How to do Big Reform

We want to make lasting and meaningful change, but how do we get there? In this special episode Caroline interviews Frances Foster-Thorpe and Jason Tabarias about their insights into the skills and frameworks needed to tackle large, complex and ambitious reform.

We cover: 

• Biting off what you can chew by picking two of three factors: volume, cost, quality
• Examples of big Australian reforms that did and didn't hit the mark
• Lining up stakeholder expectations, the authorising environment, and operational capability
• Stretching the political window of opportunity by looking up and out
• Why sequencing can be a more productive conversation than prioritisation
• Proposals that are needs or community-led, evidence based and implementation-ready 
• Making cross-system collaboration work: everyone is a colleague, everyone has valuable knowledge, and everyone is responsible for doing as much as we can 
• Tips for system diplomats and working with system diplomats

Mark Moore's strategic triangle 

The Three Horizons Framework

Geoff Mulgan 'The Art of Public Strategy'

This podcast was recorded on Kaurna land, and we recognise Kaurna elders past and present. Always was, always will be.

Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music. 

'Til next time!

Transcript

Holiday Special And Intros

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We can do flubs, you will get the whole thing. There is no worry. Don't worry if your internet goes wonky because it's recording locally, not here. Like it's it's all good. All good. All right. Fantastic. Okay. Um okay. Welcome to the Westminster Tradition where we unpack lessons for the public service. I am Caroline Crozabalo, a recovering public servant. And today in our Christmas holiday special, I am joined by two very special guests and friends of the program, Frances Foster Thorpe.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Hi, Caroline.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

And Jason Tabarias.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Hi, Caroline. Great to be here.

Reframing Big Reform For Today

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Great. So one of the things we talk about in the podcast is how things go wrong, but we are trying to move into this kind of positive space and do a little bit about how do big things actually get done in government. And so Jason and Frances have very kindly been voluntoled into coming along to appear on the pod and help us with this. Maybe I'll just do a little bit of bio and you can correct me if I'm getting anything wrong. So, Francis, you are a senior public servant currently working with the New South Wales Cabinet Office. You've worked for both New South Wales and Australian governments and have worked on collaborative national projects where the employing government was less important than the shared outcome, which I love as a description. You've worked on things like NDIS, closing the gap. Early in your public service career, you worked on Gonsky. For all you South Australians, your PhD explored the Murray-Darling Basin Plan reforms, and you've worked directly with the disability community and the coalition of Aboriginal Peaks on data sovereignty and how data can be used for systems reform and community benefit. Did I miss anything?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

You certainly didn't, Caroline. But I am fortunate enough to lead a foresight team. So I might just say that I reckon the trend relevant to today's discussion is that more of the issues the public service needs to work on are in this complex cross-cutting category, like the issues Jason and I are going to speak to you about today. But there are lots of public servant roles where delivering BAU well remains the focus. And that requires skilled public servants to do that really important work. But more and more the issues governments and communities are faced with will be like those we're discussing today. And so upskilling for this kind of work, I think, is really becoming a priority.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Oh, I like this. So you've already reframed my episode from how big reforms get done to let's thinking about the nature of big reforms has changed and we need a new skill set. Excellent. Jason, I presume you're going to undermine my authority as a host as well. Here's my definition of your bio. So you are an economist and a public policy practitioner with wide-ranging reform experience. You've also worked on big national reforms like universal access to early childhood education, hospital and schools funding, vet reform, and the NDIS. You've been a partner at Mandala, a consultant with Alpha Beta, Deloitte, and PWC. You're only missing one, right? In the UK and New Zealand. As a public servant, you worked on intergovernmental relations and public sector reform at Premier's departments in Victoria and WA. And you've worked in the Prime Minister Department in New Zealand. So you've actually like pretty much covered the width of like the Asia Pacific in that world. Well done. You've also held academic roles, including as an honorary professor at the University of Melbourne, and you now lead economic research at the Crawford School at ANU, along with, oh my God, being a program director at McKinnon, a nonpartisan democracy and public policy think tank. You can't add anything else because you're not old enough to have done anything more, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:41

That is an embarrassingly long but unfortunately accurate list for me. So yeah, thanks so much.

