparisons of SpaceX and NASA, Tim wrote the following:

“At one point building super advanced rockets was something too risky, too out there and too audacious for anyone but a massively funded government program could do. But now, rockets are becoming relatively easy to build, well understood and most importantly profitable. So my personal belief is I think it’s time NASA stops building rockets.”

– Tim Dodd, SpaceX vs NASA, Is that Even a Fair Question?, April 29, 2018

Two years removed from his post on the topic, Tim’s personal belief still rings true to a lot of folks interested in human space flight. NASA continues to experience development delays in their Space Launch System (SLS). As a result, NASA has gradually moved further along the use of commercial systems to support the next phases of human spaceflight, namely the Artemis program.

Artemis, if continued by the next administration, will propel us toward establishing a permanent human presence on and around the moon through several phases. First up, we’ll establish Gateway which would serve as a lunar space station, smaller in scale than the current International Space Station, but sufficient to allow long duration flights around the moon. Additionally, it will serve as a staging point for lunar surface missions, extending the amount of time we can spend with boots on the ground and laying the necessary infrastructure for a future lunar settlement. All exciting stuff, right?

Well, it would be if NASA accelerated it’s adoption of the basic economic principal of specialization. And this is where Tim’s quote hit me today. In my view, what Tim pointed out in 2018 falls right in line with a favorite essay of mine: I, Pencil by Leonard Read. This essay is an incredibly quick read that demonstrates the role specialization and the division of labor plays in modern economics.

If you’ve never read it, you should take the quick detour today and dive in. It’s really quite enjoyable. But after you finish, ask yourself if NASA needs to continue down the path they’ve been pursuing with the Space Launch System.

So far, the SLS is firmly entrenched as NASA’s future heavy lift system that will serve as the backbone of Artemis and future deep space missions. Politically speaking, that’s a smart move for NASA budget proposals because the SLS will require inputs from facilities and contractors spread across the union and in some of the most politically influential congressional delegations. Economically, it’s a different story.

Cost overruns, production schedule slips and test delays are garnering the type of attention NASA can’t afford, especially when juxtaposed with the real-time excitement of the commercial crew program fresh in the minds of so many. To many (and I’m not saying this is “right”), SpaceX is carrying NASA on its back – literally and from a marketing standpoint – and NASA is not advocating from its strongest position when perceived as riding coattails.

As NASA moves into a new era in mission development, they are also moving into a new administration, one whose broader goals may struggle to align with Artemis or the SLS. But struggling for alignment doesn’t mean their program agendas are dead on arrival.

NASA, over the past decade and likely well into the next, has an opportunity to reimagine itself. Commercial Crew has been a tremendous success and a meaningful demonstration of the future of cooperation between private industry and government in the pursuit of innovation. By settling into the idea of specialization, NASA can allow others to focus on the costly aspects of vehicle development while they continue to do what they do best: guide national space and aeronautics research policy, train astronauts, create and manage payloads, and most importantly: setting the truly inspirational and audacious goals that captivate us all.

NASA is one of the few government entities that enjoys broad based public support. When we look to the heavens, our nation comes together. You see it in the reels of footage from the Mercury & Gemini programs, through Apollo and the Space Shuttle. Even today, audiences are captivated by Americans returning to the ISS on American built rockets launched from American soil. Even in the midst of a global pandemic, a private company partnered with NASA to give us a bit of our national swagger back.

If NASA goes all in on specialization, it will mean changes to their national structure – and probably some reductions in scope and facilities. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. By letting rocket builders build rockets, NASA can focus on the bigger picture and deliver it to taxpayers at a better rate. That’s a win-win in my book.

Gratitude in a Time of Loss

I really had no intention to post any material today. After all, today is Thanksgiving in the States, and we are all pausing to spend what time we can with those we can given the circumstances 2020 has handed us.

For many, this year has taken on a larger than life image of all that can go wrong. We’ve struggled to figure out this new normal. Hell, we’ve even struggled to accept it as a new normal.

Many are also experiencing a first holiday season without a loved one. That’s not a new human experience, but this year it’s hitting many in our communities just a little differently.

I count my blessings that, as yet, my family has remained free from the strains others are experiencing with COVID-19. Until yesterday, we’ve all been safe in our household bubbles. (I know that experience is not universal.) But yesterday, some of my experience with this pandemic changed – my dad had to go to the hospital.

