Why great policy isn’t enough

One of the most frustrating experiences in the public policy world is knowing that you have a fantastic policy concept, and then realizing that particular effort is going absolutely nowhere.

Just about a year ago, I thought I had one of those really great ideas. It was simple but could have had a major impact. My proposal incentivized action through voluntary behavior, it had a limited cost, and before I started socializing the idea, it seemed like it could have actually been achievable.  Boy was I wrong.

As soon as I left the theoretical to start putting meat on the bones, it quickly fell apart. Not because of any specific shortcoming of the idea – but because I could tell I would have few, if any, allies in the effort. The key folks I would need in my corner just weren’t interested in that particular effort at that particular time.

And though I already knew this was the reality, it was a great reminder that policy advancements don’t occur in a vacuum.

The most apt description of the legislative process I’ve heard, is that of a three-legged stool.  That stool, or successful advocacy, depends on a balance between the three P’s: Policy, Process, and Politics. Ignore any of the three and your initiative falls apart at the seams. As I was looking at my own proposal, I realized I had a stool with one glaringly short leg: politics.

When advancing a policy, one of the first hurdles to overcome is finding a champion within the requisite decision-making body. At the state level, you need buy-in not only from a legislator but also the agency or agencies impacted by the proposal. Especially in a state with term limits, like Ohio, those bureaucratic champions can play an outsized role because they remain the repository of institutional knowledge. Those same folks will help shepherd your proposal through the twists, turns and procedural hurdles that will absolutely come your way.

Contrary to popular conception, those procedural hurdles don’t exist to stymie progress. Enacting new policies that impact countless people must not be taken lightly. Process plays a key role in ensuring decision-makers mitigate their own blind spots. The committee process, in particular, can make or break your proposal. In order to make it, you have to assist your champions in navigating the calendar, majority vs minority interests, and the pitfalls of parliamentary procedure.

Granted – your policy has to stand on its own merits. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a legislator who will put their name to some cockamamie scheme. But as you’re developing a political action plan for that specific agenda item, double check yourself.

1. Have you evaluated the political climate?  Who is in charge of the decision points? Does your proposal align with their priorities? Who will oppose you?

2. Do you understand the process? What is the workflow between decision-making entities? Who can help you navigate between agencies?

3. Does your policy address a salient need recognized by the majority, and are they talking about that need right now?

Regardless of who they are, your effort will be out of balance if you fail to make an early assessment of the political climate and your champions. Those champions, as well as your trained advocates, must also understand the process(es) which will bring your issue to the forefront and encourage adoption. And you, the policy leader, will need to establish internal mechanisms that allow your team to continually refine your proposals as the environment changes.

Policy, Process and Politics. Constantly check your balance. When the moment of saliency arises, your advocates and champions will have a limited window of opportunity – and often, the ones who come out on top in a crisis are those who already have champions primed with sound, ready-made proposals.  

Activism vs. Advocacy

You’ve missed the moment.

Somehow, a confluence of events brought together a perfect opportunity. An event, crisis or otherwise, has brought your cause front and center in the minds of your community. You mobilized your network to take actions on your cause, trying to influence decision makers. And for one reason or another, the moment still slipped by.

I’ve been there – and so has everyone else who’s ever tried to move the ball downfield on their agenda. And just like you, we all take a moment to ask ourselves “what the hell?” Somehow, some piece of the puzzle just wasn’t in place. And if I’m a betting man, I’m putting my chips on a basic idea: in the moment, you had activists ready, but failed to develop advocates.

Here’s where our topic today is going to get murky. It seems that most folks confuse activism and advocacy (and based on most definitions, for good reason). Some try to oversimplify by saying activists are outside of the system, while advocates try to work within the system. Let’s break away from traditional mindsets and try to look at both groups in a new way.

Without getting too technical, let’s start with the similarities. Activists and advocates are both trying to accomplish some type of policy agenda item. In my view that’s the extent of the similarities. That’s it.  That’s all she wrote.

The differences, though, are extensive and reflected in their methodologies. But to understand methods, we have to understand the paradigm, or lens, through which both groups see the policy process. Activists see the policy process in a win-lose, defined and finite mindset. They see clear actors, known rules and a means to an end. By contrast, advocates are playing an infinite game. (If you haven’t heard about finite and infinite games, I’d recommend you pick up a copy of The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek.)

Advocates see the political and policy processes as fluid, with changing players, evolving rules and a need to perpetuate their participation in the game. Advocates are the ones you can trust to represent your organization in your absence because they are subject matter experts AND they’ve committed to your Just Cause.

With these two different paradigms in mind we can better understand the methods chosen by either group. Activists are great in a pinch. They volunteer to write letters, attend meetings, make phone calls, even donate significant financial and personal resources to a cause. But they are reacting to circumstances, not proactively advancing the agenda. These are the folks every politician wants in their camp in August. They’ll spend nearly every weekend knocking on doors to meet local voters and promote their candidate. But on the Wednesday after the election results are in, these people largely go home.

