DIALOGUE WITH DECISION MAKERS

Corporate Watch publishes the latest study from the Oxford Research Group.

Introduction

This handbook is designed to enable you to quickly understand a successful method of dialogue with decision-makers. It is based on the seventeen years’ experience of the Oxford Research Group, working towards the worldwide abolition of nuclear weapons. The principle idea is that groups of citizens engage directly, by letter or face to face, with behind-the-scenes decision-makers and policy advisers using a non-confrontational approach. Through this two-way dialogue, change takes place.

O.R.G. has developed this method through successful dialogue with those in key decision-making positions in the UK, USA, Russia, China, India and to a lesser extent France. In the 1980s we pioneered a dialogue project in the UK which linked over 60 citizen groups with a separate nuclear-weapon decision-maker in the UK and one in China. The groups attempted to establish a correspondence with their decision-makers, and in some cases were able to meet them. In 1985 we established a parallel project in the United States which linked concerned citizen groups with thirty American decision-makers, and in 1990 supported a similar project in Sweden, this time with professional groups of medical practitioners writing to French and British nuclear-weapon decision-makers.

Our approach has now been adopted by those working for change on different issues all over the world. Decisions affecting the most important issues that we face today such as the arms trade, genetic engineering, pollution, debt, the globalisation of the economy, as well as nuclear weapons and power, are ultimately taken by a few key decision-makers in government and business. We are not talking solely or even mainly about politicians; we are talking about scientists who develop new technologies, analysts who produce assessments on which decisions are based, managers who offer innovative technologies to both the military and civilian sectors, civil servants who draft government policy and bureaucrats who sign the cheques. These are the key long-term people behind the scenes who steer policy as politicians come and go. Most of these individuals work in closed communities within which the rightness of what they are doing is not directly questioned. Serious alternatives are seldom proposed. Apart from hearing ocal reports of protest such people rarely engage in the arguments for and against what they are doing, much less are they invited on a personal level to involve themselves in discussion of the merits and implications of their activities in today’s world.

The principles of the dialogue approach outlined in the Ten Steps that follow are relevant to most of the issues previously mentioned, as well as those of O.R.G. In the Ten Steps which follow, the examples used are of nuclear weapons decision-making, but the principles of the approach are relevant to most of the issues already mentioned. You will notice that each Action step is balanced by a subsequent Reflection step; we have found that this combination of being and doing is especially effective.

By the time you reach end of this handbook, you will be familiar with:

The basics of the dialogue with decision-makers approach to change

• Why it works
• How decision-makers can be identified
• How they can most fruitfully be approached
• What may be expected from this dialogue
• How your skills and the skills of colleagues in your field can most effectively be used.
• You are already a powerful agent of change, or you wouldn't be reading this booklet; read on and increase your own power.

Step 1: Take On Board Three Principles

A. Change happens at the level of the individual
Does it really make any difference, you may ask, if I contact a scientist or an official, or even the chief executive officer of a major defence manufacturer, and explain my views? If he were to change his mind as a result, wouldn’t he just be replaced? What difference do individual changes really make?

First, consider the seeds of doubt. Say you have held an implacable view on some subject for decades. Then a person whom you respect puts the opposite view; this is done with authority, erudition and maybe a touch of humour. You begin, internally, to reflect. Even though you may in the eyes of the world continue to hold our watertight position, there is a different process going on inside. "Well, maybe there is another way of looking at it." This seed lodges somewhere in our consciousness, and soon enough you may read or hear something which reinforces it, ‘waters’ it, allows it to grow.
You may even have an unexpected conversation with a colleague who dares, cagily at first, to voice similar doubts. Then there is the famous ‘hundredth monkey effect’. This is a true story that occurred in the 1950s. Zoologists observed that some monkeys on the island of Koshima had discovered how to wash sand off the sweet potatoes they ate. At a certain point, this new way of doing things caught on with a majority of monkeys on that island. At the same time, researchers reported monkeys on another island hundreds of miles away picking up the same idea. There was and is no geographical, political or biological explanation for this phenomenon; some people prefer to call it ‘an idea whose time has come’.
Here is an example, not of monkeys, but in the world of decision-making. In Britain in 1984 a group of professional people began writing to a Field Marshal in the army, a man at the top of his profession with responsibilities for nuclear weapons. For three years they continued to write to him, expressing their views politely and eloquently, but receiving only the most cursory of replies. When this man moved on to the House of Lords, his maiden speech expressed almost verbatim what this group had been saying. They immediately wrote to congratulate him, and were invited to sherry. He told them that when he was a full-time soldier he could not acknowledge the validity of their point of view, as it had gradually dawned on him. But when expressed by someone of his standing in the Upper House, this changed view shook many of his fellow peers, and contributed to weakening of faith in the concept of deterrence which eventually became apparent in a speech by the Defence Minister in 1994.

