Free and Frank Advice and Being a Good Guest

01/02/2021

In this post I set out what I have learned about giving free and frank advice that busy decision-makers want to keep hearing: have something to say, say it well, and remember whose table you are sitting at.

Advisers need to keep in mind that ministers, politicians and boards are in a hurry, because they are busy people, and when that pace is combined with the fact that most of them draw on many sources of advice, they are often better connected to the real world than many of the advisers working inside the beltway.

In my experience, the best ministers, politicians and boards would rather hear the bad news and the unhappy reports, provided the advice is well reasoned, supported by data and argument, and presented without rancour, value judgements or arrogance.

If you want your advice to become part of the routine and rhythm of key decision-makers, you need to have something to say, and what you say needs to add value to the role and strategy those decision-makers have set out, as a product they cannot get anywhere else.

You also have to be mindful of how you deliver that product. The best public policy advisers are humble enough to recognise that they are optional extras, guests at someone else’s dinner party, and like any guest who wants to be invited back, they do not get drunk and spill the wine, they do not insult the host or criticise the menu or the food, and they do not overstay their welcome.

Public policy, after all, arises in a political context as well as an administrative or managerial one, and the adviser who remembers that tends to be the one who is asked back.

Be a good guest.

Mā whero, mā pango, ka oti ai te mahi.