01
Our approach to campaigns and campaigning
I have always been a campaigner and over the years I have learnt to become better at it.
ALAN BARNARD
Communication works for those who work at it.
JOHN POWELL
The purpose of this chapter is to:
1 Share and explain our new definition of a campaign.
2 Explain and justify our approach to campaigning, including the purpose and philosophy of campaigning.
3 Outline the attitudes of a campaigner.
4 Introduce and provide an overview of our Campaign It! model.
5 Lay the foundation for everything that is to follow.
In this chapter we:
- Redefine campaigning.
- Explain the purpose of campaigning.
- Discuss the philosophy of campaigning and the attitudes of a campaigner.
- Justify the need for a campaigning approach in all aspects of our personal and professional lives.
- Share the results of our research that asked: āHow important is communication?ā and āHow good at communicating are you?ā
- Consider why we tend to rate ourselves highly as communicators and ask āAre we really that good?ā
- Discuss the inevitability of influence.
- Introduce the seven principles of campaigning.
- Introduce the Campaign It! model.
Learning to become better
The Campaign It! model is the result of many years of work that led us both through two very distinct learning curves. The first was based on the fact that Alan (AB) was totally focused on how to influence communities and societies and so to create social and/or global change and that Chris (CP) was totally focused on how to influence individuals and/or groups. Neither of us was fully aware of the skill sets of the other and neither of us had considered the value of these different skill sets to our own work.
Learning from each other required us both to embrace that most basic and challenging of all principles:
āWe can only get better if we learn the things we need to know that we currently donāt.ā
Fortunately, we have had much fun learning from each other and we continue to do so.1
The second learning curve was in the creation of the Campaign It! model itself. Being able to do something well is one thing. Being able to structure and provide it for the benefit of others is something else altogether. There is a world of difference in being able to do something that helps others and being able to provide something that enables others to help themselves. We created the Campaign It! model to enable people to help themselves, their families, their businesses or their communities. It is the result of a process that beganā¦
Well, to be honest, that depends to a certain extent on which one of us you ask. Here are our two answers to that same question:
CP: āIt began in 1976 when I met a man, a Malaysian martial artist, who could use words to change people in ways I had never imagined. I both observed and experienced personally how powerfully he could influence others. At that time I was studying to be a schoolteacher and it seemed to me that knowing how to use words to create powerful and positive change was a most appropriate capability (even though, for some reason, it wasnāt part of the curriculum I was studying!). So I committed myself to learning from him. It was the start of a fascination with how to use words to empower ourselves and others that has continued for over three decades.
āIn 2003, having worked as a schoolteacher and manager, an educational and corporate consultant and trainer, and a university lecturer, I asked Alan Barnard if I could model his approach to campaigning for a book I was writing about management skills and leadership. It was an insightful experience, interviewing and observing the work of a man who was used to operating at the highest levels to create social and national change.
āInterestingly, like so many hugely talented individuals, Alan was not consciously aware of everything he did to achieve his outcomes. He demonstrated such a level of what Maslow termed āunconscious competenceā that often he was only able to discuss the complexity of his work in the most simple of terms. Much of what he did, he said, was the ābleedinā obviousā. But only to him, it certainly wasnāt to me.
āThe result of our time together was the creation of a basic model, a chapter based on his work and the start of a dialogue that led to us sharing and combining our different interests and skills in communication.
āI still believe that interpersonal communication, the words we use and the ways we interact with others, is crucial to enabling personal development and change. I understand now, though, that the approach that Alan uses to influence societies can also be applied and has enormous value when seeking to influence individuals, teams and groups. I also appreciate just how many of the principles and strategies that I apply in my work are also used by Alan in his.
āFor example, having a desired, clearly defined end outcome is as important to me when I am working with an individual client or a lecture theatre filled with students, as it is for Alan when planning a corporate, social or political campaign. We both place great importance on the way we sequence our communications, on how we combine emotional language with persuasive facts and figures, and on how we share messages not just information. We both know that influential communication is based on an understanding of those we are communicating with and that you always have to begin from their starting point, not your own. As a result of the work we have done together, I realize now that even a single communication in a corridor can incorporate all of the elements of the Campaign It! model: as long as that conversation is driven by a cause.ā
AB: āIāve always been a campaigner. It seems that throughout my life I have come across things that needed improving, and Iāve always seemed to have the desire to work to make those improvements happen. From my school days, through my degree and into work, Iāve always been trying to make changes happen and to influence others to give support and permission for those changes. Iād never wanted to write a book about it, though, until Chris got me thinking one day.
āChris was writing a book about leadership aimed at the undergraduate market. He wanted to include some references to campaigning in it and needed an expert to interview. So he asked me.
āI remember being very uncomfortable. I rarely talked about my work as a campaigner, preferring to operate behind the scenes, and after all, why on earth would I give my secrets away? I was also acutely aware that the media were always looking for process stories about my work for Labour and I wasnāt going to give them any opportunities. But we were talking generically, and Chris was modelling the approach for a book on theory, and wasnāt going to include anything about the specifics of what I do ā this was for a different audience ā and I wanted to help him out.
āIt took a few weeks, with many more conversations between us, but eventually Chris got back to me with the fruits of his labour. āHowās this for the āBarnard Campaignā model?ā he asked.
āWhen I looked at it I realized that the model he had produced from what I thought was our sometimes rambling chats was really very clever. It was a little simplistic, in that each stage could have been explored in so much more detail: Chris had just produced the top line explanation for the section in his book, but that top line was spot on in its description of how I think about campaigning.
āBloody hell,ā I thought to myself. āI wonder if we can write a book in which we simplify and explain the complexity of campaigning, and how it can be used in all walks of life?ā
āExcitingly, at the same time, Chris introduced me to some of the ways in which he had ...