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Befriend the Gatekeeper

So how do you start to build a relationship with someone you actively oppose? First, you have to get out and about. Many sincere grassroots influencers want to remain comfortable. That’s a problem, because you can’t build the kind of relationships that powerful people require from behind your computer. They want to see you in person.

Bob Bonifas, an Aurora, Illinois, owner of an alarm and locksmith company, has been involved in politics for 20 years. As a member of the National Federation of Independent Business, he made friends with a member of Congress years before that person became the most powerful legislator in Washington, DC. It was an early friendship that paid dividends later.

Bonifas’s goal was to change the mind of a powerful member of Congress in 1996 when Congress passed the Telecommunications Act. The alarm industry wanted to include a five-year prohibition on phone companies going into the alarm business. Many interest groups had a stake in the bill, which took several years to pass.

“Think about what happens when families move into their new homes,” Bonifas says. “They get phone service, and then the phone people say, ‘Hey, what about alarm service?’ The telephone monopoly could easily be used to presell alarm services.”

A business behemoth, Ameritech, was lobbying against the prohibition. Bonifas says he and others representing alarm companies heard people whisper in the hallways about the hubris of the alarm company businesses owners who thought they could take on Ameritech.

So Bonifas decided to develop a relationship with the “gatekeeper,” the person who manages the access to the decision maker – in this case, Representative Dennis “Denny” Hastert, Bonifas’s member of Congress and a Republican. The gatekeeper was Scott Palmer, a prominent Hastert staffer. Bonifas visited Hastert’s aide often, flying to Washington, DC, as many as 20 times in one year, despite the fact that Palmer gave him little encouragement. “When I met with Scott, I usually got evasive answers,” Bonifas recalls. “Sure, he was always very nice, but told us there was ‘nothing more we could do.’”

Wisely, like many of our other underdogs, Bonifas knew when to persuade and when to keep silent. He met Palmer at local events, strictly social gatherings, and on those occasions did not talk about the issue. As he says, “You have to stay in front of people so they know who you are when it’s time to ask for help. You have to become known…earn a seat at the table. You just can’t come in when you have a problem.”

So what happened? The Telecommunications Act included a five-year prohibition on telephone companies being able to enter the alarm market, giving Bonifas and other alarm company owners time to address the situation.

About two years later Bonifas attended an event in Washington honoring Hastert, who had become Speaker of the House in 1999. He was approached by Ameritech’s vice president of government affairs, who said, “I know who you are. You’re from Aurora. We kept trying to get to Hastert, but they kept telling us they had this guy in the alarm business back home who kept educating them on this issue. So you are the one.”

That observation underscored this underdog’s victory. “At that point, I felt that I was really successful. The opposition had acknowledged my effectiveness,” Bonifas says.

Solutions to the Social Loafing Lifestyle

In a previous post, I talked about social loafing. Now I’m going to talk about how we change the social loafing dynamic.

Identify Contributions

Identify team member contributions. What have coalition members done to advance the cause? Be specific, and enumerate contributions that you want duplicated. Are the contributions distributed to the coalition members or posted on an easily accessible Web site?

What about your faithful PAC recruiters? What about your PAC board members who help answer tough PAC questions or find colleagues to help recruit others? Where are
their achievements noted?

Ditto for your grassroots team leaders. How many new members have they recruited during the last quarter? Who consistently responds to your calls to action?

Anyone who has worked in sales knows that sales performance data are posted throughout the organization. This tactic also helps inculcate your culture with the importance of your coalition, grassroots, and PAC team contributions.

Help Them Use Their Brains

Social loafing tends to increase when team tasks don’t involve interesting or attractive work. People want to perform interesting tasks. My research with Fortune’s “Power 25” revealed that one of the main ways that they keep their “varsity” grassroots team members motivated is to delegate important work to them. Several organizations reported that their grassroots team leaders edit staff-created volunteer materials, and others distribute issue position papers to volunteer team members for review before publication. Other organizations ask key volunteers to attend meetings and conferences on their behalf. The work is stimulating and acknowledges the team members’ value.

Do you delegate substantial work to your team members? Are your PAC board members required to do homework on candidates being considered for contributions because they can impact a contribution decision, or are they a “rubber stamp” board?

Recognize Your Team Members

As many of you who regularly read my articles know, recognition and reward are two different things. Both should be strategic, but recognition tends to motivate more than reward. The goal is to recognize the behavior you want more of. Greenberg’s research showed that it is more important for team members to feel appreciated and acknowledged by fellow team members than by outsiders. He also found that people are more likely to cheat and steal from the organization when they feel they’ve been unfairly treated. Perhaps this portends a new way to test morale: The more sticky pads and pens that are missing, the worse the organizational morale.

Do you promote recognition in front of team members, or do you compliment team members in private? Any acknowledgement is better than silence, but why not maximize the opportunity to reduce social loafing?

Build Team Member Trust

Cohesive teams are less likely to experience loafing. When there is friendship among the members, the sense of safety and trust within the group facilitates equal action by group members.