My dad has struggled with heart issues for many years. Almost 12 years to the month, in fact, I had to arrange emergency leave from my active duty unit to be home as he recovered from his last heart attack.

I’m incredibly thankful today that, as of now, we’re not terribly concerned by the latest health scare. As we wait for tests to complete, diagnoses to be made, and follow-up COVID tests to be arranged, it’s easy to take for granted just how differently this particular scare could have turned out.

Take that feeling of relief in stark contrast to the two people in my friend circle who lost grandparents in the past 72 hours. Just a few days before that, a former colleague tragically lost his mother. These folks are all facing a day of thanksgiving, of gratitude, in a severe time of loss.

But if we take a moment to pause and think about the history of Thanksgiving, I think we’ll come to realize that this dichotomy is in no way new. When calling for a day of prayer and thanksgiving in 1863, President Lincoln was still leading through the bloodiest war in American history. While reminding his fellow Americans of the nation’s growing prosperity (expanding frontiers, expanding agriculture, expanding industry and mining) he simultaneously reminded them of the thousands upon thousands of widows and orphans now bearing the highest price of civil strife.

By comparison to 1863, it would be easy for some to dismiss our current challenges as insignificant and gripe incessantly about how we are restricting our celebrations. I would challenge you to take a different course.

Our friends, our neighbors are suffering in ways many of us do not know. In a time of incredible loss, they are confronted with a challenge to give thanks. Can’t we take a moment to realize that may be difficult? Can we acknowledge our shared humanity and show each other a little more grace today?

For a moment, set aside your complaints about the inconveniences of 2020. Because for many of us, that’s all it has been – an inconvenience. But for too many others this year has been plainly unbearable. I hope those who are suffering can find their way toward gratitude today.

Gratitude, especially in times of suffering, loss, and mourning helps our healing process. This is a lesson my dad taught me many times as a kid when he dragged me along to every funeral and every recovery room as he tried to simply be there for folks in need. He always found a way to get those we visited to find a moment of laughter and gratitude for the life they’ve had despite the circumstances they faced right then.

It’s not about ignoring the pain, or salving it. Rather, gratitude helps us frame the pain in a broader context. When we allow ourselves to pull back and recognize the blessings we still have, it helps propel us forward through the grieving process.

I think successful leaders understand this on an innate level. Lincoln’s own life, informed by the depression he suffered as a young man, likely prepared him to be the most grateful in the time of our country’s deepest suffering. My hope for you, this Thanksgiving, is that you can take a moment to learn the same lesson.

By focusing on all that has sucked about 2020, we are ignoring the opportunities it’s given us. And while we bemoan our diminished holiday, we should pause to celebrate the good we’ve found along the way. We are truly blessed with each day we have on this earth. I hope more than once per year we can be grateful for it.

Introducing: the Bookshelf

My weekend ended up being a little less eventful than I originally intended. SpaceX was planning to execute two launches this past Saturday, separated by only 10 hours – and launching from both California and Florida. Alas, we had to settle for a singular launch event on Saturday morning.

But on the plus side, the schedule slip means I had time to finalize the first cut on a new page for this site that I hope you’ll check in on from time to time: the Bookshelf.

I think, if it’s possible, that I have a *slight* addiction to reading. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid, if I went a day without reading, I would develop an observable level of agitation. In the years since I put graduate school in the rearview mirror, I’d say my symptoms have worsened.

I usually read for at least an hour per day (not counting work reading, emails, etc). In terribly busy days, I must at least find a way to squeeze in 30 minutes. Sometimes it becomes quite fortuitous for my daughter to wake me in the middle of the night because I can get a good extended session in before my alarm.

This is NOT a post to tell you how great I am at reading. Its to admit that I need help. Mostly I need help to keep my bookshelves, audiobook app and iPad full of new material.

If you’re checking in on this blog regularly, there are likely to be some favorite genres we have in common. So, I’m launching the Bookshelf to share some of those favorites with you. Whether it’s deeper material on public policy, lessons in leadership, or some light fiction just to reset, I’ll aim to add to the list periodically to inspire a next great read for you.

My only ask, is that you chime in with some ideas of your own. What are you reading right now that’s challenging your paradigm? What are the books you keep going back to time and again? What’s that one piece you can’t let your friends live without? I want you to share those with me.

