Balancing the plates is part of the routine of Institutional and Government Relations (IGR or GovRel) strategists.
It is no exaggeration to call the pace of work "insane".
Especially in organizations dealing with many regulatory fronts – basically most large companies and the institutions representing them (associations/federations, etc.).
And the reality is that, in every movement of governments, regulatory agencies, legislative houses, and the Judiciary, there are always embedded risks – and sometimes opportunities.
As we have seen in previous articles, reactive agendas dictate the pace most of the time – and it is extremely important to be fast to monitor information, identify risks, and define a performance strategy.
Now, really: nobody wants to work only with reactive agendas.
The dream of every IGR team is to be proactive. Every strategist wants to be the first to signal windows of opportunity. We know that what makes the institution's eyes shine, many times, is to build its own agenda.
But how not to just "put out fires"?
In this article, we show five ways we use to help our clients focus on what is most relevant.
This is how they save time and make room for a more proactive IGR strategy.
1- Be clear about the priority issues
In the daily work of the Intelligence Analyst, it is absolutely essential to have a lot of clarity about the priority issues for the organization.
It's the old story: when everything is a priority, nothing is prioritized.
So, it is mandatory not to spend too much energy on what does not bring an 'upside' to the established strategy.
Without this clarity, it is very difficult to scale the space to be proactive. The tendency is to be forever trapped in the loop of trying to move mountains.
2 - Analyze the impact of the information for your organization
In the intelligence analysis process of the information collected in the monitoring, it is essential to interpret the impact of that information/inflection for the organization's business.
This is a major step in signaling points of attention that, later on, may even give rise to in-depth studies of regulatory or market impacts.
The key is to prioritize issues, scaling the impact of each collected information.
3. Identify risks and opportunities
The clarity of priority issues allows for much more speed to index the immense amount of monitored information. This qualitative analysis opens up space to point out the risks and opportunities for the organization, taking into account, including, the urgency level of the issues for performance.
In the Legislative branch, for example, it is indispensable to put at the top of priority an important bill in which a certain committee has just opened a deadline for amendments. Or to identify a stakeholder's receptivity to a bill and check what the chances are of influencing them.
This work of identifying risks and opportunities allows not only to mitigate risks, but is useful to gain working time, which reduces errors and opens up space for a more structured strategic plan – which, in short, is the basis for proactivity.
4. Notice possible inflection points
In the public policy debate, there will always be more relevant moments than others.
Often, a bill takes a long time to process. The secret to a more proactive performance, therefore, is knowing how to identify inflections. This allows a correct analysis of the scenario and pulling the thread to point out when the discussions of this bill will have real chances of producing developments that require the organization's full attention. Or when a sectoral claim, for example, may advance faster via an infralegal measure.
And it is this 360º view of the whole – of the context and the bill's own history – that allows perceiving which inflection points are very strong and which are weaker.
Sometimes, a simple tweet from a deputy – or a snippet of an interview with a regulatory agency director – can signal an inflection point. You have to be attentive.
5. See trends and take the chances to 'surf waves'
Once the impact of the information is analyzed, it is worth understanding how to enter the debate to take advantage of movements that represent the opening of action windows. The moment you identify these windows, there is a greater chance of surfing the waves and planning tactics for acting together with stakeholders who have a better chance of success.
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This method, adopted here at Sigalei, has been fundamental in helping our clients save precious time in their reactive actions.
At the end of the day, this makes it possible to obtain better results with less effort. And with less effort, there is much more time left to be proactive.
Our Service team has experts in monitoring and analysis.
We are prepared to help you improve your process, gaining agility to identify risks and opportunities.
Send us a message – it will be sensational to have the chance to present all our solutions in Institutional and Government Relations.
I await your message!
Ivan Ervolino is co-founder of Sigalei and Services Director