The Three Buckets: More Cheaper Better

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Maybe this also goes to this question of cross-cutting, right? Like who are the people who like doing that sort of thing? And maybe they're peripatetic in work style and practice. All right, so we're going to take it in stages and we're going to start with Jason. We're going to start with thinking about how ambition, maturity, and political alignment come together to make reform. And then we'll head over to Francis to talk about how we actually make things kind of stick. So, Jason, you and I have had a number of conversations offline about this, like about where is the right starting point for reform. Can you talk to me about when you think about all the things you've done, what do you think the conditions are for reform?

SPEAKER_03 4:31

I think when we think about reform and what's on our plate today, as Francis was saying at the outset, we do see that there's a really great set of like big, big reforms that are coming down the path. And the question about what we can learn from what's already gone before is really pertinent, right? I think there's one really like guiding light question for senior leaders on the public service side, thinking about at the outset, you know, how do I bite off this big reform? And the key question is really this what must you do now and what can you leave till later? And when I think about some of the ones that I've been involved in, there are kind of three subparts of this that I'd like to talk about, and then maybe see if I can throw some of the examples of reforms that I've been part of at this way of thinking and see which ones kind of got it about right or maybe bit off a bit more or too little that they could chew. So the first question I'd ask is um what how clear are you about what you want to achieve? I would argue that every time we get into these big system reforms, we've really got just three big things that we're trying to juggle and manage, right? Bucket one is something to do with increased volume or distribution or access to a public service. And um that's that's a pretty universal thing. We want to do we want to do more of this stuff, we want to make sure that more people get to it. Uh we we we want more hospital services, we want or we want them better, maybe possibility. Well, that's not that's a different bucket.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

That's not that's a different bucket. Good. I'm jumping ahead, sorry. I will stop.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Yeah. Bucket number two, um, I reckon, is either how much in total we're willing to spend on that thing or how much we're willing to spend on each unit of that, right? So do we want to make the each unit unit more cheap? Do we actually have a lot more money to put into it and therefore we want to do more of it? Um so that bucket number two is something to do with price and spending. And then the third bucket, as you say, Carolyn, is to do with quality, how good is it, or maybe something like safety uh or some some kind of qualitative element. And really, we're juggling these three things all of the time. Whether we're talking about vet, whether we're talking about uh schools, whether we're talking about early childhood or disability, it's this combo, but you have to prioritize. You literally can't do it all. So, in my experience, in the Goldilocks point here is that you're choosing two out of these three buckets. Choosing one means you leave some reform on the table. We could just do more of it, but if we're then saying, well, great, we're not gonna really control how much we're spending on it or the quality of it, probably not ideal. Um if we reckon we're just gonna do everything, well, I haven't seen that work. And I I don't I don't reckon there are many kind of great examples. Um so choosing two out of the three is um is kind of my my first part about what you want to achieve.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

So that it's more cheaper better. Is that they're the kind of you get two out of two out of those three. More cheaper, better. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Um the second thing I want I want people to think about is like really, really, really in the heart of hearts, where are we now and where do we want to get to? And what are the levers do I have, the permission to use in this reform to get us there? So I think most public servants will have this appreciation. Doing the first five or ten percent of anything way, way harder than doing the middle bit, right? Like the next bit is actually, and then and then when you get to the end, like getting from 80 to 90 or 90 to 100% of something, also really, really challenging, right? So these aren't linear in their reform. So you've got to be super clear. And then um, you know, so so let's take an example. If I've got the lever of getting more kids into early childhood education, but my existing baseline is we already have 89% of kids at the four-year-old there, I'm gonna be doing something pretty different to a scenario in which I've got 60% of kids in that um year before school attending early childhood education. As an example, right? Do I have the lever for the 80, 89 to 9 to 100%? Or do I have the lever for the 60? Or do I need different levers, right? Um and those levers, right? Is it technology, is it workforce, is it funding model or governance, regulation, right? Sure, we're all gonna be given tools at the outset, right? Because this reform has been thought about before we got there, it's been packaged up politically, we've got a starting point and we can't deny it. Do I actually have the levers? Where am I now? Where do I want to get to, right? So that's the next question about what are we gonna do and where where are we gonna focus our effort. And the last part of this is about um is about lining everything up, right? And I think on the pod, you guys have talked a lot in the past about the idea of multiple layers of Swiss cheese. Bunch of holes, and we've really got to try to get through all of them. And actually, as you know, with every packet of Swiss cheese, there's no way through. Um there's no like direct hole, right, once they're sliced. And and I think that that applies here too, right? So the the the question then becomes how what can I fit into the window that I've been given, right? Um, is the solution that we're banking on in this reform proven and will it work? Um Does the workforce back it? Do they even exist? Uh do I know that there's uh the political window to support that? Uh is the is the kind of stakeholder that's championing that um loud and around and clear for a little while? How how can I make all of these things kind of fit together, right? And there's a juggle, right? And keen listeners here will recognize something of the Mike Moore public value triangle in it, right? What is the part that external stakeholders, the public, the system are up for and willing to accept? What is the space that's being held open by ministers or prime ministers or collection of ministers and first ministers if we're talking about an intergovernmental reform? And do I have the operational capability to deliver on that? Yeah. Right? And that's the that's the essence of that. So lining those three things up is the last part of our um working out what the bits are that I can prioritize and do now. Uh we can do later.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

