Lobbying Policymakers: Individual and Collective

Lobbying Policymakers: Individual and Collective Strategies:

Lobbying is an element that has a long history though it has become a term that triggers intimidating thoughts on many people because of the manner in which it's used today. The major concept behind the idea of lobbying is for the creation of a citizen government that provides individual citizens with the right access to and accountability from the elected leaders. Throughout the years, people get involved in lobbying when they want their legislators or elected leaders to fix something. Since it's the most commonly used and effective way of pushing legislators to fix something, lobbying should also be used in the nursing profession, particularly when there is need to enact certain policies.

In order for nurses to lobby effectively and avoid the negative aspects that are associated with lobbying activities, they need effective preparations and effective communication strategies with policymakers and staff. The two most important steps during preparations for lobbying are gathering adequate information and knowledge about the issue to be addressed and identifying the appropriate legislator or leader to deal with the issue. Once these nurses have information on the specific issue they need to identify the individual in the legislator's office who is responsible for that issue ("Chapter 25," n.d.).

The selection of an appropriate communication means and strategy is important for the effective presentation of the issue to the legislator's office. The most commonly used communication means in lobbying include phones, letters, personal visits, and email correspondence. However, phones are not effective communication methods during lobbying because of the lack and written or visual proof. For lobbying activities to be carried out efficiently, there is need for both individual and collective strategies because everyone has the power to make a difference.

Change in the Nursing Profession:

The need for change has become a major aspect of many organizations and companies across several professions. This is largely because no organization, company, or profession is rooted in a specifically stable environment as even those with huge market share need to change. Some of these organizations and firms need to adopt change because of immigration, demographic, outsourcing, and technological factors. An example of a field that needs some changes is the nursing profession due to changing nature of the workforce and the multicultural working environment.

The main thing I could change in the nursing profession is the ratio between nurses and patients as there are more patients than nurses. The reason for the change is necessitated by the changing nature of the nursing field as more nurses are required to attend to the increasing number of patients in order to improve patient outcome. The most appropriate plan for effecting the change would be Lewin's Three-Step Model i.e. unfreezing, movement, and refreezing (Robbins & Judge, 2012). The plan would involve increasing the driving forces for changing the status quo such as creating awareness on the need for improved patient care through increasing the number of nurses. This will be followed by the need to establish necessary measures for to support the training and addition of nurses as well as dealing with any resistance to any efforts to initiate changes.