Overcoming the Estrangement.
Europeans advising Europeans. Detlev Samlands about Pleon’s role of communicating between politics and the business world.
There’s not much trust and cooperation left between the worlds of politics and business – even though both are still dependent on each other. A mediator is sorely needed, especially on an international level. An interesting challenge for Pleon.
Politics and the business world have become alienated. Today, a lack of understanding, disregard and disinterest mark the power play – once upon a time so passionate – between society’s two prime movers. As usual in calamities in relationships, the reasons behind this can to be traced to both sides.
A new generation of executives is moving into the corner suites: Focussing on shareholder value and distancing themselves more distinctly from politics than their predecessors. Despite all differences, the “old management guard” used to accept the primacy of politics. In the final analysis, this has to do with the fact that political actors emerge with their political mandate from free elections and are constantly legitimised by the voters – unlike businessmen. Statements such as “If fiscal policy is not changed, we will relocate company headquarters to Switzerland” are no longer the exception. Political structures and processes arouse suspicion in this new generation of top executives. The opinion – genuinely shared in top management – that in a globalised world the present political structures are incapable of finding an adequate response to the challenges of business leads to political decision-making structures being ignored. Which in turn widens the gap to the political decisionmakers.
As far as politics is concerned, a measure of rejection to commercial interests has evolved that is not beneficial to national economic interests as a whole. I have no intention of going into the notorious question of the “hen and egg” aspect here. When, however, the chairman of the board of directors of a major German bank makes a statement of possibly relocating the bank’s head office abroad, and the deputy chairman of a government party thereupon demands that he delete the word “German” from the bank’s name, this does not bear witness to close or even trusting co-operation between the business world and politics.
Objectively, the dependency between business and politics has not decreased, it has, at most, been partly displaced from the national to the international level. Questions such as deregulation, abetment and competition law, fiscal and financial policy, research and development processes, consumer protection and marketing requirements, trade and currency policy are just a few areas where businesses are directly affected. And where knowledge of the effect of these laws on business processes is needed for political decisions. Yet when merely articulating commercial interests is understood as an attack on politics, the gap between politics and current economical processes becomes obvious. When, by way of example, introduction of a new logistics technology is already politically skewered with the Data Protection Act even before its innovative character can be checked, that is an invitation to relocate technologies to more innovation-friendly foreign countries.
Politics, too, is faced with the task of redefining its role in a changed world. Modern political control presumes that the state will increasingly take an active, mediating and framework-defining role. On the part of politics, this demands both reform competence – which means to say how processes are to be shaped so that the objective of the reform can be attained – as well as reform consistency – that is a perspective extending beyond the end of the proposed measures. This, in turn, is only conceivable and feasible if politics and the business world are in close verbal contact, supported by mutual respect of the other’s positions.
In other words, the need to communicate between business and politics is greater than ever – a challenge on the communication and context level where political consultation may hold good in the role of bridge builder. However, what is involved here goes way beyond classical lobbying, since it presupposes a new understanding of political consultation. The future of the consultancy branch lies, in my view, in mastering the noble product of competency as far as content is concerned. Here contact management takes on a secondary role. Political consultants must know more than those they want to reconcile. They must grasp the concerns and desires of the business world and with the knowledge of political structures check them out fortheir feasibility. They must advise business as early as when positions are initially adopted and then – with the host of communicative instruments available – have a prompt impact on political processes. This presupposes a high degree of quality in consultancy. And – as a causal factor of relocating political decision-making structures to the European level – also a high degree of knowledge of political processes, for example, in other EU countries. Nowhere else is the openness to consultancy as great as in the Brussels administration. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not some “half-baked bureaucrats” sitting there, but extremely competent specialists who are really very interested in learning what their laws actually bring about in the branches and businesses affected. Consultation is only promising if it makes intrinsic interests constructively transparent, argues quite effectively and credibly and provides detailed proposals. Lamenting and rejecting proposals will not lead to any objectives here. Such consultation needs professionals in discernment and communication, people who combin business and political know-how and channel it on a regional as well as an international level with the instruments of communication.
Pleon accepts this challenge – as a European-networked consultancy that understands politics and the business world not just globally, but also multi-locally. In the particular context concerned of its regional locations and with the competence of its local specialist teams close to where it is happening and detecting developments well in advance – from Brussels to Berlin, from Amsterdam to Rome, from London to Vienna and far beyond Europe’s borders. In politics, business and journalism, the world is still being perceived through national eyeglasses, while this tunnel view hardly leads any further in an international context. The major economical and political topics of today and tomorrow cannot be dealt with like this either.
Such an approach to the interplay of the business and political worlds will be more professional, more sophisticated and above all more sustainable. Business must make itself available to political partners even beyond the specific individual interests concerned. Sustainability is a prerequisite for being taken seriously again by politics. And the socio-political requirements made on business will necessitate more changes than in the past through socalled corporate social responsibility demanded by politics, but also changes to be shaped by business itself. Getting involved in socio-political projects, providing proof by rolling up one’s sleeves oneself and not only lamenting are essential elements for a comprehensive strategy of exerting influence on political decision-making processes. Here, too, consultancy is in demand. Greater interplay between the business and political worlds cannot be brought about like switching on a light. The process of estrangement can only be reversed by a process of rapprochement. Here, an enterprise like Pleon can make a vital contribution.
Detlev Samland is the European Director of Public Affairs at Pleon, a PR consultancy leading in Europe and a subsidiary of BBDO Europe.
Translation: Gordon H. Broxton-Price
This article appeared on changex.de