So you said you then have examples of ones like so what's one where things were lined up well? Should we start with one that's lined up well?

Health Funding As A Working Example

SPEAKER_03 10:47

Yeah, um, let's start with a good case. So I think if we wind back to around 2010 and start looking at what we did with the health and hospitals reform process back in the day, now we would look back at that reform today and kind of go, it was okay. But really, at the time, I think it actually did do a reasonably good job of prioritizing according to this framework. So what do we need to do then? One, the crisis was that uh we didn't have enough hospital activity uh in state public hospitals. Uh there was a so that's a volume game. Great. We had a Commonwealth government willing to put in a bucket load of additional money to buy the volume, right? So that's the funding side. But we also wanted to make sure the unit price of delivering that got better than it was. The hospitals were more efficient, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:34

So it was two, there were the two elements. It was ambitious, but for efficiency, not for because the quality was fine, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Because the quality was fine, right? So there was stuff, you could have argued that question, but in reality, that was the clear prioritization. We have a mature system, yeah, it's broadly working fine. We've done this before. We actually already operate Victoria's hospital system this way, anyway. So, you know, could we all get on board with that? Kind of proven 20 years worth of activity-based funding kind of says this might work. So there was a razor-sharp focus that two out of the three big reforms could work. We knew the lever was the funding model lever. We weren't gonna try to make a significant reform to, as you say, quality. We weren't gonna try to blow up the system and do something different on Commonwealth state responsibilities and health. We're just gonna do this thing. Uh and this thing was big enough, right? Um, and so we changed two out of the three things. Not nothing. That's right. Yeah, that was a big deal. Um, it worked. Volumes went up, unit prices went down, and for at least six or seven years, we've been managed to bend the arc of cost growth in health while broadly speaking, keeping the thing going. Um, people have a different view about what's happened since then. But but I reckon that's a great example of what's what's worked.

Gonski One: Not Ambitious Enough

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Excellent. What hasn't worked? But what has found it harder? Where have things like I'm interested in not ambitious enough? Maybe let's start there. Have you seen one that hasn't been ambitious enough?

SPEAKER_03 12:58

Yeah, I think not ambitious enough is also important. Um I'd I'd go for the first round of Gonsky as not ambitious enough. Again, possibly a controversial thing to say, right? Again, um, just to recap for people um not in the bowels of that reform, this was about a price and a price increase, a unit price increase. We were saying that we needed to spend more per student in public schools in order to help kids uh achieve their best and make sure they had the resources that they needed to uh to deliver against that. That was um the nature of that reform. Again, we knew how to do this. We've got um school funding arrangements and state school systems that we wanted to just spread around the nation. We had a really great report talking about the value of upping that per student contribution and price. And, you know, even though that was a really challenging thing to deliver in of itself, what we got to in Gonski One was more or less achieving that. We got more spending out the door on students. It didn't quite hit all of the markers in terms of spending amount. But the thing that that didn't do was articulate where those other two levers sit. And in particular, I think the thing that stakeholders were looking for, parents were looking for, and students really needed was also a lift in quality. If I'm spending this much more, it's got to be producing some public value for students and for the nation and for each of those individuals. And I'm not sure that we were really on track with that, right? We didn't have a strong story about how the quality and the funding were super, super lit tied uh together to deliver that outcome. Now, maybe we can come back later and talk about what happened next, but Gonsky one got chose one out of the three. And in my book, that that's one of the reasons why it maybe doesn't get a pass mark.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

