Setting Strategy In an Age of Uncertainty Spring 2018 1. Most Predictions Are Wrong And Will Continue To Be... Plan For That The people predicting what Trump will do next have been consistently wrong After Trump won, Slate went back and found only 11 correct public predictors of Trump’s victory:

John Fredericks, Conservative radio host from Virginia Allan Lichtman, Professor, Bill Mitchell, Human resources professional Sanjiv Rai, Tech entrepreneur Scott Adams, Dilbert creator A Russian polar bear Tom Anderson, Alaskan radio host A Chinese monkey Felix Salmon, Writer, Fusion B.E. Lewis, Kelle Sutliff, and Uversa Oumbajuah, Psychics Michael Moore, Documentary filmmaker

3 Be cautious when someone quotes you a study…

• “A painstaking, years long effort to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals has found that more than half of the findings did not hold up when retested.” -The Times, 08/27/2015

• In 2015, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, one of the best peer- reviewed journals in the world, concluded that “much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.” -The Lancet, 04/11/2015

4 2. Your Organization Needs More Systematic Information Gathering: Chaos In, Chaos Out Don’t compromise in your information gathering History is unkind to those who aren’t clear-eyed about what is happening….

Plaque at the International Spy Museum in Washington: “President Roosevelt did not learn of Japan’s plans to attack Pearl Harbor until it was too late. This was partly the result of clashing between the Army and Navy over who would monitor diplomatic messages from Japan. Finally they compromised: they would alternate even- and odd-numbered days. As a result of this inefficient system, communications broke down and valuable information about Japan’s intentions slipped through the cracks.”

6 Build systems that give you the information you need • In most cases, empower your • Building your own, new systems communications department to is doable: gather information, not just ▪ Sometimes it is a stand alone distribute it. research department • Cross-check internally, inside ▪ Sometimes it is fact-gathering reviewers can hold each other journalists on retainer accountable. • Usually it is best to share and • Use multiple sources to draw coordinate with others in your specific conclusions. field.

7 3. There Is A National Information Gap Important stories are missed; inequality and poverty example • In 2012, 16% of Americans lived in poverty, but only 0.2% of coverage in 50 major news outlets focused on poverty between 2007 and 2012. -NiemanReports, 03/12/2013

• In the ten states with the highest rates of poverty—and 20% of all Americans live below the poverty line—we couldn’t find one newspaper in any of those states with a reporter dedicated to the topic.

9 Information gaps & silos mean elites/citizens/media have different facts; opioids example • Between 2000 and 2016, more than 600,000 Americans died as result of an opioid addiction. More people died of drug overdoses in 2016—three- fourths of which were opioid related—than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War. • Yet, despite this, The New York Times and , two of the largest news sources in our country, reported around 60 stories mentioning the terms “opioid crisis” or “opioid epidemic” prior to 2016. • Once the story became part of the campaign narrative and an overall political issue, things changed. In 2016 alone, the papers printed well over 300 such stories.

10 Nonprofit journalism is working, can fill gaps

Supplementing for-profit journalism is a valid, effective approach

Some examples: • Kaiser Health News for health news • ProPublica for investigative journalism

There are other big holes to fill, find them

11 4. The Most Likely Way To Lose Is To Act Separately Strongmen: Lessons from around the world Russia “Another important strategy in Stalin’s Venezuela South Africa destruction of truth was the scapegoating of expertise.” “Populism can survive only amid “Get used to being stigmatized as ‘opposition’ –M.T. Anderson, Author, Symphony for the polarization. It works through the […] The basic idea is simple: to City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and unending vilification of a cartoonish delegitimize accountability journalism the Siege of Leningrad enemy […] Don’t feed polarization, by framing it as partisan.” disarm it. This means leaving the – Nic Dawes, former Editor-in-Chief, Mail & theater of injured decency behind.” “Russian life, I soon found out, was marked Guardian –Andrés Miguel Rondón, Venezuelan less by fear than by cynicism: the all- Economist pervasive idea that no institution is to be trusted, because no institution is bigger than the avarice of the person in charge.” – Michael Idov, Writer, New York Magazine

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did/?utm_term=.5dc5f64ca106 Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/a_lesson_for_trump_from_stalin_lies_work_up_to_a_point.html Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-poland-a-window-on-what-happens-when-populists-come-to-power/2016/12/18/083577e8-c203-11e6-92e8-c07f4f671da4_story.html?utm_term=.0fb26cb18359 Source: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/lessons-from-putins-russia-for-living-in-trumps-america.html Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-09/trump-s-victory-proves-the-u-s-is-unexceptional

13 The solution: cooperation in opposition

Utilize all resources – legacy and new: a) The reality that going it alone probably will result in failure is obvious. We are in a small window where a new willingness to hear and work with others is crucial. b) New tools, techniques, and partners have improved cooperative work between legacy organizations and new start-ups.

14 5. Beware of Chasing The Shiny Object: Fight On Your Own Ground Keep an eye on the ball

“We have to give President Donald Trump credit: He’s a master of distraction. Whenever his administration finds itself in crisis, especially one of Trump’s own making, he invariably creates some kind of diversion to draw ’s attention to a different subject” – St Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board, 03/11/2018

16 Avoid lost leverage

The Problem The Solution If you chase every crazy news Identify your audience, your story, you are not fighting on your message, and drive it. own terms and lose the chance to make your most powerful case.

17 Discussion