06 July 2010

The strategies summarized here are derived from several sources – surveys of many state and national members by the Herndon Alliance, case studies of groups that have successfully engaged small businesses and the experiences of Small Business Majority nationally and in California.

Engagement - Best Practices Summary

Respondents reported a wide range of "Best Practices" to engage and collaborate with businesses and business groups. Amongst the most frequently mentioned as successful were:

• Understand business and their perspectives
• Use effective language to communicate, not 'lefty speak'
• 'Peer to peer' and 'one on one' approaches work best
• Using a trusted intermediaries such as a business contact or elected leader to build connections
• Indirect methods such as polls and forums have worked to open the door and build relationships
• Reasons of self interest not moral arguments are effective
• Find ways to make business comfortable in order to build trust

Best Practices Detail

Peer to peer contact works because it relies on trusted and credible relationships, people that are able to talk the business language and people that know how to best frame the conversation. This requires identifying those individuals in your network that already have entrée to the business community.

One on one contact has proven to be a successful engagement method for many groups. This requires more of a grass roots campaign that entails time and resources. No one has found a business hierarchy that can be tapped to build buy-in from a broad array of the business community.

As a starting point to engaging and dialoguing with businesses on health care keep in mind that they want positive public relations in the community and want to be seen as a good corporate citizen that is part of the solution.

A respectful approach It is helpful to understand that businesses are victims of a broken health care system, are tired of being beaten up and are sensitive to being blamed. Owners, CEOs and Managers want to do the right thing but have become trapped in a race to the bottom through no fault of their individual company. They did not become owners, entrepreneurs and employers because they wanted to shrink benefits to their employees.....on the contrary they dreamed of being a company producing an exceptional product or service, having a company they could be proud of and having great employees. Most employers think of their employees as extended family and see their employees as valuable and critical to their competiveness and success.

CEOs are short on time and very busy. Groups found going direct to business owners and managers at their workplace and making short, concise and accurate presentations was effective. Long speeches, conferences and forums are not mediums that business leaders will endure or find appealing.

Real involvement and partnership are required in building a working relationship with small businesses on health care issues. Business leaders need to feel and believe they are genuinely involved in crafting principles, strategies and action steps on health care – not just signing up and endorsing a pre-set agenda.

Contact by someone with a non-partisan reputation increases effectiveness.

Successfully engaging the business community requires a lengthy campaign with substantive financial resources.

Collaborative projects were used by many organizations to build trust and relationships:

• Polls and surveys of the business community on health care
• Sharing polls and surveys to build business consensus
• Building councils of motivated passionate business leaders
• Disseminating newsletters to the business community
• Informative and relevant educational forums

The organizations found the most success with bite size action steps with broad consensus on health care system change to build trust and deepen relationships.

Identifying and utilizing "champions" within the business organization who were passionate about health care issues was a strong entree. In general, most business groups are relatively risk-averse and unlikely to take a leadership role on health reform unless one of their members pushes them from the inside.

Keep business leaders engaged and build the relationship – avoid asking business owners to listen to long speeches of others, to attend conferences and lengthy meetings. If you do – you will risk losing them – they are very busy and focused on their core business.

Direct action items which are bottom-line and results oriented will keep businesses involved. Business leaders are decision makers that exist in fast moving and competitive worlds. In larger companies CEOs count on their staff to bring them well researched, documented and concise decision documents that they can rapidly act on. Small business owners will look to advocates for the same.