GETTING STARTED AS A MINISTER

Ben Hubbard

Introduction

I'm here to discuss the Getting Started as a Minister guidance note. This guidance is provided as a reference document. [It’s] good for all jurisdictions and contexts, with a particular focus on getting through the first hundred days and setting ministers up for success. 

There's three sections to the document you'll see in front of you: one around the establishment, the second around norming and then performing, and the third is about keeping out of trouble. 

Underpinning all of this is the expectation that you've got a level of knowledge about the critical institutional arrangements for your jurisdiction: you understand the constitution, you've reviewed the administrative orders, you have read the Cabinet Handbook - it's a document that's typically available to the public, and finally, you have some awareness, and you may have seen, the administrative arrangements that are set out by central agencies such as the premier's department, or a special minister of state, or a civil service commission. 

Part 1 - Establishment

Ben Hubbard  01:50

The first section, establishment. [It’s a] bit like Robert Redford in that famous film: at the end, he says, "What do we do now?" Well, if you've been fortunate [enough] to be made a minister and this is your ambition, there's going to be some things that happen early on.

The first one is there's a public confirmation of that role. That might be, for instance, a press release from your leader who's about to become the premier or the prime minister, naming the new ministers and their portfolios. At that point, with that public announcement, it's a trigger for some further things to happen. You'll be contacted by the department you've been sworn to - the Health Department, the Education Department, someone - usually by the secretary or head of the department, and they'll be asking to see you. They want to provide the incoming brief for the minister, the IGB, or sometimes known as the Red Book or the Blue Book. And shortly thereafter, they'll meet with you and they'll brief you, both with the book and also provide a verbal briefing. That'll be done by the secretary or their deputy or a combination thereof. 

The physical move happens shortly thereafter - the 'bump in' - into the ministerial office you've been allocated, or some interim arrangements, but essentially big enough into the centre of government to enable you to start doing your job. In doing so, the department supporting you will provide the basic IT arrangements, the administrative and logistical support you need for the early days, and those systems which bring it all together, underpinned by work of people like the departmental liaison officers. 

At the same time, you want to resolve the arrangements with your current staff. You might have staff as a backbencher or as a shadow minister, and there may be one or two of those that go into your ministerial office, and there may be others that don't, and it's important to send a signal early to them about what's going to be happening. 

You get through that logistical sequence, and you can start to be a little bit more strategic. Of course, an important thing to think about is, what are my priorities going to be? What are the things I want to get done in this portfolio? And I think at this stage it's okay to come up with a few ideas, jot them down, but put them in your pocket, hold them for now, because there's a bit of work you need to do first before you resolve those. 

You then need to form a view about the profile of the skills and capabilities you need in the office, the attributes of staff and the people you want to work in your office and around you. There's always a balance here of moving too fast and making a bad call, and moving too slow, where generalists get sick of waiting for you and they go work for someone else. Get the balance right between the two. 

The first hire you should be doing is a chief of staff - the critical hire. You want a chief of staff who's not just smart and experienced, but they're trusted, either by you or people you trust, and they're competent in this work specifically - they've been in and around government. That's a good list, but there's one other critical thing to think about, and that's [that] they balance you out. They're complementary. And they're good at things that you're not good at. If you're a big picture person, they'd be good on detail. If you haven't worked in government before, they're a governing specialist. If you're very political, you actually don't need a chief of staff who's also very political. You need someone to balance you out. 

At that point, you can then work with the chief of staff and building out the rest of the office. They should be doing most of the lifting here. You need to be involved, obviously, in the final decisions, but they should be the ones going out and sorting [things out]. 

With the chief of staff and one or two of the other senior staff, it's really important you now get to work on your ministerial method. What is your method as a minister? How you'll organise your life; how you work best; what your preferences are in considering information and, in doing so, then making a decision. So, for instance, do you prefer long-form written, short-form written? Do you engage best with issues through a discussion or a conversation? Might be a combination thereof, but everyone's a bit different. And in relation to that too, and this is sort of the next level, what is the ministerial version of you? You need to be the same person, you need to be genuine, but you need to evolve. And being aware of your own strengths and weaknesses, how do you play to them? How do you be as impactful as you can by leveraging those strengths and experiences that you have, that you bring to the job? So that's a good start. 

