STRATEGIC THINKER
L
obbying represents a dilemma
for most organisations. On
the one hand,
organisations
should seek to influence government
departments or regulators whose
actions affect them. On the other,
any lobbying-like communications
appear suspicious to the media and
ultimately the general public. This
suspicion makes government nervous over business involvement with
government decision-making which
then makes organisations nervous
about engaging with government.
Gradually, a vicious circle develops
where a legitimate corporate activity
looks illegitimate. How can organisations negotiate a path through
what is either a dangerous threat to
organisational reputation if they do
lobby, or organisational performance
if they do not? Also, what is the role
of the communications director in
this discussion?
RESPONSIBLE
LOBBYING
24
Lobbying maybe the archetypical dirty word,
but introducing transparency and promoting
its market-making benefits should change
perceptions.
By Howard Viney and Paul Baines
04/2013 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR
LOCATION MATTERS Perhaps
one of the biggest challenges is that
attitudes to lobbying appear to vary
depending upon location. Washington politics appears to depend
upon lobbying, a guilty secret that
everyone is aware of, whereas Brussels politics appears to embrace
and encourage lobbying, an open
engagement between government
and business which might provide
a template for other political centres
such as London, where lobbying is
neither truly encouraged, tolerated
nor forbidden but rather appears increasingly to be an accident waiting
to happen. It is this uncertainty as
to what role lobbying can or should
play in a representative democracy
which prompts us to seek to make
a case for lobbying. In addition, we
Photo:s: Financial Times (2)
STRATEGIC THINKER
aim to explain why transparency
and openness can provide a winwin-win scenario for government,
business and society.
We start with a problem we believe is at the heart of the question:
the public’s mistrust of the concept of lobbying. Mistrust derives
from the image that has been built
up around the lobbyist as a furtive
influence peddler engaged in undesirable, improper and even inappropriate activities, seeking to buy
influence with government to protect the interests of a shadowy client. The implication is that public
well-being is being undermined by
lobbying, wherein well-resourced
organisations use their resources to
protect market failure, or imperfections in the market. This means that
organisations acquire greater value
for the delivery of their products or
services than they would in a wellfunctioning competitive market,
which would favour the consumer.
From an economic perspective,
lobbying is evidence of ‘rent-seeking’ behaviour (manipulating the
social or political environment to
generate profit) which is seen less
favourably than ‘market-making’
activity (creating new markets
and demand to generate profits).
Market-making increases the sum
of wellbeing in an economy by increasing employment and encouraging growth. Rent-seeking behaviour has the opposite effect and
represents exploitation of existing
strength to no-one’s benefit except
the corporation. Using this line of
thought, the lobbying company is
clearly a corporate villain.
THE BENEFITS OF REFORM
The nail has been further hammered
into the coffin of lobbying’s reputation due to its frequent association
with the bribery of public officials – an illegal act – or the
making of excessive campaign contributions – which is not
always illegal. High profile examples have compounded the
problem. Many organisations make contributions across
the political divide at elections, favouring no one party but
seeking to influence all.
However this represents one side of the argument, albeit
the side most often debated. The other side proposes that
organisations play a significant role in a representative democracy, supporting government in the creation of effective laws and regulation and assuming much of the cost.
At the very highest level, organisations can co-create new
laws and regulations. This may be looked upon disapprovingly in some quarters, but if a new technology is emerging
Organisations play a significant role in a representative democracy.
or new ethical dilemmas are created by a medical development, would tax-payers be willing to pay for government
to develop the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver
a wholly objective opinion? We suspect not. Co-creation
with organisations leading the technological change is
frequently a necessity on many levels.
Similarly, organisations already play a very important
role in the provision of information in developing more
standard laws or regulation, offering opinions at the request of government during the policy development phase
of the legislative process. From this perspective lobbying
activity plays an active and positive role in a representative
democracy.
MAKING A CONTRIBUTION However, the key question is the self-interest involved in lobbying. The inevitable suspicion is that organisations are only motivated to
act when their interests are challenged. But is this necessarily a negative act? Individuals faced with a planned
new building project, for example, have a legitimate right
to make their voices heard and would feel justifiably aggrieved to have that opportunity denied. Why does this
not apply to organisations? We believe it should apply to
all organisations, but the challenge is in how that message
is communicated and what organisations must do to ensure that the message is credible and legitimate.
The European Commission has championed transparency in interest representation since its lobbying green paper in 2006. One interesting observation is that its code
04/2013 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR
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STRATEGIC THINKER
of conduct is enabling rather than constraining; therefore
it is concerned with offering external scrutiny of relationships to ensure transparency (and hence public confidence)
is built into information or other exchanges. It also publishes rules on integrity, highlighting what is perceived to
be good behaviour rather than focusing upon what is identified as bad or unacceptable behaviour. The difference between rules on integrity and more limiting language (such
as found in the new UK lobbying bill which “places limits”, “sets caps”, and widely discusses “taking enforcement
action”) is perhaps only semantic but it certainly implies a
different value being placed upon the contribution being
made by organisations which lobby to the economics they
operate in.