Whether at a conscious or unconscious level, the very fact of seeing or talking to a person who calmly represents views opposite to your own, affects you. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you pause. On the surface you may simply think "Get out of my way", but somewhere deep down a small voice says "Oh. This person disapproves of what I am doing and cares enough to come here and show me."

You may make a joke of it, brush it off, scorn it, but it's there, lodged in our psyche.
People from inside NATO, ministries of defence, the army, navy and air force have all confirmed that this is what happens:
"News from outside like this is welcome. Visits like yours are rare. This is really the only way we get to hear new opinions."
(Senior NATO official )

"I really enjoyed this conversation...rarely get the chance to, er, debate these kind of issues, and, er, as you see we don't always agree among ourselves."

B. The difference between dialogue and lobbying
There is a real difference between dialogue and lobbying. The traditional lobbyist works at the decision-maker to get him or her to do something which will be to the lobbyist's advantage. The dialogue approach works with the decision-maker, engaging him or her to join in a course of action which will be to everyone's advantage.
In this work of developing dialogue with decision-makers, we are trying to facilitate a change in attitudes and perceptions, rather than using persuasion or veiled threat to ensure a shift in policy which will be to our own material advantage. There is no personal material gain in this for you. We are purposely not operating in traditional power terms. As such we are very different from commercial lobbyists. We approach from a position of apparent weakness, and ironically this is exactly our true strength. Reasons for beliefs and motivations are often complex and it takes a great deal of effort and perception to fathom them. We enter into dialogue prepared to listen, to try and understand, and even to risk changing our own minds. We cannot expect officials to take the risk of being open with us unless we are prepared to take that risk ourselves.

C. Getting beyond the way of thinking which caused the problem in the first place
It is not possible to solve a problem using the same system of thought which generated it. We have to step outside that system of thought as well as the language which defines the system.
Here is an example of an actual conversation, which took place in 1992 with an American Major-General assigned to a senior post in NATO:

I asked him what threat NATO really faced. He launched into a lecture about ex-Soviet capability of hundreds of thousands of tanks, aircraft, rockets, “while they still have all that, we must keep up our guard”
“Yes” I said, “you're talking about their equipment, but they have no intention of invading or threatening us, have they?”
"Yes" I said, "you're talking about their equipment, but they have no intention of invading or threatening us, have they?"
"No" he agreed, "but they do have the capability."
Afterwards, when we had talked for about an hour, he said that the questions I had put about the threat were in fact the most difficult ones he faces. NATO has no plans, no mission statement, nothing prepared for any actual eventuality. NATO has all these forces, all this hardware, all this experience, and not a single plan of what to do with it. I was suprised that he wanted to go on talking to me after I had been so hard on him about this question of threat. He eventually admitted that NATO has no threat scenarios whatsoever.

Recent field work makes it abundantly clear that although UN peace-keepers worked hard to achieve their mandate in former Yugoslavia, there was no body in charge of getting the former combatants into a process of reconciliation, structural change, and peaceful co-existence. Jan Oberg, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research1, noted presciently in 1993:
The UN keeps the peace, but how will future violence be prevented when the peace-keepers have to withdraw? At the present there are no local, regional or international efforts that aim at the real peace-making: changing the structures and perceptions that led to war in the first place.2
Real change comes when people are enabled to use their thinking and their energy in new way, using a different system of thought, different language, and having fresh visions of the future. Even with entrenched domination power systems, it is important to remember that any different action, if it is sustained, brings about change.
Domination is a system, and we are part of it, and in that lies hope. For any system is always in delicate balance, dependent for its stability on feedback from its parts. When the feedback changes, so does the system. At first it reacts to regain its stability, but if the new feedback is sustained, the system will be transformed
This is the key, and it goes right to the heart of the fundamental changes in perception which must take place.

1. Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Vegagetan 25, S-223, 57 Lund, Sweden. Tel: 46 46 145909 Fax: 46 46 144512.
2. Oberg, Jan "Conflict Mitigation in Former Yugoslavia" in Peace Review: Vol. 5, No4, Winter 1993, p428.
3.This quotation is from Starhawk, Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery, New York: Harper Collins, 1990.

Step 2: The Basic Research To Find Your Decision-Maker

One of the strengths of the decision-making approach to change is that by identifying and concentrating on one decision-maker, you can become expert on his or her area of influence, rather than needing to know about the entire subject. But first you need to identify the people who do have influence on decisions on the subject you care about. Clearly you don't want to waste valuable time presenting well thought out new proposals to someone who has no power.

A. Get an idea of where decisions originate
You will need to have, or construct, some sort of organisation chart showing where the problem lies. If, for example, you are concerned about pollution caused by road traffic, then it will be possible to draw up a chart to include all the various actors. In this case it presumably includes the government departments responsible for taxation of vehicles and gasoline, the road haulage associations, the oil companies, the vehicle manufacturers, the government transport department, and so on. Try to develop your chart so that you can begin to see who affects whom.

