Staff Panel ‘Ask Me Anything’ on Office Setup: Full Transcript
For a summary and video of this conversation, please see here.
Nicole Tisdale 0:07
I’m pleased to welcome you to this panel, which is focused on staff from all across the country, who will share their best advice on setting up new offices, basically like what I wish I had known or I wish someone had told me. I’m pleased to welcome Kevin Kosar, who’s going to moderate this panel. I’m going to turn it over to Kevin so that you can get us started.
Kevin Kosar 0:28
Thank you verymuch. Let’s get going because the time is short. You’ve heard what this panel is about, and my role here is ministerial: I’ve spent 17 years in DC, worked at the Congressional Research Service, worked in a couple of think tanks, but I have not run and set up a congressional office. So on this panel, I’m not going to add to that conversation. I’m going to trust the people with the experience, who can tell you best. Now, we’ve already met Yuri, and we’ve met Rick previously. So I’d like to start with the other panelists, and ask you each to go one by one and spend one to two minutes. Introduce yourself, your current position, and then say what you wish you had known when you landed on Capitol Hill, or what do you think new members-elect and transition staff should really know about setting up and running a good shop on the Hill.
Ananda Bhatia 1:29
Hello, thanks so much for having me. So my name is Ananda Bhatia, I am the LC [Legislative Correspondent] for Congressman Seth Moulton. I’ve run the mail program for the past couple of years, and I’m also the head of the modernization Staff Association. We do a lot of work with helping other offices, and their staff assistants, LCs in setting up their office functions and mail programs, which is definitely the number one thing that I would say is often overlooked for many new offices. That is one of the most important things to focus on: setting up your new your mail program, and all the decisions that go along with that. So number one, I know some of the other members talked about how important it is to find a good CRM. I cannot overemphasize that. We’re in the middle of switching as well from our old CRM, IQ, to Indigov. Coming up with those decisions up front about what your priorities are for your mail program, you know, how many constituents — if your priority is to respond to people quickly, or if it’s just respond to them in depth; if it’s to only respond to people who wrote you personally, or to respond to every single campaign message you get in. Having those high-level conversations up front, and then deciding based on that decision what CRM fits your needs best is really important, because once you’re locked into a system it’s so hard to make the switch.
Similarly, the number one problem I hear from other LCs and staff assistants is that if you’re in a new Member office, you’re getting inundated with messages, just like everyone else but especially if you’re new to the Hill, and it takes a bit to set up your system. So there’s always, I hear, backlogs for like six months to a year in a new Member office, and that means not only are you not getting back to people, which is important, you’re missing casework, which is incredibly important. So coming up with (again) a priority system so that at the least, we want to make sure all of our casework is getting sorted through, or at the very least, we want to be sorting out messages, and maybe not responding right away to the campaign ones can be an incredibly important.
Chasseny Lewis 3:25
Hi, I’m Chasseny Lewis, I am the former district director for Congresswoman Terri Sewell and the former chief of staff for Congresswoman Frederica Wilson. And I know that our time is short so I was just going to kind of get right into it.
I think, a few of things that, coming in as district director and setting up an office in the district, but also watching it very closely in DC, a few things to avoid is hiring too fast, especially for new Members, hiring your whole staff at once. In January, you really only need a skeleton staff, but Members elect should not plan on completing the hiring process really until like February. There’s really no rush, because you want to make sure you get good-quality candidates, but also to kind of survey what you might need.
One of the other things that I think you should avoid is not establishing clear communication and decision making systems right up front. I think it’s really important for all the staff to come in early understanding the hierarchy and understanding who their reports are, so that they can better communicate.
One of the other really big things that I wish we had taken a little time to do was trying to answer all the mail before you’re actually ready. In January, you get the keys to your office and a big pile of mail has been piling up since, you know, really election day. And so being a politician, naturally, I think your inclination is going to be, you know, ‘we have to respond to everybody, quickly!’ But really taking some time and some thought to understand what your issues are, and what your positions are on some of those issues, is really important. So I’ll stop there.
Kevin Kosar 5:12
Great, Jonah, would you like to go next?