I love that. And um, as a just a shout out to any nerds in the in the room, um, obviously states then took the money and tried to tried to lift quality, right? But it wasn't kind of part of the, it wasn't embedded in the kind of architecture of the thing. But the New South Wales government um published a really interesting report um reviewing the kind of first round of uplift of Gonsky, along with some of their reforms that they put in place around, I think it was school economy, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, but I just I really loved that the New South Wales government published a report that said, here's the money, we got the money, here's what we did, and then they were brave enough to say, and it didn't actually seem to do terribly much in terms of improving the outcomes that we thought it might. And I just think like that shout out to the New South Wales government for publishing that piece of research. The only state that I'm aware of that actually did that kind of level of transparency. Um, but yes, I I think that's a really useful framing, Jason, of the not quite ambitious enough. Because sometimes people think the money is the answer. They're like, oh, money is enough, and money is never enough on its own, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Money's never enough on its own. And of course, that was the big criticism.

NDIS: Too Much All At Once

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Yeah. So tell us about, I mean, I I wonder, I feel like we should have a listener-guessing game where they're like, I wonder which one we might think we went a bit too ambitious. Yeah, what is behind door number three, Jason?

SPEAKER_03 16:00

Well, so for me, for me, it's the NDIS, right? So the NDIS, again, a huge uh and important reform, but one that came with so much expectation, uh, both from the political class, from stakeholders, and of course, from um the system itself that really wanted to do a better job. Yeah. What wasn't well done in the start of that was identifying again the two, which two out of the three. So we had this idea that we could significantly increase the amount that we were paying per individual package to make sure that dis people with disabilities were getting what they needed when they needed it. We could do this reform where uh we could have a lot more of that volume being spread, and there wasn't going to be this rationing kind of thing at the same time. But we were also going to do better quality. People were going to transform their lives, and these were going to be great services, freed from the shackles of state service delivery to this uh market mechanism. And with really no sense of the cap or even the prioritization within those three aims.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

The trade-offs, no sense of the trade-offs. Right.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Yeah. And I think that certainly the bureaucracy, when I was part of that first wave, were kind of going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like this is uh it this is too much, right? And all sorts of plans were devised for sequencing and prioritization and you know, slowly building that kind of stuff out, none of which really permeated into political land, nor into stakeholder land. You know, you know, that was really about the public service trying to grip things up. Um we're really good at that. But there's a real strong sense that that needed to be washed through everyone else that had a stake in this critical reform. And that's the bit that I don't, I don't think I I necessarily saw. So with a really tight political window and really unmanaged sense of the priorities of which two out of the three are we really doing here, and everyone feeling like they were doing the important number one bit, but actually that wasn't necessarily everyone else's view. What we got, at least initially with the NDIS, was something that was was really, you know, it it didn't have a sense about where the costs caps were coming from and how that was going to be sustainably managed. We were seeing mixed levels of service access where some people got great stuff and a lot of people did not. Uh, and so that in terms of that volume or that access side of things. And and then the unit prices that we're really we didn't really have a really strong sense about how we were going to manage uh that either, right? So uh not none of the three were were really hit. I'm not saying that that wasn't because people weren't trying to do something really great. Yeah, um, but that goes back to my my view about you need you really need to be choosy, you really need to prioritize uh and not leave unanswered questions about what's the priority about what we're trying to deliver here.

Political Windows And Sequencing

SPEAKER_01 18:46

See, it's such a good example because also as you're telling the story, I'm like, yeah, but limited window of opportunity, right? And so, you know, is it um like we wouldn't have an NDIS, I think, if we hadn't kind of gone thrown everything at the wall in that moment. And and now I kind of like would try to reframe this as like the learning moment where we're trying to kind of iterate away from some of the things that have been less helpful and iterate towards some of the things that were more helpful. But but there's like a political moment. Um I wonder if you'd done it less whether we would be whether we'd be having the conversation about Gonsky, like we'd be having the same conversation as Gonsky one, where we're like, you know, we could have done a bit more on this and we we we just got one version of it.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

That's a good point. And I think that there's a recurring theme with maybe trying to fit as as absolutely much as we can into that window as we can, right? Stuffing it in the bag. And all of the incentives from the political class and from stakeholders involved in the system should drive us towards that. That is really how we maximize what they got. We do as much as we can. But I think there is something about the role that bureaucrats have to be able to try to say, you know what. Um great. We're all for that. And I think we are all for that. But how can we do this in a way that then will continue to deliver on that going forward so that we keep getting this value, right? That's our role. Yeah. Is to be able to stand back from that and kind of go, look, this is the prioritization. Right now we're going to live at this. This is still going to deliver against what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah, number three is happening in three years' time. And we've baked in the funding to do it. So we're not just saying we're going to do it. We've got a program that's going to start in three years' time to do it. Yeah, like that that's the dynamic, isn't it? It's the stewardship.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

