Three things you can do today to make policy great again
Most policy practitioners agree in principle what makes for great policy advice. The Australian Government has developed a model (read more here on the Policy Hub) and has articulated great advice as being:
- Clear on intent
- Well informed
- Practical to implement
- Influential
This isn’t new — we’ve known for years what great looks like, but we’re still struggling to get there. The myriad of scathing reviews and assessments on public policy implementations in Australia are testament to that.
The thing is, doing policy consistently well is going to take change — big, scary, long-term cultural change. And when you’re stuck in the day to day grind of “this is the way we’ve always done things”, changing anything is difficult, much less changing the world.
It’s okay, there’s still hope! We’ve been working with federal, state and local governments and know lots of small things you can do to have an impact. Here are three to start.
1. Ask why
One common policy failing is not being clear on what problem we’re trying to solve. That’s because we make assumptions, or just do what we’re directed to do rather than seek clarity.
I get it, you don’t want to look like a fool by asking someone up the chain a stupid question. I’d like to say there are no stupid questions but in a bureaucracy that’s not how it plays out. So find a safe way to do it, maybe test out your questions with people around you to see if you’re making sense, then take a deep breath and call someone who might have the answers.
Every senior person I know says they’d rather you ask a polite clarifying question up front, than waste time working on the wrong thing.
2. Find someone who has a different opinion to you and listen to them
You’re living in a bubble. We all are. Push your boundaries and find someone who isn’t in your bubble and listen to them.
Don’t assume you know where they’re coming from. Go and spend time with them and try to understand who they are and why they think that way. Challenge yourself not to defend or rationalise or try to change their mind. Just listen and nod and keep asking “Why?” and say “Tell me more about that” whenever they run out of steam.
They’re unlikely to change your mind, and you’re not allowed to try and change theirs in this scenario, but that’s not the point. You’ll be surprised how much broader and better your thinking and your policy advice will be when you bring in different perspectives.
3. Test your thinking with someone, before you make it pretty
In government and in business, we’re rewarded by getting things right. You spent hours on that powerpoint presentation and you need to make damned sure it’s perfect and you can answer any question that gets thrown at you.
That’s great, but if you created that presentation in isolation, it’s not going to be right and it probably won’t be good. And you’re unlikely to get constructive feedback because everyone will be too afraid of hurting your feelings after you spent so much time on it.
Instead, try sharing what you want to say BEFORE you spend time crafting the message. There’s lots of ways you can do this but my favourite is to draw what I’m thinking, and then use that as a prompt for a discussion. Like the diagram below. This drawing helped convey what I was thinking, and nobody had problems giving honest feedback on something this rough. The fact I put it out there like this showed I was genuinely open to feedback.
So there you have three things you can do today to improve policy outcomes.
If you’d like to learn more, and practice new skills for policy makers, why not join our one-day workshop in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra in March: Need to know policy skills for the future
