Overcome Opposition: Wind Ep 1 – Introduction To the Davies Method

Overcome Opposition - Wind Introduction

Mark Sylvester: John Davies has a method. An approach he systematically developed over a career spanning three decades. He's proven it to be invaluable for dozens of industries and thousands of projects facing public acceptance. Up until now, the method has only been available to his select client list. John is unpacking his insight and wealth of knowledge to overcome opposition and earn public support for the first time right here.

Throughout these episodes, we'll take a deep dive, step by step with John, into his strategies to overcome opposition and create support. Nothing is free in this world. But good ideas are priceless. This show could be just the thing you've been looking for. I'm Mark Sylvester, now let's get started and talk with John.

John, I'm thrilled that we're finally able to get your method for overcoming opposition out to the public. This has only been available within the few keynotes that you've done and through the work you’ve done with your private clients. Why did you decide now to let this method out to the world?

John Davies: Well, when I speak at conferences, people are really excited and say, "Wow, this is great!" But it's fifteen or twenty minutes, maybe a half hour at most, and most people aren't taking notes. They have nothing to take away. As an industry, the wind industry faces serious challenges. You only get one chance per community to provide a first impression for wind.

When a company goes in and does it wrong, it takes years for that to be erased. We don't have a lot of places to make mistakes as an industry, so we need to do this right. When I work with my clients, I care. I don't want someone down the street doing the same thing really badly. That impacts my client. So let's all do it right, and have a similar approach to doing it.

Mark Sylvester: There you go. Who should be listening to this show?

John Davies: Anyone who's involved in the development of a wind farm, the permitting of a wind farm. You know, in the industry there are all sorts of different titles. That also includes the CEO and vice presidents that need to hit certain number of megawatts that they're producing,  putting forward for their investors.

Mark Sylvester: We know why we're doing it now. We know who should be doing it. What's unique about this method?

John Davies: I think in some ways, for me, as I've told you, it seems so basic, and so right, and so simple. And it is really the décor of how I approach things. But not everyone has been doing this for 35 years.

Mark Sylvester: Right.

John Davies: Sometimes, I look at what I've been doing in all the lessons, and I've been taught by so many amazing partners that we've worked with. And working with so many good people in different industries. It's taking 35 years of experience working on projects in a variety of industries, and working with amazing people, great land planners, great architects, great landscape architects, great environmental planners and working with some of the best in the world and learning from them, and translating what they do. Bring that all together into a program. I'm basically giving you 365 times 35 years worth of experience.

Mark Sylvester: We're going to do that in 12 episodes.

John Davies: We're going to do it in 12 episodes. Because I don't think anyone wants to listen any longer and hopefully we can do these in a really quick, short manner. And if you listen through all of them, you're going to be able to walk away and do something totally different and be able to earn approval for your wind farm.

Mark Sylvester: So the Davies method. You said let's make it simple. Well, I've made it really simple. I have it in four letters. ACEB. Now, only I know what that means. Let's unpack that.

John Davies: Well, it's so funny, because that's where you and I probably disagree. I hate acronyms for things because I always mess up and transpose some of the letters, and I look like the stupid guy in the back of the room. But, there are two parts to the Davies method. One is what you just did, which is how we approach this and a philosophy. We’ve got to get that down as an underpinning of foundation before we can start unpacking the strategy to reach out and to talk to people and get them to your side.

First, in your ACEB acronym is acknowledge. Acknowledge that there will be impacts from doing something. Whatever we do, we have an impact. And then contrast. Immediately contrast the impact of doing something, which we just acknowledged, with the impact of not doing something.The impact of building a wind farm is, you're going to see the visual of a wind turbine. The impact of not building a wind farm is, we’re going to get the energy from something else that isn't as environmentally friendly. Or, that we're not going to have the benefits into the community of having the wind farm. And then we embrace and engage.

This is where we really look at the benefits from a social and a values point of view and hold on to them. And then we bridge. We walk across this big bridge, and we get to the economic benefits. The reason we put those last, is because no one is willing to sell out their community for the economics.

Mark Sylvester: these are the four steps to this philosophy, and there are 2 parts to it. Those are the four steps to the first part, so what is the second part?

John Davies: Well, the second part is where we start unpacking it totally. We get into that, we start with listening. We then address dreams and fears through getting the message out. This is more than producing a flyer or standing around at the county fair. It's really a very strategic means of reaching out to people and dealing with them and doing it in four different ways. And we'll unpack that.

And then cultivating the relationship. And cultivating the relationship is with your landowners, but also with people in the community that are supporters. If you say, “Hey, I support you,” How do we turn you into an advocate? And then last, we ask for help. How we get those advocates and supporters to really do something and repeatly. We've had projects where we've had dozens of hearings and we’ve had the number of people come out on our side grow at every hearing. That's pretty unusual. By the way, in the era we live in, it's getting really, really hard to make an impact. So we have to take a strategic approach to it now more than ever.