In addition to the books we’ll share, I’ll also aim to eventually work in a section for podcasts, audio books and social channels that I think you’ll enjoy. Audio books and podcasts help me keep my foot on the gas pedal for new ideas. I’ve also found audio content to be especially valuable for my longer distance outdoor runs.

{In the realm of audiobooks, there is an app that is often overlooked: Hoopla. Using your public library account, you can download up to 12 FREE audiobooks per month. Hoopla has been an absolute godsend over the past 5 years. I cannot encourage you enough to look into it!}

The bookshelf will have a standing comments section, so post your recommendations there, or as always send me a note to luke@partofthepossible.com.

Until you’re ready to share your own, I hope you’ll enjoy the options I’m pulling together on the Bookshelf.

Introduction to Political Action Plans

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” – General George S. Patton

Leave it to the ever colorful Patton to make the monotony of planning inspirational. He may have been in the Army (I’m contractually obligated to make fun of my brothers in the Army), but General Patton left us some great nuggets of insight.

This quote is drilled into the minds of young officers in every branch of the US Military. In the moment, it’s meant to inspire a sense of urgency in young leaders. There’s plenty of good reason for instructors to drive this point home again and again – they are pushing against years of bad planning habits developed in the theoretical world of academia.

Battlefields are far from theoretical. Practical application is king. Much the same can be said about the world of politics.

Many in the world of advocacy have the same primary bad habits as young lieutenants: we wait for perfect information about the environment, and we assume there’s a perfect approach to getting good policy across the finish line and signed into law. These bad habits lead to inaction.

Over the next several weeks, I’m going to share some of the basics surrounding political action plans; how to formulate them, the tactics to execute them, and ways to refine them. But before we go down that path, we need to start with a framework of what a political action plan can be.

I honestly don’t know when I started to think in these terms, and I don’t think you’ll see it stated this way in most courses on advocacy, but I tend to boil the basic Political Action Plan down to the 4 Ts: Targets, Tactics, Timing, and Testing.

Targets

Likely the easiest to understand, Targets are simply the people you will try to influence to implement your policy agenda. Targets aren’t just decision makers like legislators or executives. Targets can include the media, social influencers, donors – and early in your plan you may also be targeting your own volunteers for education on your issues.

When you have a clearly defined set of policy priorities, an early step is to evaluate how those policies will have to come into being, and who can help you or hurt you along the way. You won’t always need a piece of legislation, many times an administrative rule will do. Identifying the who’s who of your action plan will align you correctly to start developing your tactics.

Tactics

If we’re equating advocacy planning to project management in the business world, tactics aligns best with resource management. The tactics you develop within your political action plan should balance the roles your internal stakeholders can assume in the process: grassroots volunteers, PAC resources, communication and consumer education specialists, etc.

Identifying which of your resources can best position you to get to your “ask” is a difficult balancing act, and one we’ll explore in another post. But conceptually, your planning team should be taking measure of your existing relationships, touch points you can adopt easily, and what you don’t have capacity to pursue.

Timing

And while we’re thinking about what tactics we can and can’t pursue, we should also take measure of when we can or can’t pursue them. Your team needs to take honest stock of whether your issue is salient to the broader trends you’re seeing in the legislature. Is this the time to push a specific bill, or should you re-trench and focus on educating stakeholders and decision makers?

The bottom line is that your issue is not always at the top of mind for most other people, including elected officials or bureaucrats. Identifying your targets opens the door to understanding their priorities, and attaining that understanding will help you divine whether now is the moment to strike. Building in structured feedback loops to evaluate your timing will drive home the last and most important aspect of your plan.

Testing & Feedback Loops

This final pillar of advocacy planning is likely the toughest to internalize. Frankly, many organizations devote significant time and resources to developing policy positions and getting the conversation started only to let the momentum slowly fade away and a good plan thus earns its spot on a dust covered shelf.

And if I’m being honest, I’m still figuring out my own best practices on this part of planning. The reality is political advocacy planning is an ongoing process. You’ll never have a perfect product – but you can have one that helps you prepare for as much of the process as you can control. Making this shift will keep your team leaning forward in the process, and stand out as proactive instead of reactive.

Good testing depends on identifiable metrics, but also an intangible set of gut checks. How do you set a metric to judge the impact of your messaging? Policy work is ever changing and difficult to wrangle. I hope as I go through this series on political action plans, you’ll join in the conversation. If you can, drop a comment on ways you judge progress within your own advocacy management.