Again, this is another finding that became apparent in my Fortune “Power 25” research. When I asked the organization leaders how they helped keep and motivate their high-performing team members, “personal relationships” was one of the top three factors mentioned. It’s hard to say no to one’s friends.

Do you facilitate trust and friendship among team members?

Create a Team Pledge

I’m a big believer in volunteer role descriptions for individuals and teams. Ideally, teams should also have a statement of objectives and practices—a “pledge,” if you will. It should be in writing and widely accessible. According to Katzenbach and Smith, the best teams invest a tremendous amount of time and effort exploring and agreeing on a purpose that belongs to the team collectively and individually. They also found that the best teams translate their common purpose into the specific performance roles. Without this, teams can degenerate into a lot of activity without achievement.

Many of my clients affectionately refer to me as a “measurement Nazi” of sorts, so I rejoiced at finding my belief validated in the research. We have an obligation to be as precise as possible as to our intended outcomes, and how those outcomes are manifested in specific behavior. We need specific benchmarks and performance indicators to make the whole effort worthwhile.

Limit Team Size

Olson and Kurr have found that as teams get larger, personal contributions become less important. In short, as team size increases, feelings of anonymity increase and, you guessed it, social loafing increases. While team size can’t always be controlled, the literature reveals that teams of five to six are ideal. If you’ve never been in a coalition that small or had grassroots teams that small, perhaps there are ways to break down your existing membership to small subcommittee teams to increase
cohesion.

A national healthcare association client asked me to facilitate a team meeting to completely redesign the advocacy website. The association wanted results in one day. Despite never having witnessed such team productivity before, I agreed to facilitate the meeting. Thankfully, there were six people in the meeting, and in five hours, we came up with a new website concept. Best of all, the team size allowed for equal participation among the team members. It was a true collaboration rather than an influence contest.

2008 I2M Survey Results

This survey is different from typical benchmarking surveys, as it goes several steps beyond the numbers to find out why certain political involvement outcomes are or are not prevalent.

Since the survey questions were largely open-ended, there is a lot of “word-crunching” to do, and we are thus releasing the results in phases, along with, where warranted, my commentary and “reality check” advice at the conclusion of each finding.

So, let’s get to the top of it!

Political Involvement Culture (“PIC”) Is Generally Strong

An organizational culture that is conducive to political involvement (PAC, grassroots, & lobbying) makes our lives easier, right? I look at it like this: values drive attitudes, attitudes drive behavior, and behavior drives culture. Each is dependent on the other.

We asked participants to rate, on a 1-7 scale, the degree of a positive political involvement culture in their organization. Sixty-eight percent rated it a 5-7, which is commendable. (Of note, we later asked about the degree of PAC and grassroots-specific C-executive level support, and those numbers vary from the overall culture question, but we’ll get to that in a following report.)

Now, for the important “why and how” behind the numbers. For those who rated the PIC a 5-7, we asked them two questions: 1) to what generally do they attribute that rating, and; 2) what specific behaviors and/or activities contribute to the positive PIC?

Lead Us or Regulate Us to a Positive PIC

“To what do you attribute your PIC rating?”

59% Senior executive/board leadership

21% Highly regulated profession/industry requires a PIC

14% Continuous stakeholder influence campaign (ok, in the spirit of full disclosure, this was referred to as generic “communications.” However, if it’s contributing to the culture, it’s influence and that’s different from communications, so we are taking that up a notch and calling it what it really is)

6% Other

Nothing terribly surprising here, except that “senior organization leadership” was not ranked more highly. This tells me that our I2M attendees rate their culture very positively without relying solely on senior management to drive the culture. They are helping to maintain the culture beyond looking to their senior organization leadership, which is a great indicator of their tenacity and know-how.

Also, it was interesting that, consistent with the advanced level of I2M conference attendees, not one respondent used the phrase “senior management support.”

There is a difference between “support” and “leadership,” the preferred word to describe the reason for the positive PIC. Leadership is active, and represents a set of behaviors. The more generic “support” is nebulous and can refer to the granting of budget money and nothing else. We’ll get to their definition of leadership behaviors later in this report.

The “highly regulated industry” response coincides with our knowledge that the influence context largely determines the success of an influence attempt. In this case, political and legislative engagement are more likely when the context demands it. This accounts for the history of political involvement, particularly grassroots, starting in the heavily regulated industries of chemicals, petroleum and insurance.

The “continuous stakeholder influence campaign” is notable for the operative word: continuous. These respondents know that we have to influence when “nothing is going on.” In fact, we are influencing by what we don’t do, as well as by what we do.

Amy’s Reality Check #1: You may be thinking, “Fine, Showalter, my organization is fortunate to operate under the radar, so how do we persuade our stakeholders to engage in political involvement activities when there is no apparent threat?” Groups who are not, or at least who think they will not be, under scrutiny have more challenges in keeping their stakeholders engaged. Every organization will sometime be under the watchful eye of the government, whether local, state or federal. Just ask Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Major League baseball, the restaurant industry, and (maybe soon) the horse racing industry. Everyone’s time is coming.