The other critical part now is to plan and commence the engagement with both your internal and external stakeholders. A great thing to do in those first couple of days is to call those critical stakeholders. Critical stakeholders [and] peak groups sitting outside of government, they appreciate a new minister picking up the phone to them more than anything you'd believe. Start those conversations, bring them in for a formal meeting, walk through issues, and walk through that incoming government brief with the department again and your staff. Meet with the key executives in your department on more detail, and start regular routines with the department. 

With that, you should be identifying the big milestones and have a plan to prepare for them. Depending on when you come into office, Parliament will be starting soon, or if it's mid-term, Parliament [will be] starting very soon. When are you going to give your first big speech as the new minister? Maybe you can't avoid that date, or maybe you need to create that date. When's the first Question Time coming up? What is the legislative program? When do you need to take in your first bill into Parliament? What are the budget timelines we're working to? What are we going to propose through the budget process? And what are the other dates that the portfolio creates? So, for instance, you might have a major stakeholder who has a big conference every year. That might be in three days' time, or it might be in three months' time. You don't really get to choose, but you need to turn up and you need to speak in detail about the new portfolio and build that impression. 

At the same time you're doing all of this, the routines and arrangements need to start - particularly with the centre of government and with the rest of your colleagues. Cabinets meeting. You might be in a wider ministry. There might be cabinet committees you're part of. Start those. There's likely to be other ministers or assistant ministers in your department, you need to be engaging with them formally consistently. The administrative orders have been issued, so you need to understand what you are specifically responsible for, both in terms of the sub-portfolios, but also in terms of particular legislation and the delegated legislation that goes with that. Charter letters will be issued from the premier or the prime minister about what your job is, what your priorities are, and your overall responsibilities as a minister. 

And then finally, budget process and the engagement with central offices more generally is something which you can't miss. You need to work hard and deliberately on those relationships and routines, and don't be the person that doesn't ask permission for things when you need to be asking permission. 

Choosing Your Chief of Staff

The most important decision in terms of staffing is your chief of staff. You don't just want someone who is capable, [but] is complementary to you - they balance you out - is trusted either by you yourself or by people you trust, but they're also- they've demonstrated they can perform in that situation. You know these are all critically important profiles. Sometimes it just doesn't work - the personalities together just doesn't [sic] work, and so you need to be realistic about this. So after three months it should be clear, and at that stage have the conversation with them or, alternatively, use the premier's senior staff or the prime minister or premier's chief of staff to work with you on a plan. Often, it's no one's fault but there's no point going through 12 or 18 months with a relationship that just doesn't work because of the chemistry between two humans.

GRAPHIC: How to Find Your Chief of Staff (or How Do They Find You)?

Finding your chief of staff - in some jurisdictions it's easier, there's a centralised process, there might be a staff function on the political side of the fence to help you do this. Networks are a great way to do it. Sometimes the department can find you people. But frankly, you need to throw the net out. Sometimes that's an informal net by calling people, asking who they know, and sometimes it's formalised. New governments will often advertise for roles, and there'll be a pool of potential appointments, and you need to read through 20 CVs and interview five. The self-selection on chiefs of staff means that good candidates will typically be people known by your wider network, so don't pooh-pooh and think you're going to get a useless set of names from that process, there may be some golden opportunities amongst them.

GRAPHIC: Finding the Right Balance with Your Chief of Staff

In most situations, the chief of staff shouldn't be your best friend. You want people that are going to be not just frank with you, but will contest with you, to say to you when they think you've got it wrong or to encourage you to reflect on a poor decision you may be making. I know that sounds tough for a new minister, but not all the calls you make by yourself will be the best calls. You need someone who's robust enough and experienced enough to say, ‘stop’. You can't guarantee that with people who are personally loyal to you. 