B. Find out who does what
All government departments have their own internal organisational charts, often referred to as wiring diagrams. Write in and request such a chart or try finding one on the government’s website. When you have identified the positions of the policy-makers you feel are important, the next step is to call up and ask for the name of the person in that position. Sometimes, if you explain that you are interested in writing to the person and would like to know more about his / her responsibilities, a helpful secretary will send you press clippings or a biography of the person.
In the case of the commercial corporations, call and ask for the annual report, which will undoubtedly give the names of the CEO, the Chairman and Directors. But you may find that you are more interested in the science advisor to the corporation, or the development manager. You simply ask for that person's name, get through to their secretary, and check if their responsibilities include what you are interested in. In the case of trade associations, you can pursue a similar course.
At all times it is best to be up front and say that you are concerned about issue "x", and want to brief yourself as fully as possible, and you believe that Mr or Ms "y" will be able to help you.

Step 3: Be Aware Of Assumptions

The views of decision-makers (as of us all) are based on deep-rooted assumptions about the world and even about human nature. These assumptions are rarely revealed in official publications, but without knowing what they are, it is impossible to test the validity of decision-makers’ arguments, nor to know what kind of debate with them is likely to be fruitful or effective. During 1987-8, a series of in-depth interviews of a representative selection of nuclear weapons decision-makers in Britain, France and NATO was carried out by O.R.G and the results analysed to discover the main assumptions held. They were as follows:

Nuclear weapons are not qualitatively different from conventional weapons
Decision-makers in all the nuclear nations are rational and in control of the weapons
Because decision-makers are rational it is assumed that the system of deterrence as a whole works rationally and is stable
Indeed, it is so stable that any change is dangerous and it should remain unaffected, in particular, by any reduction in the perceived threat

A good deal of the argument about nuclear weapons ignores the assumptions made by both proponents and opponents. This is because assumptions are, to a greater or lesser extent, hidden from view. They may be starting points in a chain of reasoning, not elaborated because they seem obvious or uncontentious, or because they may never have been fully articulated by the decision-maker. An example is the assumption that different ideologies are the source of conflict and threat between nations. Assumptions may also be unstated links in a chain of reasoning: for example, between the premise that our enemies have nuclear weapons and the conclusion that therefore we must have nuclear weapons, lie a host of assumptions, one of which is that nuclear weapons are the best form of defence against nations possessing nuclear weapons.
Assumptions may also be hidden in the use of images, analogies and metaphors, for example, by justifying the possession of nuclear weapons as an ‘insurance policy’. The analogy assumes that the possession of nuclear weapons creates no risk for the possessor, just as the payment of an insurance premium creates no risk for the policy holder.
Simple omission of potentially relevant ideas may also be evidence of an assumption. In the course of the long and wide-ranging discussion of the issues surrounding nuclear weapons referred to above, only one of the decision-makers interviewed mentioned the public or public opinion at all. This suggests that most of them assume public support for, or indifference to, what they do. Most hidden of all are assumptions arising from the very structure of the decision-maker’s arguments and beliefs: the relations he or she conceives between threat and deterrence, between defence and international relations, and between the existence of conflicts and ways of resolving them. To understand the assumptions your decision-maker may make you should read any texts your decision-maker has written.
What you are doing here is fundamental; in Philip Larkin’s words, you are trying to understand ‘how you got it’.

"... Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight shut, like doors. They're more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we've got
And how we got it ..."

Step 4: The First Contact With Your Decision-Maker

Now let’s deal with the practicalities of getting in touch. The overall aim of your work is to build a dialogue with your decision-maker, and the most effective way of doing this is obviously meeting face-to-face. A letter will nearly always be the best way of making the initial contact, unless you can obtain a personal introduction, or unless you are very comfortable on the telephone.

The most effective kind of letter is one which:
Shows that you are knowledgeable and interested in the specific area for which he has responsibility
Shows that you are serious in your questioning and not aggressive in your approach
Refers to something puzzling or paradoxical to do with his area of expertise, which will gain his interest and engage his professional pride
Asks for a fuller explanation for something he said or did
Raises an issue or asks a question which cannot be answered by a ‘standard’ letter
Makes it clear what you want to discuss with him
Keeps something in reserve for a meeting or another letter

Asking for a meeting directly in the first letter may well be counterproductive: you are much more likely to get a positive response once you have established your credibility.
Above all the thing to avoid is a letter which merely states your views. That encourages a response which merely disagrees and adds that in the light of that there is no point in meeting or continuing the correspondence.
From experience it is a good idea to try and decide the line or angle to take in your initial approach to the decision-maker before embarking on the first letter. This is an important decision, and to make a good one you need to have a pretty clear grasp of what his position is, and to devote a bit of time exclusively to making the decision.
You will need to decide, too, how to represent yourselves to him/her , whether as members of a citizen's group or as a group of professionals, or just as individuals. Neither is right or wrong, but each has implications for how your decision-maker will perceive your approach and to some extent how you perceive your own position. Once established these are difficult to change.