Do you know the real-world stories of other professions and industries that have fallen prey to onerous legislation and/or regulation? Noah didn’t build the ark when it was raining.

Amy’s Reality Check #2: Do you regularly scan the environment for political and social trends that would make your service, product, or offerings subject to increased scrutiny. Tie the social movement to the likely political reaction, and you’ll get your stakeholder’s attention.

Amy’s Reality Check #3: How do your communications contribute or detract from facilitating a viable political involvement culture? What are you and your team doing to move the PIC forward in terms of a continuous influence campaign? Many times we think of influence only in terms of getting our stakeholders to contact their lawmakers, but continuous influence campaigns must be conducted to create a positive culture of political involvement.

It Takes More Than Senior Management Leadership

Typically, when we ask government relations professionals what makes for a positive political engagement culture, we hear the ubiquitous “senior management support.” What is most interesting about the responses below is that the Innovate to Motivate attendees know not to rely solely on their leadership to get the job done. They take partial responsibility for the culture.

24% Senior executive leadership behaviors: consistent advocacy of the government relations function, attendance at events, regular dialogue between C-level exec’s and GR staff

24% Continuous influence campaign (also referred to as “communications”): transparency and candor about successes and failures, issue communications with no specific “ask.”

24% Events: exclusive events that provide access to legislators and/or board members and executives, “good government” events like GOTV, Town Hall meetings

10% Demonstrating the value of political involvement behaviors and events by connecting them to legislative outcomes

18% “Other”

Amy’s Reality Check #1: Do we tell our senior leaders what we need from them to move the PIC forward? In behavioral terms, can you cite what you want from them and why it’s needed?

Reality Check #2: Do you know what your legislative opponent’s leaders do to rev up their troops? Find out so you have a compelling contrast to present to your leaders when you need them to step up.

Amy’s Reality Check #3: Do you communicate the reasons for your successes, as well as shortcomings? Especially with our Gen-X and Y friends, they want to know the “story behind the story.” Candor matters, and the programs that are honest about their challenges will have more loyal followers than those who wallpaper the facts.

Insights from Innovate to Motivate 2009

Well, I admit to being an extremely biased observer, but here are some of my “keeper” observations from the 2009 confab, followed by comments from the conference attendees.

First, the people who attend I2M truly are “different.” They don’t engage in butt-covering conversations, they are secure enough to be candid and openly discuss what’s working and what’s not, they are willing to challenge each other, think differently, and take prudent risks to move forward (not that I feel strongly about that or anything).

Because Innovate draws proven (over 75% are managers and above) political involvement professionals, the group discussions and Q & A are at a higher level. In the words of several conference participants, the atmosphere is “different than at other conferences.”

We avoid cliques. We don’t believe that we have an obligation to include someone as a practitioner faculty member who doesn’t meet our criteria. We don’t pick our speakers based on who is in the community, who we feel an obligation to ask, etc. (Although many times they fit the criteria!) We base it on a track record and presentation skills. In fact, over 75% of our practitioner speakers are not members of our Advisory Committee.

What did the participants have to say?

“The number one sound-bite that I return to at least once a day came from you regarding PAC fundraising. It was, “Ask for more than what you want; take what you can get.” It’s so simple but so impactful, and I’m applying it everywhere I can. Little things make a big difference, I suppose!”

Micah Intermill
Director of Advocacy
Assisted Living Federation of America

“Steve and I reckoned our Beacon of Hope encounter to something Robert Greenleaf once said and that is “Good leaders must first become good servants”. Every ounce of dirt and every aching muscle was worth it. We felt instant gratification. Faces filled with hope and words of appreciation from the home owners were so rewarding. It was a great bonding experience with the 40 some I2M family members. We both agreed that it is an experience that we will never forget! Thank you for leading the way…..”

Carrie Schneider
Consumers Energy

“I really liked Abby’s session on information management and her tips on helping us to manage all the information that comes our way instead of feeling overwhelmed by e-mail, e-newsletters, and all the other information that comes out way. Her suggestion of “read the best, get rid of the rest” is helpful to me.

Wendy Schrag
Director of Advocacy and State Government Affairs
Fresenius Medical Care

“There is no doubt that Innovate to Motivate is just different than other conferences. And I mean that in the most positive way. There is no comparison.”

Darrcy Loveland
Senior Counsel
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc.

“Innovate to Motivate is not just about how to run better PAC’s and grassroots organizations. For me, the conference is about helping us become better people.”

Patroski Lawson
Director, Government Affairs
Solvay Pharmaceuticals

“We would come out of every session and say, ‘That is the best session of the conference!’ The problem is, that kept happening after every session. It just kept getting better and better.”

Rizza Hermosisima
Director, Public Policy and Advocacy
Centocor-Ortho Biotech, LLC

Airfare to New Orleans……$300
Hotel Stay at Monteleone……$800
Box of beignet mix for the Petsitter……$5
Networking with political involvement peers & faculty at I2M……..PRICELESS

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In this video, I’m telling you why people do and do not give to your political action committees.

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