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- 📜 Understand the system to influence it
📜 Understand the system to influence it
Hannah Guerin, the former Senior Special Adviser to various Secretaries of State, including in the Home Office, Department of Health and Social Care, and the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, talks to Tom Hashemi.
Tom Hashemi
October 3rd, 2024
The most effective campaigns are the ones that start with a really ambitious mission, but are willing to move to a point where there’s consensus. I really enjoyed those conversations because when you have flexibility, you can have an honest debate and can get further than the campaign thought you would. The key is having a good relationship from the start where you can trust each other and move forward without the fear that somebody’s going to be briefed against.
Never make it personal. You can always build the case without getting personal. If you hit that button it’s problematic and it tips it into ‘We’re just not going to touch that’.
You will not be able to influence the system unless you ‘get’ the system. Put yourself in someone’s shoes, that government official or whomever. When they get up in the morning, what’s going to make them want to talk to you? Why? Once you start breaking that down, it becomes more obvious. ‘Okay, that makes sense, these are the arguments that will run, these are the things that they’re going to care about’. Sometimes people aren’t very good at thinking ‘what does that person need?’