When you come to write the first letter, you may consider it hard to write a letter collectively. Groups with more than three or four members would find it easier to ask one or two to prepare a draft, along the lines already agreed, which could then be polished or changed. Even if the letter which emerged was very different from the draft, it is easier to start with that than with a blank sheet of paper.

To suggest that a dialogue should always be unemotional, rational and logical would be to defy human nature. Encouraging the expression of an emotion and its acceptance as part of the dialogue would seem a worthwhile goal. One of the advantages of a dialogue by correspondence is that it gives the participants time to ponder the ways in which they express themselves more thoughtfully and put them into words with more care.
Here follow the text of two sample letters used in dialogue with decision-makers in Britain. The first is to a scientist:

Dear
The signatories to this letter are a group of physicians living in south-east London, who share a concern about the medical effects of radioactive discharges from the production of fissile materials. We are writing to you because we are sure that someone with the responsibilities of your position would share our concern and may have a perspective which could enlarge our own.

We are aware of the extent of the debate over the incidence of leukaemia clusters in the vicinity of fissile material fabrication plants, and have become familiar with the data produced by the various bodies concerned.
The reason for this present letter, however, is the information contained in the latest report by the Health and Safety Executive of xxxx, dated xxxx. Paragraphs 2 and 3 raise questions of particular concern to us as physicians, and which we feel are not fully answered in the report issued by the Health Officer of your plant last month.
May we say that we appreciate the fact that this report was issued and made public, and the extensive research undertaken by your department which forms the basis for its conclusions. Nevertheless, we would appreciate some clarification as to the issues raised in paras. 2 and 3 mentioned above.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely, (Signatures of 6 members of the group)

The second letter is to the chief executive officer of a major defence
contractor:

Dear
I am a shareholder in your company and I am distressed to read in last week’s copy of Jane’s Defence Weekly that the company has negotiated a contract with the government of Chile to supply plant to build missile systems.
At present, as you are undoubtedly aware, our own government severely restricts export licences for these missile systems; in other words, there is some form of control as to which countries may receive them. My concern is that the present regime in Chile is disposed to export armaments indiscriminately. If a plant to build these missile systems goes ahead in Chile, it seems inevitable that the missiles themselves will end up in countries where conflict is already latent, and could escalate the threat considerably, not only to their neighbours, but to the West as well.
No doubt this issue has been discussed in detail at Board level. In the first instance, I would be grateful if you could acquaint me with the nature of this discussion, as I am interested in your views and those of your fellow directors.
Yours sincerely,

A common experience is that at some point you personally or the group feel stuck - perhaps the decision-maker has written another bland and negative reply, perhaps your meeting with him ended in angry incomprehension, perhaps you keep getting piles of information from his organisation’s public relations department in reply to your letters. At this point it could help to talk through the problem with an informed outsider; this can give a new and important perspective on what has happened, and help you to learn from your experience.

Step 5: Take Care Of Your Own Anger

It is also worth being aware of the anger many of us feel about the state of the world. There is no doubt that anger can at times have a salutary effect upon those at whom it is directed. When and under what circumstances it can be an effective mode of expression in correspondence is a difficult question. A flood of angry letters will certainly have an impact on anyone, but it may also have other effects that are counterproductive in the long run, such as producing fear and resentment. Perhaps it is sufficient here to say that if your interest is in engaging the person in a dialogue, anger should be expressed sparingly and accompanied by other things that might offset the defensiveness it is likely to engender.
Another danger is that activists can tend to get wound up in a spiral of things that have to be done; deadlines which have to be met, mailings which have to go out, contacts which have to be made, people who have to be seen, not to mention piles of stuff which has to be read, until you are just one mass of “have-to's”. There are never enough competent people to help, never enough time, and not much real satisfaction. It's all being done with the finest of intentions, and yet there is little time for joy in it. Not a lot of laughs. No time to breathe. Certainly no time to reflect, to get a bit of distance and perspective. In Thomas Merton’s words:
"...there is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by non-violent methods most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful."
Some activists are seeing this now and giving themselves nourishment and some space. Some insist on clowns at their annual general meetings; the SEVA Foundation has a clown called Wavy Gravy on its board of directors, and makes anyone who uses the word ‘serious’ wear a Groucho Marx nose and glasses. Joy then creeps back into the work, and on its tail comes creativity.
It is important also that the means used in this work should be the same as the ends. Herein lies a gem of a principle. It is that to arrive at your goal you must use the methods which are true of that goal. In other words your means must be of the same character and the same quality as your end. For example, if what you are seeking is a world without weapons of mass destruction, it is no good going into a discussion armed to the teeth and using facts like ammunition. The more the methods are true of the goal, the faster and more effectively the goal will be reached.

