By John Davies, Chairman & CEO, DAVIES and Chairman, Blaze PR

Managing defining issues of public debate is similar to influencing your 14 year-old son. Without reason, some days it works without conflict, and others it does not. The fun part is that every day you start over.

When issues management works, you feel like a genius. It means your narrative dominated discussion; your allies covered your flank in harmony and your opponents over-stepped. This means a good night's sleep. That is, until the next morning when you start afresh as issues and challenges mutate, demanding a new plan.

As the CEO of a Public Affairs firm, as well as owner of a Public Relations firm, I've seen that the challenges of issues management takes a different kind of professional. Smart, yes. But more than that, cool, secure enough to listen, and independent to make a strong recommendation and stand behind it. Quick, trained reflexes are a must.

In Issues Management, you win or lose.

That victory or defeat in the court of public opinion will very likely define the near term and possibly long term future for our client.

The greatest challenge in issues management is that it seems to be easier and safer to sit things out unless pushed or motivated to act. At least at first sitting out seems wise. Ultimately, to win or lose, you must face conflict. I do not like to fight, but I hate to lose even more.

Given advance warning and planning, we can achieve Sun Tzu's over quoted advice from The Art of War that the best battle we can win is the one we do not have to fight.

Yet with respect due to Sun Tzu, at times one has to fight.

To battle in any arena is exhausting and dangerous. In the public opinion arena, to emerge victorious or even just unhurt takes an all-consuming effort, requiring a unique cool and discipline.

Those who have not been fans of corporate America have little fear of conflict. In fact, Saul Alinsky, one of the architects of the radical movement said, "Conflict is the essential core of a free and open society." His modern follower, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the founder of the Daily KOS blog adds, "The tactics may change, but the soul of the radical endures."

Good Issues management professionals have the heart and mind of a radical in a capitalist body.

Kos gets it right when he says the tactics, like his blog, may evolve, but the ideal endures. Today we have many more tools and channels but the essence of winning public debates have survived since the great days of Rome:

1. The winner always creates the agenda of debate.

In every debate, there is a winning agenda and a losing agenda. Find your winning agenda.

When working to add environmental controls to a coal plant, the debate can be, "it is too old and dirty, let's close it," or it can be, "we can improve air quality beyond EPA standards without building a new plant or increasing electric rates."

Defining the agenda of debate is like determining what game we are going to play. I like chess or hearts. My friend likes gin or cribbage. If we play chess or hearts, I win a lot. Sometimes I even "misplace" the cribbage board.

In health care, when insurance companies and hospitals battle over contracts, there are two games. The payer says, "Health care costs are out of control and it is the hospital's fault." The hospital says, "You deserve quality health care at the hospital of your choice." Will costs dominate the agenda of debate, or will quality, fairness and choice?

Not only is the winner the one who creates the agenda, the winner also defines the question before it is asked.

The best example is an old one. In 1992, when Hillary Clinton became the health care czar she was able to get work with public support because the question was, "Do we need to fix our health care system in the U.S.?" Answer: a loud "Yes."

Fast-forward a dozen months or so and nothing changed except the question. The new question was, "Do you want the post office running our health care system?" Answer: a loud "No."

What's your winning agenda, what's your winning question?

2. Tell a compelling story of right and wrong, good and evil.

Great leaders attract supporters with compelling stories (see President-elect Obama). They create distinctions between good and bad. They create heroes and villains.

Stories involve others, and they engage both the right and left sides of our brain. They inspire and anger.

Find a winning agenda, create an Oscar-winning presentation of the story, and repeat it.

3. Craft a simple strategy — act, change, act.

Complex strategies never work. Better to be simple and ready to change as the ground shifts. While the strategy can shift, our story needs to stay aligned.

4. You have to be audacious.

Be a leader. Don't be foolish or foolhardy, be bold and fearless. Patton once stated, "In planning any operation, it is vital to remember and constantly repeat to oneself two things: In war, nothing is impossible provided you use audacity, and do not take counsel of your fears."

Our firm is distinguished from our competitors in that we have the audacity to actually do things. Many firms simply offer advice and sit on the sidelines. And if they execute, it is usually safe and avoids the key conflict.

We are not afraid to join the fight. We press to get our story out now so that our message and strategy transcends theory and is actual. While we are quick to act boldly, what prevents it from recklessness is that our actions are driven by a well-researched strategy and guided by robust quality control.

5. Identify and build an army. Activate your army.

The favorite tool of radicals going all the way back to the days of Rome is the street protest. On the business side, we have to be more subtle.

While we need to build an army, today it is getting more and more sophisticated. Seth Godin's Tribe tells the story of how we use grassroots support to empower and motivate others to tell our story for us.

In Tribe, Godin points out that, "[W]hat people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about."

Working in issues management in every corner of the nation, it is clear that most people form tribes in some form or another with or without us. The challenge is to ensure there is a tribe for people to join by making it something people want to join.

There's not as much glamour to issues management as there is to public relations, and at times it can be as much fun as carrying a dozen wet cats in a burlap bag. Yet for those of us who like to look at the scoreboard, there is nothing like winning the daily skirmishes and the overall wars. In fact, it's addicting.