Jonah Schumate 5:13
My name is Jonah Shumate and I’m Chief of Staff for Congressman Crawford, in the first district of Arkansas. And the first thing I’d like to say everybody who’s watching as a new Member is congratulations — your hard work is to be commended, for everything that you did and that you were a part of, in your election. I first came to Washington with my boss after he was elected, having never served in any sort of elected capacity. So my experience was anything but Congress, and so hopefully with what you guys see in here today and maybe can leverage as resources for you all going forward, you’ll pick up more of maybe what not to do from us all then what to do. I’m still learning after 10 years. There’s a lot that I think has radically changed, even just over the last two or three years, let alone this year with COVID. And so I hope that as we all share some of these insights with all of you today, you’ll be able to pick up some things that I wish I had known from the start, such as just the kind of mess I was getting into. The mail, the phone calls, the emails, the work, the meetings… it’s a lot. But you’re going to do great, because if somebody like me can do it, I think all of you will do even better. And so, you are to be commended. Congratulations! I hope that we’re all resources for you, but if there’s anything that I would close with in this quick moment, and I think Chasseny’s right about Q&A, is that there’s a lot left to learn. There’s a whole lot of people that came before you that did it pretty good. And you can do just as good if not better than us, and that’s the whole point of an institution like this — that you learn from those of us who come before you, who have a lot hopefully to share so that you can do better.
Keenan Austin Reed 7:03
Hi everybody, and thank you, Kevin. It’s an honor to join my esteemed colleagues here — you’ve got a great lineup of people who have done incredible things on the Hill and can definitely give you some ropes to skip and some ropes to know. I will echo all of the bright minds that went before me, and I’ll just build on what Jonah said about, you know, not believing you have to do it all yourself. One of the key things has pulled me through — I’ve worked now for two freshmen members and set up their offices — is that for chiefs of staff, you’ve got to have your circle, your text chain of people that you can call on and ask those questions because, you know, when you come to the Hill, everybody wants to give you advice. It can be overwhelming who to trust in the conflicting advice, you know, ‘do I go with this or that.’ But developing your circle for Members also is so important, so incredibly important — having that circle of Members that you can rely on and can be your go-to.
The other thing is stay flexible. Many people, when you come to Congress, you’re there because you’re the smartest person, you’re the best person in your town — you’ve made it, and you’re used to being a big fish in maybe a smaller pond. Be patient with yourself because Congress just moves so remarkably slow. So get one or two goals that you can knock out this year.
And the last pro tip I’ll say is track what you can: I think you all are diving into some of the constituent management services, so people who call your office, people who write to you — tagging that information, so that you can go back and touch those folks later. I’ve had great experience with iConstituent and TourTrackr, Poliscribe, these are some of the tools we’ve used in our office, but I think, managing your constituents and staying in touch with them through some of that great technology, are things that I would encourage you to think about as you approach setting up your office. Thanks for having me.
Unknown Speaker 9:16
Thank you. Maia, please.
Maia Hunt Estes 9:17
Hi everyone, I am Maia Estes, I am chief of staff to Congressman Anthony Brown from Maryland’s fourth congressional district. I was the chief that helped him set up his freshman office. I think it is important for all of you that are chiefs, or that are helping to set up the office, to just be reminded that you will survive, right? That in fact, your Member will find his way or she will find her way to and from the first set of votes, and they will actually find their way back to the office, eventually, no matter what. So, that’s one thing, I would echo what everyone else has said: Be patient. Be flexible. But I think there were a couple of things in addition to what Keenan and Chaz and Jonah have already shared.
For those of you that are the staff designate representative, chiefs, or soon-to-be chiefs of staff, I think it’s really important to have a conversation with your Member at the outset to understand those two or three goals that they want to accomplish, because that can be really helpful to you to understand what type of office you’re going to be setting up, and what your end goal is. I agree, 110% with Chaz, with Chasseny, that you want to wait for all of your hiring. You want to leave space to hire those things that you need, and make sure that it fits with the committees and the type of work that your boss wants to do. But I do think it’s important — early on, my first, best hires were my district director, and our scheduler/director of operations. That is going to be a really big part of helping you get there.
I think it’s helpful for you to think of yourself — you’ve heard this before, I’m sure — but I would say think of yourself as a small business. You know, you are the HR department, you are the first refuge for all things, right? And there’s not going to be anyone sort of swooping in to check in to make sure these things were taken care of. So really pull together your own checklist of the things that you want to accomplish, and the things that are necessary.