There's a there's a hubris to that as well, I think, right, which is to say that when we look at any of our service systems and how they evolve over time, we didn't get it all right once. We didn't do all of it well the first time, kind of ever, right? Like never.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Never, never, never schools.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Never, never, never. Yeah, well, exactly. Reform is not a project. It's how this is that is life, right? It's just how we it is the work. And so I think there's something for us to reflect on as policy and reform practitioners to kind of go, you know what, we're gonna do this bit, we're gonna do this bit really well, we're gonna rock it, and then the next gen's gonna come along and they're gonna do that bit, and that's gonna then take off from there, and that's we're going to and that's what I mean about really being practical about what we can do now. What must we do now and what can we leave until later?

SPEAKER_01 21:21

I really like that. Um, before we move to Francis, I would just like a little bit more on political windows of opportunity because I think there's something really interesting in this space of kind of what what do you think makes a good political window of opportunity? What happens when your political window changes? Like, just give me a little bit of a sense of your thinking on political windows.

Mapping Reforms And Three Horizons

SPEAKER_03 21:42

The I would say there's more than one window. I guess that's the first thing. So the political window is important, but there's also like, are the stakeholders seeing what they need to see out of this this moment too? Is the workforce seeing what they need to see to be confident here too? And um, is is it actually making a difference in in society and in life? Like these things all matter, and I guess the political window is uh often the starting point for sure, but it isn't the only thing that that matters. And like I think the obvious, you know, to run on from our previous conversation, the obvious example here was Gonsky too, right? Because within a relatively small period of time, we were back with a different flavor of Commonwealth government and a different minister who had a different ability to engage with the stakeholders, right? And to maybe unpick some of the parts that weren't going so well. Uh, maybe the no worse off guarantee uh with the Catholics was you know a variable that then became loosened up. And all of a sudden, we're in a different world where we do want to start seeing some quality and uplift really, really tightly linked in and a re-articulation of the two out of the three, right? And so, yes, we're gonna continue to spend this money. Yes, we still want to push the states to get up to their contribution too. But in reality, we need to make sure that these are more tightly linked to upticks in what we're seeing in terms of student performance, right? And I think that that's an example of where, without even waiting a generation, we're back into a space where we're like, great, now it's on. And the the vision that I think David Gonsky and all of the members of the original panel would have wanted from the outset becomes possible. And in fact, by and large, uh, you know, again, people will have different views, largely gets achieved through through that second um tranch of reform. So that's the the political window. But I also think what happened there was some of the frustrations, including from parents, including from the workforce, that we didn't get this bit right and that were able to be activated relatively quickly in order to kind of finish off that part of the reform. Sometimes we're waiting a decade, sometimes we're waiting 20 years for that second window. In this case, two buses came along one after the other.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

I like that. Uh, was that the bus under which a former Prime Minister was? No. Okay. Um Brilliant. No, to be clear, no.

unknown 23:58

Um brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Uh any last comments you'd like to make before we throw to Frances and start picking her brains on this?

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Well, well, I think the bigger picture here is also to start thinking. Um, the challenge then is when we think about prioritization, is to think about, well, what else is going on, right? My take is that there's a sense that we can also be a little bit too insular on the reform that we're doing. Uh if we're leading that, this is important, we've got to get this done. Yes, of course, that's true. But I think that kind of look up and look out, that situational awareness about what else is going on is important. That enables you to take advantage of some of those, the secondary window, but it's also allowing you to kind of stretch and play with the window. So, yeah, how can I play in the thing that I'm doing to another important narrative? What's the productivity dimension of this? What's the tax reform dimension of this? What's the cost of living dimension to this? The look up and out is where public servants get to push the edge of the window. This is contributing in this way. Give me more time, give me more resources, give me more faith, come along with me on this, is really the space that we get to kind of not take these things as given, as outside things imposed on us, but to be agents of architect in the window. And I think that's a really important takeaway and also a really optimistic one for reformers going forward.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Yeah, it's true. And and you everyone will have seen, I think, a senior leader who is really good at kind of being like, oh, the premier is super interested in community engagement, and we have a really thoughty problem we've been trying to solve. So how about we go attach it to the premier's interest in community engagement? Definitely not talking about UJ weatherall. Um, anyway, but I think that kind of question, you see these leaders who do that really effective, like actually, how does this fit in that broader window? Um, which I always like and people kind of think is a bit cynical, but I think no, it's not, right? Like, because it's all public value, it's all just lining up kind of the things that we need to do where there is space and energy and momentum. Beautiful. All right, Francis. We work on some complex issues here. Uh, you've done some work with public service teams supporting these kind of big, ambitious reforms. Um, how do you figure out what good advice looks like for decision makers when you're doing this kind of thing?