Candidates are rightfully grateful for the work of those volunteer activists. The same goes for managers of issue campaigns. Every association or non-profit needs these folks when volume becomes critical to winning or losing – these are the folks you know will show up when asked. By contrast, advocates work to create scenarios where volume never becomes a deciding factor. Advocates are the people the decision makers rely on as experts. They’re the folks who are still around in January long after the campaign has shut down until the next cycle.

Advocates do a few specific things that we’ll dive into in later posts. First: they actively maintain a strategic mindset. They understand the larger goals that aren’t dependent on a single vote. These are the folks who are willing to accept a relatively good policy even if it falls short of their perfect solution.

Secondly: they develop a plan for engagement that is non-partisan, and respects decision makers for what they are first – human beings. Advocates do not try to overwhelm the agenda of an elected official, but they do try to find ways to work within that agenda. Often times, it also means that advocates will trade quantity for quality in their interactions.

Lastly, advocates plan for the long term. In 2009, a member of congress was approached about a particular issue that was completely non-controversial: providing proper burials for deceased indigent veterans with no known next of kin. Prior to the Missing in America Act, those veterans’ remains would sit on shelves in funeral homes, with no final place to rest. The resolution would be non-controversial because A) the Department of Veterans Affairs already has resources for those burials, and B) the only requirement in the way was proving honorable service.

When I began working for that member of congress in 2011, he had already been working on this issue for two years. It would be another two years before his bill finally became law. But what got it across the goal line was a committed group of advocates from the American Legion who dedicated years to building trust between the department and non-governmental organizations. That trust allowed bureaucracy to modernize in a productive way. You see, the advocates established themselves as experts, were willing to make compromises, and maintained their infinite goal: provide dignified treatment to all veterans, regardless of their personal resources.

Little by little, you can foster a culture that leverages both activists and advocates. Both are necessary, but when push comes to shove, you’re going to wish you had invested in advocates.

So, develop leadership pipelines that help you identify those who have bought into your just cause and have an infinite mindset. Foster opportunities for those volunteers to grow into advisory roles for decision makers. Help them get in the room before a crisis, because when the moment comes, and seating in the room is limited, those seasoned advocates will be the ones called to the table.  

The Room

In 2020, if I were to utter the phrase “in the room where it happens” you’re likely to immediately conjure images of Leslie Odom, Jr portraying Aaron Burr in a performance of Hamilton. And, in all honesty, I can’t blame you for making that connection. First off, the music of Hamilton is absolutely infectious. Secondly, the vast majority of us feel a certain attachment (though not necessarily a positive one) to the image this piece illuminates in our subconscious.

Smoke filled rooms. Closed door conferences. We can bring these images so clearly to our imaginations because, at some point or another, it’s been our reality. At some point, we weren’t influential enough to be in a particular room, at a particular time, when a decision critical to our agenda was being made. We’ve all had those doors closed on us just before we crossed the threshold.

Powerful imagery, but so what? I’m not here to be a theater critic, nor am I here to bemoan the process behind politics. I am here to share thoughts on how you can take steps to get in that room the next time.

Periodically, I’ll use this blog as a mode of sharing some insights from the political advocacy world. By no means will this be advice on how you can win every battle for your issues. Rather, I hope to help spur your thoughts on strategic engagement. I’ll share some of my experiences working in the public sphere for the past 10+ years. I’ll bring in guests who I trust will get you thinking about your methods and share in your madness.  Occasionally, we may study an issue of the moment and share the historical context of how we’ve gotten to where we are on an issue.

No one ever knows, when they take on a project like this, where it will ultimately lead. Broadly – I hope to help you capture some of the broad concepts that have made others successful advocates across the issue spectrum.  But I also hope to foster a community of engaged leaders committed to finding ways to work together – whether they agree on 8 out of 10 issues or 2 out of 10. The narrowest ground for agreement can hold great promise for accomplishing the critical and sustaining reforms on which our great experiment in self-government depends. 

I’m still on the journey to learn this field. I often draw on some unique experiences in my life to guide the way I think through problems. As you learn more about me, I hope you’ll join in sharing some of your own experiences – especially those paradigm shifting moments in life that helped you evolve your approaches to management, political activism, networking and just about anything else.

I’ll strive to avoid being preachy – but I can’t promise that I’ll successfully avoid using dad jokes and the occasional foul language. I ask that you join me in striving to be open about failure. I’m not a professional writer, and I am CERTAIN that the tone of this blog will evolve significantly over time. I ask that you help guide that tone and the topics we explore.

I trust that we will also start to dialogue about the real-life challenges all of us are experiencing now in the COVID world. If I take a bit of your time to dive into the challenges of parenting instead of advocating, please excuse that digression. After all, it’s the full scope of our life experiences which helps inform the decisions we make on given projects and about the direction of our work broadly.  Every one of those experiences can inform us on what is possible in a given environment.

And that’s the point I’ll end with today: being a part of the possible. I struggled with a name for this project. This work is not sexy – rather it is a daily struggle to foster relationships, build coalitions and pursue thought work that is not all that common to other industries. But, working through all of that, we have unique opportunities to create real change that benefits our communities and serves a higher good.

However, that work is often accomplished in fits and starts. It takes an openness to artful compromise. It requires patience. It demands we not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. I hope the community we build together will help you, from time to time, be a part of the possible.