OCTOBER 2008: BIZ LIFE, TACTICS
THE OPERATIVE
GROVE INSIGHT
www.groveinsight.com
FOUNDED: 1996, Portland
EMPLOYEES: 4
DIVISIONS: Green Insight, reports on trends in the
sustainability market
LISA GROVE, founder of Grove Insights.
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It was in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1980s where Lisa Grove
— today a political strategist and pollster but back then
a fresh, idealistic Lewis & Clark graduate — learned
a key commandment of the political game, and one that would
later shape the success of her Portland-based political
consulting firm. “It’s not issues; it’s
politics,” she remembers being told after asking fellow
pollsters what issues they were working on. “I realized
that the issues are a vehicle to help get people elected. I was
scoffing at that and then, of course, became part of
it.”
Grove worked with two of the nation’s largest polling
firms before returning to Oregon to found Grove Insights in
1996. In ensuing years, Grove says the company has racked up
the highest win/loss ratio in the nation for initiatives
it’s worked on: 58/8. Over the past 15 years the firm has
also worked with probably every major Democratic name in the
Pacific Northwest: Kulongoski, Gregoire, Wu, Hooley, DeFazio,
Blumenauer, Wyden — the list stretches from the national
level all the way down to Portland politics. And as the
list has grown, Grove has become what some Salem insiders say
is one of the most powerful non-elected people in Oregon
politics.
For many political strategists, the difference between
personal politics and business is irrelevant. But for Grove,
her personal ideals have inexorably shaped the work she does,
and conversely shaped the success and limitations of her
business. Travel back to the 1960s in Beaverton, and
you’ll find a young girl walking the streets with her
education-activist mother knocking on doors and advocating for
school bond measures. Travel forward in time and you find a
consultancy firm that works exclusively with left-of-center
candidates and issues. Which, obviously, eliminates half of its
potential business.
It sounds antithetical to basic business practices, but
it’s been a smart move. While Grove says it’s hard
not think about the lost work, limiting the business scope has
allowed Grove and her team to create what she sees as a
boutique firm — a company that has a hands-on, often
personal relationship with candidates. Other factors have
helped push her firm forward: Following Sept. 11 and the last
two presidential elections, politicians began seeing a
disconnect between the major Washington, D.C.-based polling
firms and what people were actually thinking in the rest of the
country. Grove, with her inside-the-Beltway street cred but
West Coast location, has been in a prime spot to
capitalize.
No matter what the politics or the location, at the end of the
day, Grove Insight has one major metric that defines its
success: Election Day. What happens on that day determines
everything else.
“It’s always about winning. People pay
attention to the win/loss,” Grove says. “I think
our success has had everything to do with winning.”
ABRAHAM HYATT
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