Step 6: What To Do If....

When you receive a reply to your first letter or contact, or if no reply is forthcoming, here are some suggestions as to how to proceed:

1. If you receive a standard letter which has not dealt with the specific points that you raise, you could either:
Write to the decision-maker again thanking them for their letter, but pointing out that it does not attend at all to your concern, and repeat your points, or:
If the letter is from a public relations person, reply to the author of the letter insisting that the points you raise should be dealt with by the person responsible.
Remember:
That it may be necessary for you to establish your credibility by keeping on writing good letters. It is more likely that in this way you will progress from getting standard letters to getting serious ones which involve the writer in really thinking about the points you raise.

2. If you have received a standard letter which has dealt with your points, but in generalities, then:
You will need to research your material further and come up with more specific issues;
You could send your decision-maker a document or proposal outlining an alternative approach to the problem, and asking for his comments.

3. If he doesn’t answer your letter:
It is best to start with a reminder, and if you get no reply to that, make a telephone call. It is reasonable to ask the switchboard for the name of the secretary, so that you can address that person by name. Secretaries are good at screening the boss from unwelcome calls. If you cannot get through to them ("he’s / she’s tied up in a meeting") you can ask for a convenient time to ring, and try then.

4. If after several letters you receive one which is intended to end the correspondence:
You could examine it carefully for some point which offers a fresh perspective, and there usually is one;
You should keep on writing anyway. A sustained series of well informed letters will have an effect, even if they do not generate a reply. One of your letters may provide an argument or piece of information just when and where it is needed.

5. If you receive a reply referring you to some other authority:
You should follow up that line asking precisely the same questions, saying by whom you have been referred, and why. By pursuing this referral until you get a satisfactory answer, you will be following the line of accountability to find out who is ultimately responsible. It is a very good idea to continue to send copies of your letters and the replies you receive to your original decision-maker. It lets him know how the rest of the system functions, and will raise his awareness of the question of accountability.

Civil servants or officials may wish to refer you to the elected government minister. If this happens you could write again expressing clearly your need for information from the person to whom you originally wrote.

6. If you receive a terse brush-off, either:
You will need to reply with a valid reason why he should attend to the concerns expressed in your earlier letters; for example, you may need to raise the issue of accountability or make your points very much more specific, or:
You could write to or interview your representative in Parliament or Congress on the same points, making sure you send copies of this correspondence to your decision-maker.

7. If his objection is that his work is confidential:
You could ask him to rephrase your question in a way that would protect the confidentiality, or:
You could shift the debate to the context of his work, rather than the content.

8. If letters do not work, and you still want to meet him, there may be other ways of making contact:
You may be able to find out about a public meeting he is addressing or attending;
You could invite him to a lecture given by an expert on a relevant topic and arrange to meet him afterwards over dinner with the lecturer;
If he is an industrialist you can get access to the Annual General Meeting of his company by buying a few shares in it. At the meeting shareholders have a right to ask questions, and that might enable you to make your points or may lead to a personal contact with him after the meeting;
You could find out if he is giving evidence at a parliamentary committee meeting or public hearing which you as members of the public are entitled to attend;
Make enquiries as to whether he is a member of a regular discussion group on the issue in question which includes members of other disciplines, such as the church or academe, of which you can also become a member and attend meetings.

Step 7: Non-Confrontational Communication

Now that a meeting with the decision-maker is on the cards, you need to be well aware of how much can go wrong, or right, in the actual quality of communication taking place between you and your decision-maker. As a reminder, here are a number of common sense hints about communication which can make the difference between dialogue (where an exchange takes place) and mutual monologue (where nothing changes).

1. Listening
You are well aware that listening is the most important skill for understanding others, and that what is not said (or said by the body) is as important as what is verbalised. Equally, during arguments, when you are apparently listening to other people, much of what is said may not be taken on-board. The decision-maker will have his own set of attitudes, beliefs and values, and you will only engage with him by responding precisely to these - not by responding to some identikit version of what you think he thinks.

Therefore, before a meeting you must try as far as possible to put yourselves into the decision-maker’s shoes.
Furthermore, the more you really listen the more he will reveal: it is easy to learn if the other party to a conversation is always telling you what he or she thinks. But real listening is risky:
“It takes a great deal of security to go into a deep listening experience because you open yourself up to be influenced. You become vulnerable. It’s a paradox, in a sense, because in order to have influence, you have to be influenced. That means you have really to understand.”4

2. Agreeing
There will be areas of agreement between you; you are after all members of the same society and culture. Of course they may only be skin deep, but they are not unimportant. Particularly in the early stages of contact with the decision-maker, it will pay to emphasise areas of agreement rather than get too quickly to the underlying conflict of opinion. Establishing something you have in common first will make subsequent disagreements easier to discuss. It might help to think of the discussions as trying to widen the areas of agreement rather than narrow the areas of disagreement.