THE ROUTE FORWARD We would like to address
one more important issue regarding organisational capability. We believe that organisations often face difficulty
in managing ethical dilemmas because they are designed
as profit-maximising machines and their managers are
incentivised to seek profit maximisation; anything less
would be to fail to deliver against their financial responsibilities to their owners. If this is no longer acceptable,
politically or socially, organisations need to review their
organisational capabilities to live in their new operating
environments.
However, this does not imply a fundamental review of
how organisations conduct their business. Rather, there
are number of small actions for business and for government which offer the potential to create a win-win-win
outcome. For business we suggest a change in attitude
regarding how organisations talk about how they engage
with government and there is a strong communication as-
The role of the non-executive ethicist would be to act
as the conscience of the organisation.
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pect to this. We argue for a commitment on the part of
organisations towards openness about how and why they
interact with government, recognising the inherent selfinterest of any such action but also emphasising the positive contribution such dialogue can make to an effectively
operating democracy. Organisations would commit to list
all interactions with government or regulator publicly on
their corporate website, using this opportunity to make an
argument as to why this action is legitimate and justifiable. To us, the argument that an organisation is seeking
04/2013 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Towards transparency
Organisations should admit the self-interest inherent in lobbying, but also advertise the beneficial effect of such dialogue
The advancement of commercial
interest as a motivation should not be
disguised but linked to market-making
benefits
Large organisations should appoint an
‘ethicist on board’, a non-executive director to spearhead ethical concerns
and act as devil’s advocate
to advance its commercial interest is
not one that ought to be disguised,
especially if the motivation is market-making and will have a wider
positive outcome. The vast majority of lobbying activity is legitimate
and makes an active contribution to
a well-functioning representative
democracy. Organisations should
reflect this reality in their communication strategy. Government also
need not be squeamish about favouring organisations engaged in lobbying when this has a positive impact
upon the economy or society.
As a sign of good faith, large organisations could take an extra step
to build confidence by appointing a
non-executive director whose sole
responsibility is to offer advice on
the ethical aspects of any decisions
taken by an organisation. The role
of the non-executive ethicist would
be to act as the conscience of the
organisation, tasked with the responsibility to act as devil’s advocate, challenging major decisions
to ensure that they can be defended
on ethical grounds and anticipating
public responses to actions so that
they may be communicated to stake-
STRATEGIC THINKER
holders without fear of reputational
damage. This may not appear to advocate any new role for the non-executive directorate, but we suggest
that the role of being the board’s
ethicist might represent a significant change in the background of
appointees. Communication directors with a background in responsible lobbying or lawyers with experience or specialised training are but
two possible examples. Such a role
would require a different range of
working experience or training to
be able to address complex ethical
questions in order to improve rather
than simply hinder executive decision-making.
The key benefit of appointing a
non-executive ethicist would be
that organisations could defend
corporate decisions because they
Photo: Alex Griffiths
For government, we suggest a much
more explicit code of conduct to govern
relationships.
have been approved by an executive
decision-maker specifically tasked
with determining the legitimacy of
any decision. For government we
suggest a much more explicit code
of conduct to govern relationships
but, as with the European Commission’s code, this code should emphasise the positive rather than the
negative and alongside this positive
positioning of lobbying, governments’ should take the opportunity
to acknowledge the contribution of
enterprise to an effective democracy
alongside the rights of organisations
to be heard when important decisions are being taken.
We argue that making dealings
transparent will break the cycle of
cynicism and mistrust. If organisa-
tions believe that their interactions with government are
legitimate and potentially beneficial to the economy, why
hide this? The initial response may be negative, but additional confidence-building activity such as the appointment of a non-executive ethicist may go some way to reducing cynical responses.
This does not absolve government of responsibility for
establishing clearer and more comprehensive guidelines
for relationship engagement. Appropriate regulation will
also help address concerns regarding whether organisations are equipped to judge what is, or is not, ethically
appropriate behaviour – an issue our suggestion of getting
an ethicist on board goes some ways to addressing from a
different direction.
WIN-WIN-WIN We believe that the outcome of embracing these ideas would be:
win – better decisions are
taken: government gains access to the information and
expertise it would otherwise
be unable to obtain or would
take too long to develop; win
– business can focus upon
business: with a greater acceptance of the legitimate
Dr Howard Viney
strategic option of lobbying
Open University Business
organisations can focus upon
School, UK
operating effectively with the
Dr Howard Viney is senior
reduced risk of reputational
lecturer in strategic managedamage currently associment at the Open University
Business School, UK.
ated with lobbying; and win
– society benefits from a more
effective democratic process
and policies which are transparent and hopefully more efficient.
We suggest that there are
benefits from recognising that
members of the public are able
to appreciate the realities of
Dr Paul Baines
public policy decision makCranfield School of
ing as well as the motivations
Management, UK
of organisational action – an
Dr Paul Baines is professor of
improvement in the political
political marketing at Crandiscourse and a reduction in
field School of Management,
UK and has worked on varithe extent of suspicion surous communication research
rounding the motives of all
projects for UK government
departments.
involved.
04/2013 COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR
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