Behind the Curtain: Interview with Stuart Thomson

Even back then, I realized that the link between what businesses do, and economics in general, and politics, was so close. I needed to know more about the economic side, as well as the political. I think the degree was an extremely useful one from that perspective.

At the end of the degree, what I really wanted to do was to keep studying! In particular, I just wanted to look at left wing parties, and find out more about how they changed in the post war period.

When I finished the study, (which was now a little while ago, as I betray my age,) it was at one of those periods where the left wing parties were generally out of power. But it was just on the cusp of them coming back in, and the difference that politics and politicians can make in those decision making processes.

It was incredibly useful for what I do now, which is about helping organizations engage with policy regulation and politics. To make the maximum use of their abilities, to input into those decision making processes, and influence decisions that governments make so that, I believe fundamentally, you get better policymaking.

You get more rounded policymaking. There’s not so much of this winners and losers type mentality, but actually good decision-making by politicians, by civil servants, officials, by parliaments and can deliver real benefits to communities, and to countries.

What I’m trying to do is help organizations impact meaningfully, but on the basis of actually understanding the politics, and the decision making process, and some of the economics behind it. That’s a rather long-winded way of explaining why I think that what I did all those years ago in terms of study actually is still really useful for what I do now.

Q: Stuart, how do you go about helping these different organizations achieve these goals?
A: I suppose in its simplest form, it’s about helping organizations know who the people are they need to engage with, and what motivates them. But not just in terms of the pure politics of what they need to deliver, but also what’s possible to deliver.

Very often that’s down to the decision making process, and understanding the decision making process, and the pressures that puts on the people taking the decisions.

It’s about unpicking the people, and the processes, to do something that can actually be done. That’s I suppose at the heart of what I do. You then bolt onto that, or part of the advice that I deliver is also about reputations. That has become increasingly important over the years.

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Q: What are some of the issues that organizations have when it comes to managing their reputations?
A: There’s a reputation in terms of what they do on an everyday basis, the services they deliver, all the products they sell. Whether they do what they say they will do.

Then there’s the wider reputation about how they treat people, how they engage with organizations, how they engage with communities.

Finally, also with reputations, there’s an element of the unexpected. How they plan for that, and how they deal with unexpected circumstances. Increasingly,  there is a set of societal expectations about organizations, that you can only understand if you understand what those motivations are.

Then you can feed those back into your decisions, and the way that you behave.

I’ll take taxes, the very current example. If you’re not delivering on your tax communities, populations they “Go hold on, what’s going on here?” The more they are in the spotlight, the more the media ask questions, the more the politicians are forced into taking action.

Q: We’re talking about these big international corporations who aren’t paying taxes in  various countries, yet making a fair bit of money, and charging a fair bit of money for their products.
A: A lot of these things are very instinctive. For populations across Europe they see exactly that. Here’s an organization with which they are very familiar with that tell us they’re doing great things. But frankly, they’re not putting into my tax system, so we can’t go to our doctors, or our hospitals because these large organizations are not paying a tax.

I put it very brutally, but that’s the sort of decision making process behind which those organizations have to deal.

But it affects companies, and organizations, and charities, and NGOs of whatever level. That’s a really snarky example, because of the size of these organizations. You get similar types of issues right down the spectrum regardless of size.

Q: How do you help these companies manage these issues?
A: That very much depends on the issue at hand. Sometimes, it’s about making sure they fully understand what they’re getting into. I think sometimes there’s an absolute belief, very often at the top of organizations, that they know how to deal with politics, they know politicians, and therefore they’ll see it through.

Whereas, actually, that’s fundamentally wrong. What you need to do is understand the decision making process, and the attitudes of stakeholders, and then you can try and work out what to say, and what the solution to the problem is. It depends on the nature of the issue. But solutions, and process, and then coming forward with a plan, that’s very often the heart of what they end up doing for organizations.

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about how communication has changed in your particular field when it comes to new marketing and social media
A: Politics, if I think about it in that sort of sense, is quite a strange beast. On the one hand, when it comes to campaigning politicians, they more or less understand the power of social media.

