The political world has a great impact - from environmental and social standards to public investment decisions and rules for businesses. Today, the Public Affairs and policymaking landscape is dominated by narratives, actors, and strategies of an extractive economy. Holistic responses to our interconnected crises, as well as sustainability advances in key policy areas risk marginalization by narrow and short-minded interests. Against that background, how can sustainable and regenerative forces practice more transformative ways of approaching power?

"From a militaristic mindset and language requiring war tactics to a bias towards decontextualised facts leading to poor decision-making wisdom – the Public Affairs sector today may contribute to the challenges it is supposed to tackle." Jean-Philippe Steeger

We know that we can’t solve a problem with the same way of thinking that created it in the first place, Einstein reminds us. In the Public Affairs world, there is however a great monoculture of people, thought and practice. Many of today’s lobbying strategies were inspired by the tobacco industry script – “fabricating” scientific truths, shifting the focus of the debate, up to blaming others. Whether a business, an NGO, or a professional federation, there is little variety in the nature of lobbying, influencing, and campaigning. From a militaristic mindset and language (strategy, targeting, positioning etc.) requiring war tactics to a bias towards decontextualised facts leading to poor decision-making wisdom – the sector today may contribute to the challenges it is supposed to tackle.

While evidence-based advocacy has become dominant to make more rational decision-making, we see the opposite happening today. Lies, confusing narratives, fear-mongering and other dirty PR tricks lead not only to disinformation, but primarily to disengagement, fear, aggression, and (silent) resignation. Together with a generally decreasing attention span in our communication age, this makes it extra difficult to bring forward a positive vision. Not least, employees working in the area face often poor mental health, a lack of meaning at work, as well as much unrealized potential for being part of a greater mission and greater movement of change beyond traditional silos.

Which potential could regenerative communications unleash by bringing more aliveness, alignment and meaningfulness into Public Affairs and policy-making more largely? What is the role of different stakeholders in becoming part of a regenerative story that moves beyond a toxic status-quo? And which concrete communication pathways are opening when we recognize the need for more consciousness, creativity, and compassion? How could that impact policy reports, policy events, stakeholder alliances or policy journalism?

Key challenges of policy communications and public affairs today

• Aliveness beyond morbidity: While the diversity of interests and arguments expressed in policymaking can seem enormously complex, the patterns are often similar. From lobbying strategies to dominant narratives adopted by different groups of stakeholders – many communications are exclusive, repetitive, disconnected from reality, up to dehumanizing and morbid. The “ghosts of the past” seem to be back. This leaves little (head and heart) space to those that actually have something to say.

• Standing out beyond monotony: With a great complexity of actors and agendas in the Public Affairs landscape, there is a need for clarifying the own role and contribution to the ecosystem. Furthermore, it can prove key to learn how to cooperate with stakeholders and allies to have visibility, create synergies, share resources, and activate greater potential. And why not be more creative in approaching lobbying?

• Meaning beyond emptiness: The same kinds of events, arguments, and narratives often come back in slightly different shapes. With the frequent fragmentation and misalignment between policy-areas, there is a lack in a coherent, meaningful, and shared narrative that can bring agendas and actors together. Today, everyone speaks about “ambition”, but little happens. Adjusting policy communications and PR to a powerful and shared narrative that inspires action can be game-changing.

• Reaching beyond the minds: While evidence-based advocacy continues to play a role, today’s age of information overload requires speaking to not only the mind, but also the heart and intuition of stakeholders. Being able to reach relevant stakeholders requires personally enlivening, meaningful, and enriching communications in fertile contexts. Within a polluted attention economy, it is key to create such enabling contexts.

• Engaging beyond exclusion: Affected groups from policy impacts are only seldomly and shallowly involved in the policy-process. If they do, selected stakeholders rarely reflect marginalized perspectives. Particularly lobbying voices by organisations of women, LGBTIQ, migrants, the Global South, youth, disabled people, SMEs, as well as creative, social, or ecological sectors are disproportionally heard. Bringing these voices in increases legitimacy, insight, and collective impact around a greater mission.

• Gathering beyond interest: Lobbyists and policymakers are people. They have values and dreams, and want to be part of a greater story that gives them meaning and energises their action. While lobbying was always also about human contact, today’s challenges additionally require honesty, passion, and courage to move beyond a destructive status-quo - together. There is a great longing for deeper conversations and more community-based ways of relating. This has implications for the design of events or alliances.

The transition towards healthier ways of practicing power also question the way we understand and talk about power. Both in political science and lobbying, there was a diversification of the understanding of power from “power over” (violence) to “knowledge as power” (evidence-based) to “power with” (participation and deliberation). If we understand politics and policy as part of larger systems, and if we recognize that nature has been systematically excluded from these approaches, then we may need a living systems approach to power that can transcend these previous ways of seeing power.

The regenerative paradigm offers important insights on how to integrate politically marginalized perspectives from nature, the feminine, indigenous wisdoms, emotional realities, and many others into healthier practices of power. Beyond reproducing past toxic patterns of lobbying and policymaking, we are invited to explore our own biases and role. Regenerative communications offer fresh pathways for clarifying and rewriting the narratives we speak from, enabling conversations that are transformational, and distilling the unique essence and contribution of leaders, organisations, and stakeholders to the policy ecosystem.

How regenerative communications can re-envision policy processes

• Shifting the policy narrativesRegenerative storytelling can be a powerful way to co-create narratives that ground policymaking in realities, bring stakeholders on board, and provide meaning and orientation. This thread translates through communication channels, policy agendas and PA activities. Beyond integrating standardized scripts, formulations, and facts, it is about expressing the unique essence of an organization. By challenging greater narratives, new allies can also emerge on the way.

• Embracing a dynamic roleRevisiting the role of your organization within the Public Affairs ecosystem implies clarifying its purpose, recalling its history, and envisioning a thriving future for the organization as part of the transition to a sustainable and regenerative economy. This is more than positioning - it is becoming a more aligned and alive version of yourself. Regenerative Branding can help to distill this unique role and essence, which can be seen as a backbone or compass for all subsequent (policy) communications.

• Empowering alliances of transformationAlliances and stakeholder networks in policymaking today usually have clearly predefined functions. What if gathering bright people from diverse backgrounds could open to greater potential? If we are to leave behind toxic notions of power, we must learn to step into the unknown. Collectively, that means learning to have conversations that can “sit with” better questions, rather than jumping to narrow solutions that create new problems. On the way, the learnings can inspire other change-makers, with positive ripple effects around your purpose.

Accounting to the reality of complex policy ecosystems, different levels of action need to be addressed. To ensure coherence, Perspectivist clarifies the Essence of an organization across six dimensions (incl. role, dream, and roots). The emerging role then informs fertile communication pathways in attention landscapes (with stakeholders, agendas, niches etc.). Lastly, Perspectivist looks at the greater picture in the form of (meta-)narratives present in policymaking processes. Integrating these three levels can make sure to ground Public Affairs success in real-world needs of communities, nature, and our personal wellbeing. Perspectivist’s regenerative communications approach integrates marginalized groups and perspectives by design. This means that potentially innovative, alternative pathways, are systematically included in client work. It should be noted that such a shift to regenerative communications requires honesty, passion, and conviction.