Here’s my pro tip. Our first day, our phone started ringing off the hook. I didn’t have enough people to answer the phone. Then literally, Robert Primus, who is an institution in and of himself on the Hill, was walking into our office to say hello. And he started answering our phones for us, right? With the standard lines. But again, having in hand or ahead of time those things like, hey, here’s our script, here’s the way we want to have our office be presented, is helpful, because then as people are coming in, whether it’s your intern or whatever, you can say here’s what I want you to say.
And then finally, that once-over before you get into the office is also important. You will soon find that the house is full of lots of helpful different administrative setups, but there is one person that will hang the bracket for your TV, someone else to hang the television, and someone else to make sure that it’s working properly and attuned. So for the Members or Members-elect that we have on, I beg you to be patient with your chiefs and with your office managers, because it’s possible you may not have a TV when you walk in. In addition to not having enough people on the phones, we didn’t have trash cans, right? And I would just say that the really beautiful thing is that Congress is a family, and you will find this that there are a lot of people that are willing to help you with those — what seemed like a benign or,I want to say asinine, I don’t know if we’re allowed to use those words, but asinine questions right? And having your own network like Keenan mentioned, and not being afraid to say, you know, I don’t have any paper to print that, Sir, so, let me go across the hall and see if I can find some. That is all a part of that first week and so, you know, none of those details are too small to get overlooked. But be patient with yourself overall.
Kevin Kosar 14:15
Thank you, thank you for that. Just to add on my own tip — when I started at the Library of Congress the Congressional Research Service one of the first lessons I learned was when I had a question, to just go ask somebody in person. Don’t dig around in the rulebook and try to figure it out, because that would just suck up hours. Go to somebody who knows the answer. I think that kind of applies across the board with navigating Congress.
Rick I wonder if you would like to share a pro tip for the audience.
Rick Jakious 14:42
Yeah. Yes, thank you. Three things really quickly: I would underscore the idea of hiring slow, but you have to accept that you’re going to feel a little bit like you’re falling behind when you do that. You’re going to be flooded with scheduling requests, flooded with emailsl flooded with calls, flooded with new casework, and so you have to have a system, a repository for where all that information goes — ideally an email, or a way in which people are going to respond to constituents to just essentially say hey, look, I’m still figuring out where the light switches in the bathrooms are, but your communication is important to me and we’re going to get back to you. And then you have to have a system to collect all that information and get back to people, because you’re going to have to unbury after that. So it’s really important to be thoughtful in what that structure is, of collecting that information and then responding to it. Because the last thing you want is to come straight out of the gates and be, you know, the Member of Congress with a reputation for not returning calls to their constituents. So that’s super important.
With all that extra time you’re going to have once you do that, I would say spend time to carve out and actually sit down and think about your vision, mission and values as a individual and as an organization. It’s going to be your North Star, and keep you on track throughout your entire tenure, and it’s going to be the thing that your entire team is going to fall back on and feel empowered to make more effective decisions in your name. You’re going to be able to push more down the chain of command if people are all on the same page in terms of the vision and the mission and values of you as a member in your team.
And then the last I would say is there’s nothing that has been more important to the cohesion of our team and our efficiency than two tools; First, Slack. You could also use Teams. We use that basically for communications, shared consciousness across the entire team. We basically don’t use email internally: everything gets decided and discussed via slack. The second thing is our morning standup. No matter where anyone is, we’re all on the video conference at 8:45, the Member included, to say what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in Congress, what’s going on in the district, what’s the Member’s priorities, and what’s the team’s priorities. Ready, set, go. And in addition to getting centered on kind of a 24 hour cycle, it really forces us to look at each other, so like when I see Ananda every morning, I see her humanity, I know who she is, you know, and I am more likely (it’s just human nature sometimes), I’m more likely to remember to respond to that email or that text or something like that when I see her every morning. So slack and standup have been revolutionary in terms of cohesion of our office.
Kevin Kosar 17:34
Thank you much. Yuri, last but not least, would you like to share a pro tip?
Yuri Beckelman 17:40
I’m going to definitely hit on the other thing we talked about a little earlier about hiring right. You know, right off of what Rick said, it’s really important when hiring not just to look for someone with experience, a long resume, and with a good attitude. Those things are very important, but you should also be looking for people who think about processes, like how they do something, and then, when they’re done with that, why they did it that way. There’s plenty of people who can answer the phone, but you want someone who who sets up a process for how that then gets handled and sorted and responded to, and is thoughtful about it and is creative about it. That also applies to your legislative staff, that also applies to your manager, so when they’re kind of working out how do we retain people, they are able to put in place processes that that will work out. You know, like if you’re hiring a contractor: what would you do if we’re rolling out a bill? What’s the whole package? What would you do to get this out there? Rather than just saying ‘a press release’ right, like they can kind of create a process for it. That creates some structure for every time you do it, so it doesn’t feel like you’re doing it for the first time, every time.