Particularly, if I take the UK example of the 2015 general election, the Conservative Party were very, very good at using Facebook to target potential voters, and getting plated messages to them, and they spent a lot of money in doing that. However the Labor Party didn’t. They simply didn’t prioritize it, and spent a pitiful amount of money, as part of their overall election spend on social media.

On the one hand generally politicians, (with some exceptions,) “get it” in campaigning terms.

What’s not quite there yet is politicians using it on a day-to-day basis. It’s still very much, for many of them, a way of pumping out information.

What it should be about is more genuine engagement, is the dialogue side of things. What I would contend is that it’s a good way of getting information about politicians and what their attitudes are, but it’s not a good way of engaging with them. That bit of the social media equation from the political side of things is still coming.

Q: Do you see it moving more towards this? The public would have a more engaging relationships with the various politicians via their Twitter or Facebook?
A: Sadly, I don’t really see that changing in any short order. I think that will take a good number of years.

I think particularly because the good examples are still a few. We just need more of those really good examples, and then politicians will start to really engage with it, and do it properly, rather than just using it for some glorified way of pumping out press releases.

Q: It’s just a soapbox as opposed to a conversation.
A: Exactly. That conversation is exactly what they need to do.

As I said, some do it absolutely brilliantly, they do engage, and they talk about themselves, and it’s much more personable. Unfortunately just too many don’t see it like that.

Q: Can you talk a bit about your work as a public speaker? What are the topics that you generally speak about?
A: To be honest, it tends to be a range of political and business type issues.

Particularly around engagement with political audiences, crisis management, and media relations. It’s the cusp of business, politics, and reputation.

What I find is when I’m speaking, people like to hear not just about what they should do, and what they shouldn’t do, but actually what other people have done, and some good examples as well.

My approach is personable, rather than just standing up and giving a series of quite serious business slides. My approach is letting people engage in my talk as well.

Q: Politics and business can be quite serious. How do you get your audience to engage with the content, and the seriousness of the topic?
A:  I approach it by just trying to pick it apart, and try to get past some of the pre-conceived ideas that you have when it comes to politics.

If you give some examples, and talk more widely about your own experience of engaging in the influencing and reputational processes, what you start to find is people say “Oh, yes!’  They start to recognize it, and they start to move beyond those pre-conceived ideas that they came into the room with.

Suddenly, it becomes a little bit more alive, and you can engage people in a little bit more lighthearted way.

But it’s about the explanation. Not in a “talking-down-to-people” way, but a “let’s strip away those pre-conceived ideas” kind of way.

Start with the basics, and work up from that. Then you can make it more lighthearted. If you can get people to that point, you can get them to the end of the talk. That’s generally the approach that I find works the best.

Q: What is a common mistake that you see other speakers in your field make? Whether it’s using too much jargon, or going in too heavy too fast. What are some of the mistakes you see them make, and how do you avoid them?
A: You’ve hit the nail on the head with “jargon.” Too many speakers assume that that their audience has all the knowledge from the outset. They just start dropping in initials, and phrases, (and whatever), which goes completely over the audience's’ head.

If you start that from the outset then unfortunately you’ve lost the audience. I think there’s also, sometimes from speakers,a degree of arrogance, often not necessarily misplaced because they are experts. But if you allow that to come into the talk, and the way that you engage with audiences, again, you’ll lose them.

A lack of examples is a problem simply because it becomes more of a lecture, and less of a talk. I think the other thing is the classic “Death by PowerPoint” where people stick a load of stuff up on the slides. However many talks you go to people still put too many words on things, and you just fall asleep, sadly.

Q: Yes. They just stare, read the slides, and well this is very helpful, thank you.
A: That’s the world’s worst type of talk in my view.

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Q: I empathize with that. Stuart, can you give an example of one of the most effective talks you’ve given?
A: It is actually when the presentation becomes much more of a dialogue during the course of the day. You can see the eyes almost light up during the course of that day, because they realize that maybe what they’ve been doing isn’t completely wrong, they’ve had some good ideas themselves. I’m very happy to come out and say “Look, now that’s a brilliant idea, do more of that.”