3. Disagreeing
It is always potentially difficult to disagree with someone at the same time as maintaining the momentum of conversation. All too often the opposing parties quickly dig themselves deep into irreconcilable positions. One way of avoiding this is as follows. Whenever you wish to respond negatively to what someone else has said, you start by saying waht you agree with, then
go on to the contentious part. Disagreements can escalate by going too quickly to one's fundamental position; you should rather take it step by step, challenge each idea as if it were a self-contained one, and see where the steps lead at the end. It is true that approaching disagreements in this way may lead you to change your mind about some issues, but the same is true for the decision-maker. You probably will not get real discussion unless you are prepared to conceive that you might change your minds on at least some aspects of the whole subject.

4. Language
You need to express your requests as clearly and assertively as possible without expressing them as demands. A characteristic of a demand is that it is often accompanied by an attempt to make the other person feel shame or guilt, and it is always counterproductive. Likewise, language which obscures choice, using words like "have to", "must", "ought" and the like, is destined to provoke a negative response.

5. Implicit assumptions
It is a very common experience in a conversation to be led along by a train of thought or argument. Somehow you can't disagree with any particular part of it, but you know you don't like what you are agreeing to and feel trapped. What is often going on is that the sequence is based on an assumption (possibly one of the ones mentioned above) that you do not agree with, but which is never made explicit. The best way out of the trap is to identify the assumption, and shift the discussion to its merits. In the heat of the moment, it can be quite hard to pinpoint the assumption. In this case, the decision-maker may be asked to state it - even if his or her formulation doesn't seem quite right, it still shifts the conversation to a different level.
Here is a description of a meeting with a senior official in the British Foreign Office in 1991, in which efforts were made to do this. The subject under discussion was arms export.

There is something very ‘smiley’ about this man, as if he wants to please all the time, but it belies a determination and rigidity underneath which you glimpse occasionally with a shock, like seeing a shark in the calm blue waters of the Mediterranean. Quite early in the discussion, we pointed out that what he was saying was all based on the assumption:“We all want to sell as many arms as we can, however there are some instances where we can’t.” He didn’t seem to have recognised that there could have been another starting point, namely: “How can we do what we have to do (foreign policy goals, support of British industry, etc.) at the same time as selling fewer arms?”
For a moment, he stopped to consider this, but was then off into the detail again. We asked him which body was in a position to take a global, holistic few of the arms trade and its consequences, worldwide. He briefly considered the EC and the UN, but changed the subject back to the United Kingdom having had “a pretty responsible policy on arms exports - we didn’t export to Iran or Iraq - and the Saudi sales are good business, not damaging to stability.” (At the time the United Kingdom was the third biggest arms exporter in the world.)
We challenged this on the same grounds, that he was seeing the problem only from a national point of view. We asked him again who in Britain was capable of seeing the problem from a larger point of view. He eventually suggested the Treasury “They’ve done some back of the envelope stuff, I think”.
After three tries, the idea of a global view of the problem was just beginning to make some impression on him.

6. Shaping the conversation
How this is done depends on what you want out of the contact. You must be very clear about the goal of the meeting. Is it to establish a relationship, gain information, or raise questions? If you simply want answers to specific questions, it is easy. If you really want to discuss, debate or challenge, then you will have to be in control of the conversation and steer it towards the points you want to make.
The main elements of this strategy are:
a) The opening statement. The main purpose of this is to limit the conversation to the territory you have chosen; to set the ground rules for what follows. It is a good idea to keep it short and end it with a question which (hopefully) will set him or her off, and off in the right direction.
b) The single main point. As the conversation develops, you should try to look for opportunities to relate what he or she is saying to that point. You should try to think of different ways of putting it and different examples of it.
c) The closing statement. Much depends on how the conversation has gone, but you should think of including: areas of agreement, your main point, a reference to something you have learnt from him or her and/or what you want to think more about, and some unresolved issue which you might talk about in the future. You might say you are going to come back on something that’s been said, and ask him or her likewise to consider your main point.

Step 8: Preparing To Meet With A Decision-Maker

It is important to work out a strategy for the meeting in advance, and to make sure that you are well prepared. A way of doing this is to work through the following list of questions, jot down your answers, then look at the comments and suggestions which follow. Referring back to these answers after the meeting can help make improvements for any future contact.
What do you hope to achieve in the first meeting?
Where shall you hold the meeting?
How many of you should attend?
What should you say first?
What issues or topics do you want to ask questions about?
What will be the answers to those questions?
What is the single main point you want to make?
How will you record what is said?
How will you end the meeting?