PART 2 - Norming and Then Performing

Ben Hubbard  09:43

The second part is around norming and then hopefully performing as ministers. The first 100 days should have - you've done a bit of that storming, a bit of norming, and then moving into that stage looks like performing. By the 100 day mark you should have most staff in the office and the last few spots, they're on their way. You've met with a relatively full set of external stakeholders. A good set of internal routines are in place, both with the public service and with your colleagues in the government. There's a kick off across those big milestones we talked about, and you have a clear view on how you'll work and you've got an emerging sense of what the priorities need to be. Remember, you've got those interim priorities in your pocket to remind yourself. 

You also should have started to understand the scale and consequences of your job. State jurisdictions are more like driving a medium-sized car. Apologies for the car metaphor. They're easy to move, easy to drive, easy to progress. Federal ministers, federal ministries I should say, are more of a mixed bag. The odd lemon, the odd ocean liner, the odd Ferrari - they take longer to get moving, but when they get moving, they really go. That said, there's an immediacy to state ministries. You have a real sense of the players, the issues - you live in them, they're around you all the time, and you can get things done because there's less mystery and less complexity. And frankly, state governments reward performance. If you're a good performer at state government, the opportunities will come faster. 

The relationship at this stage with your department should be on an even keel. The characteristics you're working towards of a healthy and productive relationship with the department at this stage should be understood and acknowledge priorities - what's important? There should be mature routines and norms, and when I say norms, the unwritten rules. There's clear lines of delineation of roles and tasks - ‘We do this, you do that’. No gaps, no overlap. There's transparent views and contestability. Transparent, but while respecting the apolitical nature of public servants, contestability between public servants doing their job and your private office staff or political appointees doing their job. There should be long-term planning capability with short-term capacity when stuff happens. It's important to talk about the diary in three months' time, where the big speech is going to happen but if something pops up in the news that night, online or in the paper front page the next day, you need the department to be able to move fast as well. And number six, but maybe the most important, there's respect at both a personal and professional level. This is a critical marker of a healthy relationship between a minister, their office and the department. 

The relationship with the centre of government - the prime minister's office, the premier's office, the chief minister's office - is a big deal when you're a minister. It should be both collaborative and full of confidence. They often have a single view on the performance of a minister - it won't be a nuanced view, they have a single view. It'll be specific too, it won't be neutral. They never say, "Oh, we don't really have a view." They always have a view. There's a few characteristics that I might use, but it's often on a risk and impact matrix. You want to be low risk, high impact. Some ministers, they might say, are low risk, low impact, and they'll complain certainly about a high risk minister regardless of the impact that they have. You also want to be seen as managing risks effectively as a minister too, and in doing so, keeping out of trouble, the centre will always have a positive view. 

So we've set up, we've got the relationship right with the department and with the centre, and so we start to move now [to] thinking about our big priorities. Now in doing this you want to lift your eyes up, lift them up to the horizon, and think about three years or four years - what do I want to get done? What's the big deal? Because if you don't, the machine will keep feeding your briefs to sign, there'll be plenty of ribbons to cut, lots of visits to do, media announcements of just the routine stuff that ministers and governments do, but they're not the big things. You've got to choose to do the big things. We'll come back to that. 

In pursuing big reforms, look, it's a bit horses for courses but there's some good frameworks out there to use. Mark Moore's Strategic Triangle of Public Value is one of those that I often refer people to. And it goes to those three points of the triangle around public value, legitimacy, and support and organisational capacity, the critical three things to consider whether you should pursue a big reform. There's a political version of this, and they're the questions that a good office and a good minister should be asking out loud. In relation to public value: how does it align with our agenda? What's the benefit? Where's the public at? How do I navigate the cost-benefit of this? In relationship to legitimacy: do I have cover from the centre? Do they have buy-in? Have I tested it with stakeholders that matter? Do I have a 'head of power' or budget to do it? And the third one around organisational capacity: Do we have resources, capability, and coordination? What are the implementation risks? Now, elsewhere in McKinnon, you'll find a resource called DIPR, which I've developed with the Institute for the Institute, and it gives you a wider sense of how to develop priorities, but that's another resource on the website. 