But as we go through the conversation, I’ll ask you to keep General Patton’s observation in mind. No plan is perfect. Waiting for perfect information will stall your agenda before you ever get started. Ensuring that you internalize each of the 4 T’s will help guide your team through an ongoing process of analysis and revision. Your agenda doesn’t have to wait for perfect, get started now and fully commit to the ongoing process. You’ll find yourself in a better position year over year, and you’ll maintain that ever-important longterm mindset.

Moments of Leadership – The one where nobody wins

I had a really great call yesterday. A friend and colleague reached out to discuss an ongoing collaboration, and as good conversations do, it developed into a 40 minute romp through so much more. And as you could guess, at one point we landed on the topic of state politics in the midst of COVID. Honestly, I don’t think there’s a more salient subject when you want to study leadership, and what it takes to serve at a time when you know that no one “wins”.

Then they asked me for a book recommendation (this is my love language).

Doris Kearns Goodwin happens to be one of my favorite historians. Most will recognize her name from the epic Team of Rivals wherein she discusses Lincoln’s presidency and the historical giants with whom he surrounded himself as cabinet members. Though this remains one of my favorite reads, she has a more recent piece that I think all of us should pick up – Leadership in Turbulent Times. In it, Goodwin traces certain commonalities between 4 US Presidents: Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR and Lyndon Johnson.

As I’ve gone through the book, it’s been difficult not to make comparisons to current leaders across the country. Frankly, it’s more than a bit unfair to judge ANYONE against the measuring stick of a Lincoln or an FDR. After all, these are figures who’ve taken on an almost mythic quality in our collective memory. However, Goodwin brings these heroes down to earth by sharing more about the traumatic, transformative experiences that helped them prepare for the later moments of crisis they respectively navigated during their presidencies.

Now, all I want for Christmas is for someone to do the exhaustive version of this study on every governor across the United States trying to operate in the world of COVID-19. Wouldn’t it be fascinating to look back through the records of their lives to divine the experiences that have formed their individual paradigms for problem solving?

We’ve clearly seen the many varied approaches. Yet, regardless of the responses they’ve chosen within their states, one thing is clear: no one is clearly “winning.” I’m not saying that they aren’t having success in slowing the spread of COVID, nor am I saying that they haven’t advanced other agenda items. What I’m talking about is public perception.

We see ongoing ebbs and flows in the public commentary on responses to the pandemic. In a given week, one’s governor may be lauded as decisive and tough on a Monday and eviscerated as weak-willed and controlled by special interests on Friday. What an absolute nightmare for your communications and political team.

But those who attain these highest levels of leadership are rarely swayed by opinion polling – and regardless of how they’ve performed compared to others, I think we should take a moment to appreciate the special challenge of leading right now.

Each day, these highly functioning executives are facing state budgets that are simply…evaporating…due to strains on revenue and expenditures alike. They are forced to confront stern opposition from all sides and across all mediums. Their teams are taxed to the breaking point, likely having lost all sense of work-life balance in the past 8 months. And still, each day, these governors are stepping forward to react to an ongoing crisis in the social setting of a unique state, honoring the perspectives of its citizens, while making decisions that are far from black & white.

We owe something very specific to those in elected office right now: respectful, solutions oriented discourse.

Within our own personal lives, or for the organizations we represent both formally and informally, we contribute best now by acting in good faith and working toward solutions. We will not always advance our agenda, but we have an opportunity to elevate the discourse. I plan on doing just that.

In the coming weeks, the regular Thursday posts on this blog will focus on political action plans.. Some posts will focus on just what we can continue to refine in the reality presented by the ongoing COVID crisis. But most of the content will be more evergreen and applicable both mid and post-COVID. I hope you’ll continue to join me here each week to explore those topics.

In the meantime, I’m going to work on delivering a new page for this site. I’ve heard from several folks who are interested in a reading list of sorts. I’ve had requests for book recommendations covering a broad range of topics. I don’t know, quite yet, what that list will look like in final form, but stay tuned! If you’re not already, now would be a great time to join my email list which you can find on the home page of this blog. The folks on that list will get the first look at new content like the reading list and other new content experiments coming your way in the new year.

