The Whiteboard Circuit Breaker
20/12/2024
From my position by the door, I watch four Ministers from three parties circle the Cabinet committee room like wary cats.
Housing from Labour, Finance from Labour, Infrastructure from NZ First, and Local Government from the Greens – each armed with different advice about the urban development legislation and housing.
“My officials are clear,” the Housing Minister declares. “We need to override local planning rules.”
“Well my officials say the complete opposite,” the Minister for Local Government counters. “It’s an assault on local democracy.”
“Funny that,” the Infrastructure Minister adds dryly. “My agency says both your approaches will gridlock the transport network.”
I notice the officials in the room getting increasingly agitated. The Deputy Secretary for Housing is arguing with Treasury’s Deputy Secretary right there in front of the Ministers. Suddenly, the Local Government Chief Executive jumps in, voice rising.
It’s becoming unprofessional. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
The door opens. Thank goodness the DPMC Chief Executive has arrived. Someone must have text him.
He clears his throat. “Ministers, if I may. We appear to have a situation where departments are providing competing advice without proper coordination. For that I am sorry. That is on my agency. Perhaps we could-“
“Oh, they’re coordinating alright,” the Prime Ministers says as he follows his Chief Executive into the room. The room stills. Prime Ministers tend to have that effect. “They’re coordinating to protect their own patches.”
He looks at every senior official: one-by-one. “Aren’t you?” he asks directly.
The officials shift uncomfortably. They look down, chastened.
The Prime Minister then walks to the whiteboard. He picks up a marker. “Let’s try something different. Core problem first. No departmental positions, no party lines. Just the problem.”
“Housing affordability,” says the Housing Minister.
“Local voice,” adds the Local Government Minister.
“Network capacity,” the Minister for Infrastructure chimes in.
The Prime Minister starts writing. “Right. Now, let’s build a solution that delivers on all three. Officials, your job is to tell us how to make it work, not why it won’t. We need your best, first free and frank advice. Not your thirty reasons for why things cannot change.”
I watch everyone relax as the dynamic shifts. Officials, adequately chastened, start contributing constructively.
By the end of the hour, the group has sketched a compromise that somehow weaves together local design panels, infrastructure sequencing, and mixed-density targets.
“Well,” says Housing finally, “that’s not what any of us came in with.”
“Good,” the Prime Minister responds. “Means we’re probably on the right track.”
I make my final notes, thinking how sometimes it takes a Prime Minister to remind officials what free and frank advice is supposed to be.
A moment of collective problem-solving – where free and frank advice emerges through interaction rather than declaration – a direct challenge our traditional understanding of speaking truth to power.
While the above scene is fictional, it reveals one of the key findings from my PhD – that free and frank advice manifests in unexpected ways: on whiteboards rather than in briefing papers, through group dynamics rather than hierarchical exchanges, and sometimes with Ministers themselves as the catalysts for bureaucratic honesty.
*Please note that this post is fictional. The stories shared are narratives used in workshops on free and frank advice and are drawn from my PhD research.
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