Community‑Led, Evidence‑Based, Ready

SPEAKER_00 26:20

So I've come to think that effective reform work relies on coming to a shared understanding of the situation we're in and therefore what needs to change to get to the objectives that governments have already agreed. Or Jason was talking about the kind of shaping the reform directions that they will consider. And then effective reform work relies on agreeing what can be recommended to decision makers as feasible options to implement that change over what time frame, and then how to monitor and adjust along the way. So my early experiences of working on reforms were joining task force-like teams. And I sort of remember on my first day being handed the piece of paper that had like it was a Word document with a dot point list of the issues that would comprise the reform. And perhaps ever since I've been looking for kind of frameworks to help do this kind of work. And actually, this was years back, but a colleague and I took one of those lists and we pulled together essentially a map of the different elements of the reform that we assessed would need to be in place to achieve the overarching goals. And we suggested that in that case, what we were trying to achieve would require a decade of reform activities. We've broken it up into several phases and so. Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. Anyway, sorry. Yes, sorry. I'm sure it was well received.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah, I was just thinking about people liking a decade-long roadmap. That was gonna we could get on to that. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

No, no, but I mean it's an interesting one, right? Because it goes to the discussion we're having about prioritization and prioritization and sequencing. And look, in that case, we also broke up that dot point list and we identified half a dozen different categories. So a little bit like the levers Jason was talking about. What kind of activities are these to sort of start making sense of the reform? And look, that was an artifact that ultimately didn't go to decision makers and it it didn't achieve an impact in that sense, but it was shared with lots of people. And it's the only thing I've ever worked on where colleagues have contacted me years later and said, Hey, do you still have that thing? Because I think it might help me think through the process I'm in. And so something about having a map of the reform resonated.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Yeah, I really I I couldn't agree more. I think there's something about the challenge of the judgment of what's first and what's next. And even if it's not what you end up with, like having the kind of um chutzpah to just say in the first instance, I think it's this first and I think it's this next. Um, and is that really what you're saying? Like the one of the kind of the some of the biggest judgment calls in a reform are actually those judgments about which thing first rather than actually where we want to go.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

I think so. And I guess as a public servant, the objective and usually the change that I work to achieve is determined by others. But shaping advice about what can be achieved is most usually about time frames combined with what needs to be in place to achieve a change in practice. And so, like reforms generally involve multiple issues being worked on at the same time. And I have found that I and other people absolutely need to see them all on a page if possible, with some sort of ordering framework. Otherwise, they're just long lists of issues and most of us become overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Um, you know, and this is what consultants get paid a lot to do.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

And they're so good at it, a two by two. Yep. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

They're amazing at simplifying to do much more of it in the public service.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Wouldn't that be good?

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Um but I think the most important judgments are to be made around sequencing. You know, we can often be our own worst enemies when we're really passionate about achieving the objectives of reform because we're trying to work on 17 issues at once when maybe we can make realistic progress on five. And so, notwithstanding the wisdom of Jason's comments earlier, I do find it's helpful not to ask people to prioritize. No one likes doing it, including me. Um, and as public servants, I think we tend to worry that we're making decisions that are not for us to make and for others to make.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

That's so good.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

So, what I find to be a more productive focus is to have a conversation about how we're going to sequence the work. And really the key decision is what are the three to five things we're going to work on now, knowing that unlike you know what I thought when I was that more junior public servant, we won't always know enough now to agree to an exact sequencing over five to ten years.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

But what we do need to do is have all the elements in mind. And then what I now realize is that there are actually frameworks out there to help this kind of thinking. And so probably the one I'd recommend is the Three Horizons framework. Everyone can Google it, there's lots out there. And it's really helpful to work through the sequencing, both at the beginning of the reform, if that's when you're working, but also at multiple points as you've learned more and the windows have opened or closed in various ways. And they can help us. This kind of framework helps us identify what's the current situation, what are we moving towards, and then crucially the pathway to get there. And they can help you design the discussions, the workshops, the artifacts around that.