I’m so grateful you continue to be a part of this community. Things seem to be headed toward a tough winter, and communities like this will be an outlet for many of us. So I hope you’ll send me your thoughts, comment on the site, or contact me on social media. We’ve got a lot to talk about.

In the meantime, take a moment to allow yourself to be grateful for those serving in public office, as well as their staffs. Even without a global pandemic, public service is difficult and takes an incredible toll. Right now, during a crisis and in the wake of a contentious election, these officials know they can’t “win” politically, but they can serve. By taking just a moment to appreciate that, we can reset and better prepare to move forward together.

Yeah, we’re already doing Christmas

This morning, about 5:30AM, my daughter was wide awake. I’m not complaining, I’m used to this. Lennon has never been an exceptional sleeper. She stays up late, wakes at least once per night, and still gets up early every day. I have a running theory that she’s stashed away her very own Keurig in a dollhouse somewhere.

But here’s the thing, I’m really glad she was up so early this morning. 5AM really isn’t all that bad. Because now, at 9AM, we’ve already finished two-ish Christmas movies.

Sure, I should be spending those early hours exercising, or journaling, or studying, or something. But I just wasn’t here for that this morning. No, this morning I was knee deep in The Muppets Christmas Carol and Jingle Jangle (new movie on Netflix, very cute).

I’m usually, almost curmudgeonly so, committed to ensuring a proper celebration of Thanksgiving before getting into the Christmas mode. But this year, we’re taking a pass. Trust me, Thanksgiving will still get its due. I happen to believe Thanksgiving is more enjoyable than Christmas. Probably because I’m such an abysmal gift giver. A joke or prank gift? I’m in. Something meaningful? Struggle bus.

Thanksgiving doesn’t carry with it all that added baggage of gift giving or receiving.(Seriously, though, can we talk about how stressful it is to react to gifts?) Instead, Thanksgiving offers us a moment of pause to share our blessings with friends and family. I know I wasn’t always like this, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to realize more and more the importance of those moments. And for me, a day focused on gratitude (and sweet potato casserole) is just about what we need at this point in 2020.

So, why the jump to Christmas this morning? Well, like all the best parts of my daily life, it was because of my daughter.

When Lennon woke up, I could tell immediately, that she wanted to watch something on my iPad. And, as much as I try to limit screen time, we all know that’s a joke. At 5:30, when you haven’t slept well in 2.5 years, you just mindlessly open up that Disney+ account and let them go.

So what did she pick? Wouldn’t you know it – she went for one of my all time favorites, and here I was, enjoying Gonzo and Rizzo recount the story of Ebenezer Scrooge. I’ve always been a Muppets fan, but now my daughter seems to be joining the team. And you know what? I was pretty thankful in that moment. Thankful that, even though she’s still a bit young to get the jokes, she’s responding to the delivery. She’s enjoying the absurd, and smiling ear to ear.

I’ve seen a lot of folks posting about “skipping” or “going straight to” Christmas on social media. I get it. That time of year is special for countless reasons, and after the past 8 months, don’t we all want to feel a bit of that joy? Give yourself the grace to experience the holiday season a bit early this year. Go ahead!

But as you’re looking ahead, I hope you’ll find a way to give thanks ahead of those early celebrations.

Whether by design or not, I think it’s important that thanksgiving comes after election day and before Christmas in our national calendar. I believe it gives us a point of calm in the midst of significant stressors, and helps us rest constructively. This morning, I had a little bit of a thanksgiving as I laid there next to Lennon, her tiny hand gripping my thumb as she giggled at Fozzie Bear.

I was able to reflect on how much 2020 has slowed us all down, and given us more opportunities for lazy Saturday mornings at home. I was able to take a moment to be grateful for the uniqueness of my daughter. As that moment stretched into a second movie, I realized we were going to be just fine jumping into the Christmas spirit a bit early this year because the gratitude of thanksgiving can be with us a bit early too. We can take that pause, that rest right now and enjoy a simple moment.

I know, especially as we look to the prospect of another round of shutdowns, that we are all feeling a bit more on edge. It’s showing in our behavior at the stores again. It breaks through in our interactions with co-workers, friends and family alike.

This year, being home for Christmas is going to take on a very different meaning. By all means, give yourself the space to move into the lightheartedness that comes with the holidays. But, if I can offer any advice, start with a moment of thanksgiving – even if that moment is cloaked in the veil of watching a Christmas movie a month early – you need it. I know I did.