Your biggest asset in a meeting may not be who you think
Putting your best foot forward in a government or political meeting may be more complicated than you think. We take a look at who is best to bring along, and perhaps who to exclude from meetings with political stakeholders and government.
By Neil Pharaoh
Planning a high stakes meeting with a Minister, MP or senior official or advisor may seem simple enough. You think you have prepared everything; you have prepared documents to leave behind, you have done your background research, have read bios and speeches and are about to book your trip to Canberra (or another capital city), but who is actually best to attend the meeting?
History or hierarchy dictates that the CEO, or perhaps a Board Member or the Chair would be “entitled” to attend the meeting, but aligning the best person for the meeting sometimes takes a bit more than just hierarchy or history alone. Let’s step through the five categories of Government stakeholders and reflect upon who is best, or worst placed to attend your upcoming meeting.
Ministers or Shadow Ministers
As a general rule, your CEO or Chair should be in this level of meetings, but not both. You need someone senior, who has the gravitas, can introduce the organisation, and provide an overview of the strategy or the direction you are taking.
They should however always be supported by somebody who knows the detail, usually a senior program manager or someone across the detail of the initiative(s) to be discussed. Some organisations will also bring a client or possibly a representative of the community they are working for as well, but you should have no more than three people in the room. You don’t want to spend precious time introducing too many people.
Remember to have one of the team take some key notes and follow ups, as well as a photo along the way. The Minister or shadow would typically have one, and perhaps two advisors, in the room, so work to match numbers, and build relationship with the person you seem paired with – CEO to Minister, Program Manager to Advisor etc.
Members of Parliament
Similar to a Minister or Shadow Minister, keep it to two or three, and ideally ensure at least one person in the room has a connection, lives in, or is deeply involved in the MP’s electorate – local is key for MPs, including for Senators, although they represent an entire state.
Policy Departments and Central Agencies (the operations behind government)
This is where the technical and policy leaders or your organisation can attend, especially with functional and operational teams in the Department. You typically get a bit more time in these meetings, and they will be sharper and more across the detail – be sure to have someone who really knows the details, the analysis, and can answer questions, as well as understands the finances - as these will all be key focuses here. Depending on the level of the meetings in the Department, you may not have a CEO in attendance, and usually can leave the Board or Chair out of these types of meetings.
Political Party engagement
Political Parties are often the forgotten friend for meetings and engagement, but whether its meeting the various policy or executive functions of the party, be sure to keep them in the loop. In these meetings you would typically lead with your point person on government engagement or political engagement, and make an effort to ensure values alignment between the party and the person attending.
A few final reflections around meetings and representation:
Have political balance in your organisation. If you are clearly aligned to one side of politics, ensure that you have someone clearly aligned to the other side publicly visible, or on your board. MPs and political stakeholders are usually professional enough to put to the side political differences even if the representative they are talking to is clearly from a different side of politics, so long as it is clear the organisation is bi-partisan, and has equally visible “opposites”.
Spend more time listening than talking, and try and find connections to make the meetings memorable. All stakeholders are heavily diary-committed, and if you are just the same as every other group, who spends your 30-minute meeting talking about your needs and problems, not reading the room and not making it relevant to whom you are talking to - you won’t be remembered, and could in future be declined the same courtesies.
The Chair and CEO do not work well in the same political meeting; it goes back to too many Chiefs. One “leader” in the room is all that is warranted for meetings. At events, the more the merrier, but stay focused when having meetings or discussions.
Also, it is perfectly fine to pull people out of a meeting, and sometimes those missing sends an equally clear message. If you are going to Canberra with the CEO, and then get shunted down the chain in a backbencher’s office to an Advisor, then take the meeting, but don’t send your CEO. We all have ego’s and if that office learns that they can “manage” the CEO with an Advisor level meeting, it is very hard to get back to equal pegging.
This article first appeared at Pro Bono Australia as part of Tanck's fortnightly column, Happenings on the Hill.
Tanck offers advisory services in government relations, stakeholder strategy, and communications.
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