I hope every Commissioner-designate taped by their government to move to Brussels reads Tony Blair’s new book “On Leadership”.
First up, I am Blairite. This man was key to bringing peace to my homeland, Northern Ireland. When a fellow Labour Party staffer called me ” Blairite scum”, I said “Yes, I am” and took it as a compliment.
Second, his record of government, beyond bringing peace in Northern Ireland, is impressive. Success leaves clues.
Third, this book draws on his experience Tony Blair Institute helping Leaders govern.
The book is a masterclass in political leadership. It is not drawn from the management gurus of McKinsey and the like, who I’ve seen provide recommendations to the Commission (that showed no understanding of policymaking) or the the restructuring of three major NGOS that set them back by decades. This book draws on real world work in delivering government in the UK and many other places.
Over 40 chapters (digested this weekend) and 329 pages, he provides some useful lessons for any political leader to apply.
After reading it, I hope some in the new Commission’s leadership will read it and apply some of the lessons.
Here is my first cut:
1. What Does a Good Leader Do
“Leaders have the courage not to go with the flow,. They speak up when others stay silent. They act when others hesitate. They take risk, not because they fail to identify it as risk but because thy believe in a higher purpose means risk should be taken.
The Leader should do what he/she believes in in the interests of the people. If the people end up disliking the outcome, sack the LEasersLeaders. But the job of the Leaders is to lead.
True Leaders are change-makers. And change is the hardest challenge of governing. Change is resisted. Many often tried and failed.
2. Why You Need a Plan – this panders to my prejudices
Every government … needs a plan. A route map. A destination.. And the Leader has to be in the driving seat.
3. You need Time
Change takes time : ” I reckon it takes ten years to change a country. And that is ten years years of focused change making change-making. At a minimum. Fifteen is better and twenty optimum”. p.4.
4. You Won’t Get Anything Done Without This – The Schedule
Whoever runs your schedule is the most important person in your world as Leader. You need time to think, time to study, and time to get things done you came to leadership to do. Lose control of your schedule and and you will fail” Bill Clinton. p.100
5. On the curse of meetings and why you need guard dogs
Many Leaders are in meeting from morning to late night. Most of them unproductive. Every hour spent like this is an hour you cannot replace and diverts you from the real challenge of governing. p. 11
… That’s why , behind you, you need the guard dogs who will hold firm even under the most intense pressure. p. 12.
You need to schedule personal time (p.13).
6. Why you need to prioritise
Try to do everything and you will likely do nothing. Chapter 3. 4 Ps’ prioritisation, policy, personal and performance management.
Your bandwidth is limited
How many priorities should you have? 5.
7. How to Reach good Policy
How to reach good policy. Lets try to work out the right answer. Look at the politics later. Butt what is the right analysis of the problem we’re trying to solve? What are the facts? What might be the solutions which really works?
8. This is Hard Work
A minister should know what you’re talking about because you have taken the time to master it.
Treat policy making not as a spasmodic response to the difficulty of the day but as an opportunity to go deep and make change which lasts: a change not a splash.
9. Look at what others are doing
You can pretty much guarantee that someone somewhere is trying to do what your’e trying to do. Some are succeeding. Copy them; or at least learn from their experience. p.29.Surround
10. The Personnel You Need to Surround Yourself With
Those in the immediate circle of the Leader need to be clever – clearly; hard-working – of course; but they also need to posses other qualities, especially in politics. They need to be tough and in situations of stress, able to cope, confident enough to fight back, willing to bend but only when necessity demands. The should be unafraid to tell you the truth or to disagree.
You need specialists to guide you…. This poses an additional problem for most civil services today. The civil servant, no matter how bright, has not realistic chance whatever of competing in knowledge and expertise with someone devoting their lives to a study or practice of a specialist subject. So it’s sensible for governments in this environment to pull in people from outside to open up temporary secondment from other domains, private or public , and enlarge the space for innovative or at least intelligent and well-informed policy making. Unfortunately, misguided anxieties about conflicts of interest, and unease at allowing strangers into the inner sanctum, often deter such openness. Such feelings should be resisted’ .p.35-36
11. Curb Your Bureaucracy but cultivate it.
The civil servants are usually generalists. They have broad experience which can be immensely useful.; but they lack specialist knowledge. p. 39
11. Process
Above all, they deal in process. Process is their game. Before anyone is sniffy about process, it does matter. It is a worthy means to an end. p40
12. Choosing the top civil servant
The top cvil servant is a very important appointment. And yet it’s surprising how many new Leaders take over government and simply accept without question o investigation who is leading the machine supposedly under their command, p.41
13. Delivery of results above all – follow through
Of course, people want ‘honest’ politicians. Leaders they trust; but above all that they want are solutions… they come from the implementation of policies which work
The system is resistant to change. Change is very difficult to make.
Requires a system that is geared to, focused upon and relentlessly pursuing delivery. The follow through. The move from vision to policy to implementation.
Some Takeaways
I hope the new Commission’s leadership reads the book before they take up office in November. Three things I take away are:
1. In the areas that I know best, I could see little focus on 5 priorities. Many units seemed to have around 5 key priorities. I’ struck by the line “You need establish priorities: if you try to do everything you will likely end of doing nothing”. The last 5 years seemed to be doing a lot of unrelated major upheavals.
2. The delivery unit is so well hidden in the Commission that the term only appears once when searching the staff directory. The impression is that follow through and implementation in practice is thrown to the winds the day the proposal is tabled.
3. Tony Blair benefited from being able to bring in experts from inside and outsider of government. The concours no longer supplies the expertise that is needed for serious policy making and implementation. Some proposals I’ve seen, and the accompanying Impact Assessments, are so riddled with factual errors, it betrays that the policy decision was taken first, and officials then had to prepare a proposal fast around that pre-determined political outcome, evidence be dammed. This did not use to be the case.