1. What do you hope to achieve in the first meeting?
It is easy to forget that one important objective is to build some kind of relationship with the decision-maker which will enable you to increase your influence in the future. At the very least you want to keep the door open for a further meeting.

2. Where shall you hold the meeting?
People definitely feel safer in their own offices, but a less business-like atmosphere can be created on more neutral territory.

3. How many of you should attend?
If more than three go, you run the risk that they will feel swamped and that the dialogue lacks any thread or development. Fewer than two runs the risk that there is no help available if you cannot think of an answer or miss an obvious point.

4. What should you say first?
Normally people expect some fairly bland chat before getting down to specifics: anything else is perceived as hostile. Following this, it is a good idea to make a brief initial statement, outlining the specific area you want to talk about. This can focus the discussion in the area you have chosen.

5. What issues or topics do you want to ask questions about?
What you are trying to establish is the subject matter of the conversation and the line of approach you want to take through it. Once you have this clear it will be much easier to formulate some specific questions. You will need to spend some time devising the kind of questions which will get the conversation going in the right direction, leaving the more precise questions which require more careful thought until later. It would be wise to prepare at least ten questions: the conversation may flow like wine, but it may become a stilted question and answer session which can become very antagonistic. If your view is dismissed, while the decision-maker asserts his own, you could try this: say "it is clear you are only able to discuss your viewpoint at this meeting. That’s quite a sensible way to go about it, as long as we arrange another meeting when you can hear ours."
In preparing your questions, you should also consider the following:
will your questions allow ambiguous or uninformative answers? Is it clear what will constitute an answer to them? Is he really in a position to answer them so far as you can tell? ("You really should ask old so-and-so that one" is a real conversation stopper.) Are you getting into secret or confidential areas?

6. What responses to your questions do you expect, and what will be your reaction to those responses?
There are likely to be two main types of responses from the decision-maker:
a) rationalisations of what he is doing, and
b) re-statements of the well known lines of argument.
Prepare ways in which you can meet such responses. Humour is a good way to move the conversation on towards more substance.

7. What is the single main point you want to make?
In a half hour meeting it is wise to consider that you will only succeed in getting one main point across. Having that point clearly in your mind will help you to avoid red herrings, getting caught in swapping numbers ("no, no, we’ve only got 16,000 warheads") and being thrown on the defensive. It might be quite an indirect main tion and concentrate on remembering key points (and jot them down as fast as they can as soon as you are out of the room). If he doesn’t object, you should take as full a record as you can - something which seems unimportant at the time may turn out to be very interesting indeed or useful later. In fact, sending a résumé of your notes after the meeting can be a good way of deepening the dialogue.

9. How will you end the meeting?
If time is running out or conversation is drawing to a close, it’s better to lose a few minutes in order to wind it up yourselves rather than get pushed out in mid-sentence. If he closes it, you should make a brief final statement. It is always a good idea to try and leave one issue unresolved, one topic which has been touched on but not discussed; it can be the reason for, and a starting point, of another meeting.

Step 9: Following Up The Meeting And Evaluation

You will need to think hard about how to deal with any potential media coverage for any dialogue you may undertake. A local newspaper, radio or TV station may hear about your activities and want to report them, and it is well to be prepared for this. In deciding how to handle an approach, it would be helpful if the group debated the following questions:

Will publicity help or hinder what you want to achieve?
Are any members unhappy about being publicly known to be working
on the project?
Do you think the publicity would hinder other groups doing the same work?
While you discuss these issues it is worth remembering that you have absolutely no control over what is published, or the use that is made of it. Sentences may be taken out of context or put into an inappropriate one; comment which seems to you to be unfair and misleading can be added, etc. Any reply you may want to make will be at the editor’s discretion and rarely has the force of the original piece. If you do decide to talk to the press, it may be worth recording the interview.
Finally it is worth remembering that you may be able to use the press to help you. After you have been working on the project for some time you will have a good deal of information which you may want to share with a wider audience - either by briefing a journalist, or writing an article for a newspaper or magazine yourselves. Before you do so, it might be as well to check to see whether or not this kind of activity is consistent with your overall goals.

Confidential Information
Information given in confidence does carry some more (and often legal) obligation to respect that confidentiality. In theory, (though this varies by country), you can be prevented from disclosing it, and be made to pay compensation if you do so. In practice, you should ask yourselves:
Would disclosure be taking unfair advantage of the person who gave you the information?
Is the information sufficiently serious for anyone to object strongly to disclosure?

Evaluating Your Work
This is much easier to do if you have set out with a very clear goal such as having one meeting with a particular decision maker. Evaluating the effect of the dialogue approach is not easy in that it takes time, and any change in policy is very hard to directly attribute to a specific meeting or correspondence with a decision-maker. However it is important to keep a record of what you set out to achieve and to constantly review with your group what you are doing. The Oxford Research Group would appreciate feedback related to the procedures outlined in this booklet, and would like to know of dialogues which you initiate.