Mark Sylvester: I like what you said about you get one bite at the apple.

John Davies: Yeah. It's tough because, in the wind industry, all the easy places are done. We have people out there that are doing a bad job, which taint some of the places that we need to go to. The opposition is fired-up and they've got the Internet full of materials. Ninety percent of it is false. They have Facebook pages all over the country that are negative towards wind. They join together and they're working to oppose. There are people who are funding a lot of this anti-wind movement. We can't sit still and let it happened or we're not going to win.

Mark Sylvester: For 35 years you've been in the industry one way or another, and you’ve had to overcome opposition. Even when opposition is the status quo. I need to overcome that to get somebody to do something, persuade them to do something. Is this method contrary to how marketing communication is being taught in school?

John Davies: That's a really good question. I believe it is. I worry about that how marketing communications is being taught is very tactical and not strategic. When I'm looking to hire someone, I’d much rather have them have a philosophy degree or a psychology degree than a marketing degree, or a communications degree. I'd rather have someone who has a brain and has philosophies, who understands how other people respond and react, over someone who knows how to read a market research report. We can teach that. I can't teach someone how to think.

Mark Sylvester: They say you sift or you're looking for aptitude then you train for the rest right? That's how we do that. I'm curious then, the person who's listening from a professional development point of view, this is kind of like a class.

John Davies: Well, it is. As we go along, I'll share as you remind me to I hope, some places where they can look to get more ideas and more things from some books they could look to, and some other places they could look to. How to learn more of the approach. And so, if you're really good at getting the public behind a wind farm, you're invaluable.

Mark Sylvester: I bet.

John Davies: Yeah. Think about that.

Mark Sylvester: Is there a failure rate of these initiatives?

John Davies: What is common is that when there is a lot of opposition, most wind farm developers roll. They might have four or five in the game, or maybe 20 in the game depending on how big. Or they have 50 different wind farms they're looking at, and one becomes trouble, they walk from it. The problem is that the next guy that comes in and tries to do that, it's a problem. So, we've won some really tough fights in the wind industry.And with staying power.

One of my conversations with the leadership of a company is, we get going and it starts to be a fight before we go. I meet with them face to face and say, "Are we in this to win? Or are we looking at this as one of five or six projects we're doing now? Because, if you're in it to win, we could win. But, if you're in it to just go along, I don't think it's worth spending the money or the time or the effort.”

Do you want to win? If you want to win, follow a method to win. It's going to be hard, and you're going to go through some very dark seasons. You're going to have nights where you'll go to a hearing, and maybe they're changing the wind ordinance. Well, you're going to be outnumbered with speakers because they're ugly and they're so mean. Eventually, it all turns around, you have to keep pushing forward and following this method to bring people to the table.

Mark Sylvester: I love that you have a long history of being a storyteller, so I'm really looking forward to the stories that you have to attach to these lessons. I'm curious though, where was the origin for the method? When did you figure out that this was the way to do it?

John Davies: I think it's been so many little steps. And you know, I love setting big goals and having goals that do something. But what I've discovered is when you're aiming towards a goal and you get to goal, that's great. By the end of your time it's a done deal, but when you arrive there, the goal becomes further out. The value in setting a goal is really the by-products that you get when you set a goal. Setting the goal of sharing how we do things and how we do it in early days, and mostly in the real estate industry.

I wanted to speak at some of the big national conferences and to do that, if they say yes, all of a sudden, what am I going to share? How I'm going to show how we're different? So we started laying out what our method was. The most important thing wasn't that I spoke at the conference with the method. It's that we had a method that we could teach ourselves, teach our teams. And a method to change, revise. And so it started very tactical like most things do and it became very strategic and very message focused as it evolved.

Mark Sylvester: I'm thrilled that we're able to share this with the audience and for the next number of weeks, every single week there'll be a new lesson that will go and you can find out exactly how this method has worked with really concrete examples. John, thank you so much for sharing this.

John Davies: Yeah. I'm really looking forward. I really hope the industry can walk away with great things they can put to work every day.

Mark Sylvester: Well, let us get started next week.

John Davies: All right.

Mark Sylvester: Thank you for listening. It's now your opportunity and responsibility to use the method today. You've completed one segment toward understanding the Davies method. We look forward to you subscribing. Join us as we uncover and explain the nuances of John's distinctive approach. For more episodes, visit thedaviesmethod.com. I'm Mark Sylvester, recording at the Pullstrings Press Studios in Santa Barbara, California.