The other critical considerations to include in developing those priorities is how do you best get alignment between the ministerial office and departmental staff? How do we go about engaging, informing, and educating the public? What's the dashboard on how we check this, coordinate this, oversee this, intervene when it's not working? How do we have strategic patience in getting something done? And how do we maintain expectations? The critical thing here is you choose three or four big priorities [and] that you do the work in developing them from the evidence - what are we obliged to do? How are we performing? What do others do? What does the future look like, if we're talking about a four or five year timeline. That we engage them in a collaborative nature with the departments. We do it relatively quickly, so we don't lose momentum. And once they're set: regular routines, clear reporting, deep dives, annual updates, and reset where things don't work. 

Part 3 - Keeping Out of Trouble

The third part is keeping out of trouble. The first thing I encourage you to do is continually have conversations with your secretary and director general, with your department more generally, with the centre of government, and with your senior team. Keep discussing, keep testing, keep proposing, and then when you settle on an idea: get cover, get permission to go and do it. 

In making decisions, always step back and consider those decisions from the perspective of your worst critic, your worst critic. Because they'd be asking: Is that legal? Is it moral? Is it appropriate? Does it undermine other directions and commitments of the government? Really, frankly, does it make the minister - does it make you - look stupid, unwise, frivolous, or reckless? 

More generally, do not repeat the mistakes of others. You've seen them, we've all seen them. Things like not understanding the roles, the respective roles of the department and the minister, not doing the baseline knowledge work. There might be a lack of discussion, a lack of debate, a lack of testing around an idea. [There] might be poor briefings. You know those briefings you get, the advice you get as a minister, they should be both quality, contested, contexted, and implementable, but also timely. And not just when you need it, but before it becomes a really big deal. And of course, you can mitigate these risks, these things that can go wrong, through some really simple things. Consider guidance through formal and informal mentorship, through observation of others, people that you respect and others rate highly too, such as a senior colleague around the Cabinet table. But also by proactively seeking out corporate memory, go and speak to your predecessors in this ministry. If you're the new minister for health, well, there's plenty of former ministers for health with insights, reflections, scars - the metaphorical type - to take you through. 

Don't forget to look after yourself and your team. This is often lost in the process. You do that through sound routines and predictability of those routines, knowing the limits of hard work and enforcing those limits. You know, no one-, 100 hours a week work, no one's, no one's effective at that - you know that. And of course, culture makes an important difference. And be really deliberate in the early stages in office, with your new office of getting the culture right.

Further Questions

Stuff-ups happen - routinely happen in government. It's not a perfect business. If the department stuffs up and it's a quality department, [it's] probably okay. You just can't let the same type of stuff-up happen again and that's a conversation with the head of the department. If a senior or junior staff member stuffs up, and it happens once and it's not too bad: counsel them, learn from them, stick with them, and sometimes you need to cop it on the chin as a minister. But if there's repeated stuff-ups, or it's understood the- particularly for the department [if] it's a poor quality department - well, then you need intervention. That intervention might be talking to the centre of government about new leadership in your department, and sometimes it might be worse where you need a root and branch review and restump of that department.

Graphic: Managing Your Electorate Office as a Minister

One little challenge when you become a minister is you're no longer just an MP and you're no longer relying wholly upon your electorate office for support. They're still there doing their job, where you're off doing other things as a minister. And that's tough on them. It's a different dynamic, and often it's a frustrating dynamic for your electorate office. Be deliberate about when you're in the electorate. Be consistent, make it reliable. So if you're a junior minister in a marginal seat, maybe you're there every Thursday and Friday, and a bit of the weekend. If you're a senior minister, it's going to be less, but keep those dates and make the best use of your time when you're there. Another great way of changing the dynamic is through person-to-person engagement. Might be in sitting weeks, one of the electorate office team comes up, comes in, depending on the geography, or/and the chief of staff for the minister routinely goes to the electorate and sees the electoral office staff: have a cup of tea, have a chat, talk about the things they need to get sorted.

Conclusion

In summing up [there are] four critical takeaways. Firstly, be deliberate, careful and strategic in the setup. Get the foundation stones right, you're only a new minister once. The second one is, be clear on what your strengths and weaknesses are and build an office around that. Third, leverage the insights, knowledge, and capability of the public service - they're a collaborative partner not the enemy in this exercise. And lastly, work through what your priorities need to be, set those priorities, and make the effort to relentlessly pursue them over your term in office. 

Thanks very much.