There aren't many ordinary Danes who know who Lars Nielsen is. Around Slotsholmen, where the ministries are located and where politicians, civil servants, union bosses, and organization people frequent, they all know him. Lars Nielsen is one of Denmark's most respected political advisors and lobbyists. He chose to step away from active politics and into a life in the political engine room.
The tracks are laid early in Lars Nielsen's life. And the path leads directly towards a career as a politician. There are plenty of opportunities to discuss politics and learn to defend his views while growing up in Hørning near Skanderborg. Around the dinner table, it's his mother, who sits on the city council for the Social Democrats, who talks politics. At his grandfather's house, he's challenged with views from the SF party program, and his other grandfather was active in printing resistance movement newspapers.
Lars Nielsen loves politics. He is early on good at speaking and gladly takes the floor in school and high school. Here he becomes active in the National Organization of High School Students, and at a time in life when most others focus on parties, he attends meetings with the Danish Employers' Association and the Minister of Education.
Change of Track: Political Strategist
It sounds like the beginning of a biography about a well-known politician. One where politics is the whole life. The type of politician that Facebook warriors would tell to "get a real job." The one who, with sharp and polished rhetoric, skewers his political opponents in prime time. The career politician.
However, at 25, the path splits in two for Lars Nielsen. He has to make a choice. Does he want to be a politician with everything that entails, from media appearances, tough debates, and opinions on everything from financial policy and immigration to circumcision and burqas? That's where one path leads.
The other leads to a career as a political strategist. A career where he will appear on TV standing behind the politician, where he lays the foundation for the bullets politicians use for attacks. A career where he has an opinion on – absolutely nothing.
Success by Keeping Quiet
Lars Nielsen chooses the latter and starts the career as Secretary General in the European Movement. In this context, he remembers a good piece of advice he received on the Great Belt ferry from the folk high school principal Søren Bald.
"You are a brilliant speaker. But you'll have more success with women if you keep your mouth shut. He hit the nail on the head because I had become such a person. That advice about women could be used for much else. I don't need to share my personal opinions. I don't write on social media about political opinions," says Lars Nielsen
The radical luminary and Lars Nielsen's long-time conversation partner, the now-deceased Niels Helveg Petersen, once said that there is no limit to how much influence you can have if you are just willing to let others take the credit. That was the path Lars Nielsen now embarked on.
Throughout his career, he has coordinated the diverse coalition on the yes side of the Danish EU debate, taught metalworkers about EU politics, advised Marianne Jelved, helped banks through the financial crisis, and in the process said no to working for the Russian government. Malicious tongues would also know that Lars Nielsen almost single-handedly, as PA director in the Financial Council, ensured that it was not possible to pass a tax on financial transactions – the so-called Tobin tax in the years after the financial crisis. However, he dismisses this himself with the words: "My role is greatly exaggerated."
Trust is the Most Important Tool
In his work, there is one quality that overshadows everything else. Trust. The politicians he talks to must trust him.
"I quickly built this close network of politicians in my younger years. They trust me, they knew me," he says.
Trust is also built with the help of the most important commodity in politics – namely engagement, interest, and information.
"Trust is – in politics – having an interest and understanding of the game. That you can give them counterplay and support in a qualified way. If I meet politicians or organization people, there are some who just say hello, and there are some who stop and ask: 'What do you think about this and that?'. The latter is a symbol of trust," he says.
Thus, throughout his working life, Lars Nielsen has built a career as an advisor and strategist. One of the major tasks was when he, as PA and communications director in the Financial Council, participated in the task of navigating banks safely through the financial crisis. A time when banks and their reputation were really in the line of fire. Today he is self-employed with several large companies and organizations on the client list.
Would you rather have been a politician?
"Niels Helveg once said to me: 'Dr. Nielsen, as he called me, you would have been a lousy politician, you are a better advisor.' He was right," laughs Lars Nielsen and shows, if nothing else, that he knows how to give a politician's answer.
20% More Substance
Political analysts are often accused of focusing more on the game than on the substance. It's all about spin and political strategy. Therefore, you rarely see Lars Nielsen on TV as a commentator. Over the years, he has begun to believe more in the substance of political work.
"Until I was employed in the Financial Council, I wouldn't have been able to speak the language of business. But I entered an engine room about economics in banks, and I learned the hard way that you have to understand the engine room. Today, I often hold back when asked to comment on politics in the media. I prefer to know the case because I know there are many details that do not appear in the public debate. Thus, I can end up appearing superficial," he says.There is also another reason why Lars Nielsen has generally refrained from being much on TV. For 10 years, he sat on the board of DR and for seven on the board of TV2 Lorry.
"17 years in media boards have given me a kind of internal relay, so I wasn't both a much-used commentator and a member of DR's board," he says.
If he were to give his younger self a good piece of advice, it is actually also in the substance that he grabs hold.
"In terms of career. There is one thing I should have done. I should have decided to take a job in business before I was employed as a political advisor. I discovered in the Financial Council that I would have been an even better advisor for the Radicals if I had done that when I simultaneously received an offer from the Radicals and from a business organization," says Lars Nielsen.
This is how you gain political influence – according to Lars Nielsen
- Do your homework: "In all contexts, you must have a clarification phase. I interrogate my clients journalistically, so I can hear where the main argument that fits the time is."
- Do your homework even more thoroughly: "Then you start figuring out what it requires in terms of economic - and other notes. And I have some very clear rules. All source material must be transparent."
- Politics is not business: "A politician is far more sensitive to a media misstatement. A politician who shows that he doesn't know his stuff gets into trouble. So many politicians won't say what they mean in meetings. Business leaders don't understand that politicians don't give commitments in the meeting."
- Understand the complexity: "A business leader has his own world, and it can be complicated, but it's the world he or she knows. He doesn't know that a business minister has all sectors to handle. So a regulation in your sector can have implications for other sectors. You have to be able to see that."
- It takes time: "It takes time to influence politicians. If you don't have that time, you risk dropping it. So when clients come to me, it's because they don't have the time. And then I have to help them figure out how they can still gain influence."
MAN IN THE SHIRT "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood" - quote Theodore Roosevelt in Paris, 1910. In the portrait series "Man in the Shirt," BARONS meets business people who have in common that they have put themselves in play and at stake. Where do they find courage? What is the most important thing they have learned along the way? And what can the rest of us learn from them?
