One of our staffers will never forget the following, and the story has been repeated enough that others will not forget, either.

The public-affairs agency had just been hired to counsel a major global consumer-products company on issues communications. The staffer was called to Washington for a strategy session with his client, the four other leaders in the industry, and the industry association’s staff.

Around the table sat the government relations directors of all five household-name corporations—all fierce competitors—flanked by their product-liability attorneys, communication agencies and their D.C. lobbyists. Association staff presented the situation: Legislation in the hopper that would require the industry to label its own product packaging with denigrating, government-written language.

Corporate and association lobbyists alike classified the threat as light to moderate. After at least an hour’s presentation of the situation, the executive director, seated at the head of the table, paid a courtesy to the new “kid” in the room. “Well, Mr. Newagency,” he said, “what is your view?”

The staffer rose, examined the faces in the room, then looked at his client. The client smiled lightly and nodded—a clear sign of support and a go-ahead for candor. The staffer nonetheless weighed a noncommittal answer, or one that would wave off responsibility as loaded onto one too new to assess the game. He rejected both options and began—certain his agency would be fired within the same week it had been hired.

The hard truth
“What do I think? The first domino has already fallen. Despite my newness, and with respect to the great expertise in this room, and acknowledging your admirable record of winning for many, many years, I do think this one is lost. I believe we had better take stock not of this issue, but of what losing it will lead to—attempts to restrict our right to market and to promote our products, among others. I believe we had best set about creating an industry plan to keep the dam in place, despite the leak it has already sprung.”

And the staffer, thanking the executive director for the opportunity to have spoken, again took his seat—very cognizant of the total, stunned silence in the room; of the red face on his client and the red face on himself.

Before the day ended, later flights had been arranged, millions of dollars had been allocated from the companies for the task ahead, and the linchpin strategies for a comprehensive plan had been put into place. The industry had realized—incredibly, despite resounding evidence that had been staring it in the face—that indeed it had already lost. What did the agency staffer see so clearly?

First, the legislation had been cosponsored by two major Senate names on both sides of the aisle. Second, consumer research showed that our own best customers thought well of the legislation. Third, and most crucial, in the association’s own presentation the “other side” had five easel sheets of listed allies, including the AMA, the PTOs, the National Association of School Boards, and virtually all other forms of mom and apple pie. We had a related trade association representing, essentially, our distribution.

Deck was stacked
What the staffer saw was that the issue might still have been won even if those first two elements had been in place, but it certainly was not going to be won with that many allies already having put their positions and credibility down on the other side. That fact alone precluded our client and its industry from garnering any allies of the mom-and-pop or mom-and-apple-pie variety, because—inevitably—any groups not already listed would have grave misgivings about crossing agendas with any of these. Furthermore, so unbalanced was the ally situation that even business groups not directly aligned with our client’s business would have required a temporary loss of sanity to take a side in this fight.

The staffer’s prediction came true on the Hill in very short order. And while this industry has done admirably with “the rest of the opponents’ agenda,” to this day—like a disease that will not go into remission—third parties are very reluctant to partner with the industry, even for good causes, and even for sizable corporate contributions to those legitimate causes.

You and we who labor in this area of issues have learned much since then, when most “battles” on whatever Hills were “fought” by aligning our guys against their guys, issue by issue. We have learned, or should have learned, that ally building is really partnership building. It is the construction of partnerships around legitimate interests between groups that are not congruent. These partnerships require give and take, require both partners to find agreement somewhere in a common cause, even though they may otherwise appear very uncommon bedfellows. And we have learned that the more uncommon, the better. The normal business alliances have their impact in government halls, talking as they do of their economic impacts and roles as engines for jobs, taxation, etc. But that is so normal as to be expected, and it plays poorly when the entire consumer constituency is drawn into the issue.

Only when business partners with schools, the medical community, parent groups and other entities closer to the consumer heart does business truly show itself involved, caring and trustworthy. When this has been accomplished, the consumer constituency is much more willing to let business have its due as something that must make money, and something that must grow in order to thrive.

Do it today
Partnership building is something that needs to be done today, and every day. As stated in another essay, “Share control before you lose it,” the issues-management world takes on a different complexion entirely once we acknowledge the thought in the back of our heads that always causes such uneasiness. That thought is this: We do not control as much as we think we do … nor as much as we want to control. Indeed, we “govern with the consent of the governed”; we do business with the consent of the electorate around us.

Once that thought is acknowledged as the truth it is, we set about our work in a different manner altogether. We seek ways to work with those we know will otherwise oppose us; to do otherwise is simply to postpone and nurture an obstacle into needless controversy and, potentially, loud failure.

Corporate philanthropic endeavors, instead of being spread across the waters, should be concentrated under a company position, and proof of that position should be not only spending but the partnerships—and the measurable outcomes of those partnerships—that we make with odd bedfellows.

That is just one of a thousand corollaries that come from the “revelation” that we really do not control our fate; others do. The idea of getting a seat at the table of those who shape policy is another corollary, and of course those who shape policy are not entirely of government. The idea of taking responsibility for our own operations and products is another corollary—one that serves risk management as well as crisis management. This corollary forces us to think of better, more publicly palatable means of slaughtering animals, applying herbicides, curtailing needlessly excessive promotional practices, and so on—before others think of them for us.

There is comfort in all that. There is protection. And there is real sincerity and earnestness that reverberate through communities and legislative halls alike.