Step 10: Remember That Change Is Possible….

When faced with world problems - like hunger, overpopulation, nuclear weapons, the arms trade - you may be among those who are overwhelmed by a feeling of "Help! What on earth can I, just one person, do about this?". Take heart. That's a sane response. It's the basis for a whole new attitude to world problems. Because change at the level of the individual is more and more being recognised as essential to change in huge world systems. Here are the observations of two people who have thought hard about change from their particular perspective - one is a biologist, and one is a Buddhist:

“Although attempting to bring ab“To the extent that our future survival is due to our own behaviour - our own adaptiveness - ... we have the option to rethink our ideas about what kinds of human behaviour and human cultural institutions are adaptive.”
(Mary Clarke)

Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way. Wherever I go, I express this and I am encouraged that people from many different walks of life receive it well. Peace must first be developed within an individual. And I believe that love, compassion, and altruism are the fundamental basis for peace. Once these qualities are developed within an individual, he or she is then able to create an atmosphere of peace and harmony. This atmosphere can be expanded and extended from the individual to his family, from the family to the community and eventually to the whole world.”
(H. H. The Dalai Lama)

While there are plenty of books, newspaper articles and television programmes that question the big issues, they lack the force of direct personal contact and specific application to a decision-maker’s work. It is all to easy to shrug them off as orchestrated, or inapplicable to him or her.
What the dialogue approach does is to link an interconnected web of concerned citizens person-to-person with those individuals in whose hands rest the decisions on our future. It offers the potential for change to take place not only at an individual level but on a vast scale, literally throughout the world.

Oxford Research Group
O.R.G. was established in 1982 to carry out research into the structures and processes of nuclear-weapon decision-making in NATO and the then Warsaw Pact, in the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, France and China, on which it has published extensively. Its research agenda subsequently expanded to include secrecy and accountability, arms export control, military R&D in Europe, conflict resolution, new nuclear weapons, the control of fissile material and nuclear proliferation issues. It has conducted studies for the United Nations University and the United States Institute of Peace, and carried out a commission by the European Parliament to report on possible future security structures in Europe.
O.R.G. arranges consultations between groups of policy-makers and independent experts, to discuss the priority issues of nuclear disarmament in the context of larger and longer-term security questions facing the international community. It fosters dialogue between those who hold differing views on nuclear issues, always with a view to building bridges of understanding.
We have published on all stages of nuclear weapons production in the former Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, France and China, examined the roles of scientists in weapons laboratories, intelligence analysts, military strategists, defence contractors and procurement officials, as well as inter-service rivalry and foreign policy formulation. Our expanded publishing programme has included studies into arms export control, military research & development, conflict resolution, new nuclear weapons, the control of fissile materials, proliferation issues and global security. We disseminate our findings through seminars, consultations, reports and papers. We publish with a leading British defence publisher, and produce a series of Current Decision Reports for a broad spectrum of readers.
We arrange consultations between decision-makers from all the nuclear-weapon states and individual experts, to address specific obstacles in the way of nuclear disarmament. We foster dialogue between those who hold differing views on nuclear issues, always with a view to building bridges of understanding.
Oxford Research Group is an independent team of researchers and support staff, which is privileged to call upon the knowledge and skills of top specialists all over the world for commissioned research. Our policy is to make accurate information available on a process which is often obscure and unaccountable to democratic controls. The Group has no political affiliations or interests and does not campaign.
We are a public company limited by guarantee, registered as a charity. Our activities and direction are guided by a Council of Advisers. Our funding is dependent on the support of foundations, charities and private individuals in Britain, Europe and the United States. O.R.G. jealously guards its independence, which enables it to make decisions fast and respond to current issues without bureaucratic impediments. Over the years we have earned a reputation among our funders for giving high value for money invested in us, and for consistently achieving objectives and deadlines.

Oxford Research Group’s Core Staff

Frank Barnaby Consultant & Scientific Adviser
Janet Bloomfield Fundraiser
Peter Ellis Company Secretary
Scilla Elworthy Director
Rosie Houldsworth Conference Organiser
Paul Ingram Researcher
Emma McGuinness Assistant to the Director
Nick Ritchie Research Assistant
Tony Thomson Office Administrator

Contacting Oxford Research Group
Address: 51 Plantation Road, Oxford, OX2 6JE, UK
Telephone: +44 (0)1865 242819
Fax: +44 (0)1865 794 652
E-mail: org@oxfrg.demon.co.uk
Web Site: http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/

More resources for dialogue:
“Abolition 2000 - Handbook for a World Without Nuclear Weapons”, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - 126 Rogers Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 USA.