And on the other side of it, as a new Member of Congress, or a chief of staff, I think the biggest complaint and frustration you will get from staff and why they won’t want to stick around, is if you are unable to make decisions. People get very frustrated when they just don’t get an answer. You know, you are going to make mistakes as a new Member of Congress in a new office, and you can fix mistakes as you go along and you can seek guidance, but every decision you don’t make is a mistake and a missed opportunity. So learn to make decisions, and learn to fix them when they don’t go right. And if you have a reputation as an office who gives opportunity and gives positive feedback, and sets up structures that you are comfortable and understand working within, and you can receive a decision on important tasks or working on your office will get you a great reputation, then you will be able to hire and retain that staff on the Hill.
Kevin Kosar 20:04
All right, thank you very much. This question is regarding training. Those who are setting up a brand new office have a million things to do. Where, how do you prioritize training, where does that fit in terms of the sequence of things to do? Where should you go for training? What other advice you have on that.
Keenan Austin Reed 20:26
So, I think, as far as training goes, one thing that I’ve learned and have been advising a lot of freshmen offices, is it’s get somebody who is worked on the Hill in your office and as a part of your team as quickly as you can if you’re new. I think that training is so important, but there’s not so much time for it on the job. So if you’re in the campaign or you came from the Member’s state office, it’s important that the scheduler or the LC or the communications director can jump right in, someone who knows the committee, someone who knows the process. What I was able to do in my most recent office is hire staff on the Hill and have them train. The immediate managers could train the people beneath them: the district director could train the district staff, the Legislative Director could then turn to training the leg correspondent, the legislative assistant. That cut down on a lot of the time to just get everybody from A to Z, because so much of the work we do passes on the fly.
Jonah Schumate 21:37
I think — one thing as a chief, and if there are Members watching I think it’s important that you guys and girls look at ways to do this with your current or incoming chief of staff, and that is to understand the talents and the strengths that you have and delegate what you don’t. The one challenge that comes with being an effective manager, not being great or exceptional but even just being effective, is delegating tasks and skills that you’re not good at, but keeping the ones that you are. Training is one of those where I’ll be totally transparent and self-deprecating: I was not a good writer when I got here. And what I mean by writer is the formal writing tone that we use in our letters, and the communication that we use that is that is on the official letterhead. And so when there’s training that anyone on staff is to do, and depending on the process that is set up for all LAs or if it’s LCs or whatever hybrid scenario that you’ve got — looking at those letters and assessing and training folks on writing was not something I would have ever taken on. I’m a much better writer now, and there’s a lot of things I can see and then I enjoy doing, as I’ve learned as I’ve been on the Hill. But when it comes to training, understand your strengths and your weaknesses, delegate once a week to those who have those things. Make sure that there’s accountability and follow up and see how that’s going, but it all, I think centers around not only what Keenan said, but also delegate what you’re not so good at. Delegate a lot of things. Make sure that folks have the ability to make decisions and find the ways by which, training or improvement, any sort of changes need to occur.
There’s a lot of great opportunities for training that weren’t there when I started 10 years ago, the staff Academy. There’s a lot of resources that are there now, that weren’t there, and were harder to find. and were just kind of isolated and siloed off in any office in Rayburn, Longworth or Canon. There’s a lot more resources now. And a lot of those are online and they’ve moved online very adequately, and are very very good since COVID, and so they’re very easy to get to. So that would be my suggestion for any incoming chief: remember to just know what to delegate, those strengths and weaknesses, and be okay with that it’s fine You can’t be it all. And that’s the biggest lie of Capitol Hill, is that you get to do it all, because you can’t, and you’ll run yourself into the marble if you try.
