Changing Minds to Change the World
I recently saw Andrew Lansley speak at a conference. He provided some great advice for anyone trying to influence senior politicians, to get powerful people to listen to you, and to change the world for the better.
Lansley was a civil servant and private secretary to Norman Tebbit, appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE), served as MP for South Cambridgeshire until 2015, was Conservative Health Secretary in the Coalition Government, and is now Baron Lansley in the Lords.
So, as experienced a politician as you are likely to find.
Lansley spoke about prejudice, how to change it, and how to use it. Prejudice is normally understood as a set of beliefs that are based on false information and unfounded convictions.For Lansely, the term means ideas that are not necessarily as dangerous or toxic as racism, homophobia, or sexism. He understands prejudices as deeply held convictions that can define a person, their view of the world, their place in community and society, and crucially, who they vote for. He uses the term because it allows him to understand how people think, and to plan a successful campaign.
The Art of Persuasion
Understanding prejudices, and changing them, is vital to running a campaign. Any campaign has to have a clear objective — something in the world that it wants to change or achieve. This could be getting a new piece of legislation passed, forcing a person in power to make a decision, or persuading people to support your proposal for changing society.
Lansley describes two parts to a campaign: the long term vision, and the short term goal. In the long term, the aim of the campaign is to change prejudices. The campaign must be persuasive, to change people’s long held beliefs, whether this is an individual in power, or a population of voters. The Aristotelian three pillars of persuasion — ethos, logos, and pathos — can be a helpful way of structuring a persuasive campaign (you want to have all three pillars, otherwise your campaign will fall over).
When starting a new campaign, you need to be able to answer the questions, ‘what prejudices will we need to be wary of, and which ones can we benefit from?’ Ultimately, in the long term, you will need to persuade people to change their beliefs, so that in the short term, they can be mobilised when you need their support.
The crunch point is the moment where you need to act and demand change now. If your campaign has been well run, and you have been successful at creating a long term vision, you will have changed people’s minds. You will have influenced a group, community, or population of people whose new beliefs can be harnessed to achieve your aim. If you haven’t managed to build consensus around your vision, and get people to agree on what change looks like, then in the short term, your campaign will fall flat.
Applying the Lesson: the Homeless Reduction Act
A good example of a campaign that built a long term vision, to win the final short term battle, is ‘No-one Turned Away’. This campaign, by the homeless charity Crisis, worked with the Conservative MP Bob Blackman, to pass the Homeless Reduction Act (both of whom also spoke at the conference).
Crisis’ aim was to use an arcane parliamentary tool, the Private Members Bill, to pass a law through Parliament that would force local authorities to support the homeless people within their borders. In the long term, Crisis and Blackman had to persuade all the people who have power — back bench Conservative MPs, Government Whips, and Peers in the House of Lords — that their Bill was necessary and good for the country. For each group of people, the campaign used different methods of persuasion: clear argument based on a strong policy (logos), deployment of Crisis and Blackman’s respective reputations (ethos), and finally, appeals to emotion (pathos).
The final crunch moment came in the House of Commons, when MPs who were known for their habit of filibustering Private Members Bills (talking too long to prevent a bill being passed) stood up to speak — but rather than talking down the bill, they spoke in favour of it. The campaign was successful.
In the long term, Crisis and Blackman had worked hard at changing the minds of their colleagues in Parliament, so that in the short term, they had transformed potential opponents into strong supporters, and ultimately, achieved their key objective: changing the law to improve the lives of people experiencing homelessness.
Some other tips from Andrew Lansley, Bob Blackman, and Matthew Downie from Crisis:
- Evidenced based policy will always beat spin. MPs, Ministers, and Civil Servants are impressed by hard facts over clever rhetoric
- Meeting MPs face to face is still an effective campaigning strategy — sometimes you’ll have to confront power in the flesh
- Deals don’t close on their own. Especially in Parliament, you will need a strong and willing ally who can make interventions at a crucial moment (this is when many organisations will deploy their Chair or other senior stakeholder)
- Make friends with your enemies, and give away success. You can bring people on board by crediting and flattering them that they were crucial for making change happen.
