📜 How often do you update your policy stakeholder map?

Everything starts with your stakeholder maps

You need to be somebody who lives and breathes politics to stay up to speed with who matters. Check Playbook every morning, listen to political podcasts on your daily walk or in the gym, read Tim Shipman, Patrick Maguire and George Parker analysis and follow PoliticsHome, ConHome and Labour List. And it’s not only about elected people in the spheres of influence, but those in the periphery as well – think-tankers, journalists and campaigners. This will help retain a sense of day-to-day government priorities, challenges and trade-offs, and possible shifts in the political environment. On a practical level, I review our key political stakeholder maps on a weekly basis.

Build your relationships before you need them

You don’t want to always be asking for something from people. If we have a new report being published, or new research or insights relevant to someone’s interests I try to proactively share that. Or if I’m doing a cold reach-out I’ll start by saying ‘I saw your piece in the FT on tariffs’ or ‘I know that you’re really interested in this, have you seen our report?’ – not asking for anything, but demonstrating that you could be helpful in some way. It helps you foster deeper connections beyond regular catch-ups that cover the same ground of ‘What are we working on, what are you working on?’ When it’s a moment for a challenging conversation, or you have to relay a difficult message, it’ll land much better if you’ve taken the time to develop that relationship. 

Establish unusual coalition partners 

During the pandemic, the CBI worked in lockstep with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) [for non-UK readers: the TUC is the CBI’s equivalent for Trade Unions] and the Government to design the furlough scheme. This was a really powerful example of tripartism in action which ensured economic security for thousands of people. The picture of our then Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn standing outside No.11 with the TUC’s Frances O’Grady and Rishi Sunak, was an incredibly proud moment. Another example was the collaboration between trade unions, charities, civil society organisations – with us as the business voice – who together formed a powerful coalition that helped to get childcare policy unstuck. The expansion of free childcare for working parents, announced by Jeremy Hunt in his 2023 Spring Budget, was a big moment for the CBI that colleagues still talk about. Both of these happened because we worked with unusual bedfellows. It’s powerful.