Yuri Beckelman 24:06
There really are four parts of training. There is the formal stuff that’s set up, which has improved remarkably, which includes Staff Academy, CRS. Those are the formal ones — there’s a great list, if you go on staff academy website, you’ll find all sorts of really cool stuff there. There’s the less formal stuff that’s been put on generally by caucases or staff associations. I helped run Digital Academy, which we run a six week course that you have to be admitted to and participate in that teaches basic fundamentals for digital communications. And then there is peer to peer, and that gets to hiring someone who’s been on the Hill for a while and has experience. If I’m setting up an office, I will — I know two or three other offices that I think run really great LC programs, so I’ll have their LC train my LC. So that’s peer to peer, and then the last are the outside groups. You do have access to them, they will work with you. And I’ve brought in outside people to teach my team courses on op-ed writing — I had a professional op-ed writer come in and run a training with my team, and then they all wrote op eds that we placed. I’ve had a professional speechwriter come in and provide a speechwriting course for our comms team. Some of these, you can find, you know people who do this as a side business and are willing to offer one-off courses for relatively reasonable prices, and you can work with them. And then lastly, you can actually mix the fourth bucket and the outside bucket: you can send your staff, you can pay for professional development. We paid for someone to get a graphic design course — it wasn’t a very expensive one, and it was not put on by a university, it was put on by an outside progressive group that does digital training, and they ran a four-day kind of digital design program, and you can pay for those things. So, you know, really lean into those four parts. For a while there I used to go around and teach offices how to use Slack — I would show up to their staff retreat and I could talk to you. Now everybody uses it, but that wasn’t always the case. And then look for outside opportunities. There are lots of trainings going on that are affordable, that you can set, you can invest in your staff to do. Create a line item in your budget, that is specifically for staff improvement and development, whether that’s bringing someone in or sending one of your staffers out. Invest in your team.
Rick Jakious 26:35
We set aside $10,000 in our MRA for staff for staff training, and set an expectation that people would do 40 hours of personal, professional development. Every year we incorporate that into our quarterly global goal planning process. I’d say we’ve been hit or miss — life gets in the way, we get busy. So for the 117th, we’re building in actually tracking whether people are following through on that or not in our goals and dashboard process.
Ananda Bhatia 27:03
One of the biggest problems that our Staff Association tries to address is the fact that, for junior staffers especially, there really isn’t a universal training and a place to figure out everything you need to know, so we’re working on creating our working from home guide for COVID, and a Best Practices Guide for after that will hopefully answer a lot of those questions in a one-stop sort of place. But until then, or until you can go to even some of the basic trainings that are out there, the fastest way to get information like where do I find trashcans (which is really important, but really hard to just look up!) is to just build your networks out for sure. So all staff assistants and LCs have access to joining these large listservs of just other staffers on the Hill and you see those questions flying back and forth all the time. So I’d say find others, you know, junior staffers in your delegation, join those listservs, and just ask people directly those easy questions that will take you way too long to try to figure out on your own.
Unknown Speaker 27:57
I’m sure a few people on here can teach your masters course on how to reserve a room.
Ananda Bhatia 28:01
Oh my gosh. Also on our list.
Kevin Kosar 28:07
Well. Alrighty. We’re at the end but I need to step back and say one last quick thing: if you need help finding esoteric facts or information, reach out to the Congressional Research Service. They have an army of analysts and reference librarians, so rather than having your staff spend hours going down a rabbit hole looking for it on the back end, kick the ball over to them. CRS is always there to help you.
Nicole Tisdale 28:39
Thank you so much, Kevin, and thanks to everybody for this panel. This was so amazing. I’m a staffer for life, so I’ll say what you’re not supposed to say — I knew the staff pael was going to be like, amazing because, to your point, there are all these formal things that happen on the Hill, but there are also all these very informal things. So for the staffers that are coming to office I would say to you, beyond the advice that that you’ve heard today, when someone says, ‘Hey, y’all are new, how are things going?’ Resist the urge to be like, ‘oh, everything’s fine.’ Like, we actually don’t know where the trash cans are. We don’t know how to answer phones. People will say, ‘oh yeah, we have that issue too!’ or work to direct you to the people that you need. You can literally stop people in hallway and ask them whatever you want in Congress, because your question? Someone else has been exactly there, and people want to be helpful.
Jonah Schumate 29:37
When we hear somebody say ‘it’s fine,’ it’s like, ‘come in and let’s have some coffee.’
Nicole Tisdale 29:40
Exactly — it’s not fine, and it’s totally okay that it is not fine. You have a network of people who are going to help you get to a point where it will be fine. It will be fine, so just speak up. Ask questions when you need it, and to Keenan’s point, you’ll start to filter out things as well. So again, thank you so much for the panelists thank you all for joining us.