Evidence That Actually Fits The Problem

SPEAKER_01 31:46

So I love that because it's like both sense making and it's also um it's like also really meaningful. I hate to use the word co-design. It was like it's like actually people are uh are having a meaningful say because it's not just like aspiration of a thing, it's like, oh, yeah, that's beautiful. Um so to speak in terms that we often do in the public service, we talk about deliverables. What do you think the deliverable is then for this kind of effective system-wide reform work?

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah, so over the last few years with colleagues, I've developed a framework for thinking about what the endpoint or deliverable looks like, which I'd frame as proposals for decision makers that are three things. They're community-led or needs-led, they're evidence-based, and they're implementation ready. And the key to implementation ready are the proposals with informed advice on sequencing. So I was lucky enough to develop this in some closing the gap partnership work that I did with New South Wales colleagues in the public service and the Coalition of Aboriginal Peaks on a priority reform for program. And so, if I break it down, in that context, the proposals were community-led, and in other contexts, they might be described as responding to community needs. So, in the New South Wales program, one point of the work was to identify how could agencies practically implement the commitments governments had already made to Aboriginal people to safely and legally provide shared access to the government agency data that is held that could be useful for communities. And then equally, there was a second point of the program, which was to understand how New South Wales communities wanted to use data, whether they collected it for themselves or whether they had access to it from agencies, and what it meant to them to put in practice the principles of Indigenous data sovereignty. So, in essence, the communities articulated the why and what of the reform. And we worked in a partnership with our community colleagues to really come to understand that in detail. So, in other reform contexts where you might not be working in partnership in quite the same way, there might be different ways of identifying the why and what of the reform. But that's of course always the starting point.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

I love this. I'm also thinking, as you're talking, I'm thinking about how this maps on to what Jason has talked to us about as well. Like I feel like you're you're usefully describing similar concepts in different language, it'll it'll hit off on people's heads differently. So we had community-led. The next one was evidence-based. I was in a big fight about evidence-based in a in an earlier meeting today. Um, so I will be super interested in what you say about this.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Yeah, so like obviously evidence-based policy is an old idea, um, and there are many debates about exactly what it means. But I think in this context for this framework, it's saying, what are the evidence-based responses to those community needs or aspirations? So there's generally quite a range of evidence about what might work to implement a change or respond better to a need. And what I found really helpful to understand kind of in the last few years is just the extent to which the range of potential evidence sources has expanded. So it includes academic and grade literature, really different kinds of data insights and modeling, evidence of what makes a difference for those with lived experience, and other kinds of evidence. And the skill we need to do when we're in the public service teams working to support the reform work is to synthesize the range of insights in ways that frame the issue so as to productively open up the options to respond. And so Jeff Mulgan is the thinker I'd really recommend to read about this.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I need you, I need you. So the skill is to synthesize the insights we get from all the different kinds of evidence in a way that when you f you can then frame the issue so as you can think about what the options in response. Okay, take me through an example. I need an example.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

So let me use the example of the closing the gap program. So when it comes to government sharing access to data that government agencies hold, if the problem is understood as just a technical and legal one of data sharing, we miss that it might also be, and it certainly was for New South Wales Aboriginal communities, about trust and transparency, about how government and Aboriginal communities relate to one another. It was also about evolving community expectations about how they wanted to use community-controlled data in order to advance self-determination and other community-determined goals. So that meant the evidence base needs to include not only technical and legal evidence on what agencies can share, but for example, good practice evidence on service operating models for a new data service to meet diverse information needs in a culturally responsive way. And so good reform work means bringing together different kinds of relevant evidence, and that'll change issue by issue, often from many areas of expertise.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

And that's going to involve like the kind of the really hard part I feel for policymakers is that there's often like an implicit hierarchy of which evidence you look at first, right? And so, like I'm hearing you say you need to look at all the different kinds of evidence, and then you need to think actually what is most relevant in this context and make sure I'm not deprioritizing because I can just imagine people are well the legal, the legal is very important. We'll just do the legal. Um so oh that's super interesting. Right. So we had so we've had community uh led, we've had uh well, now I've forgot my words. What was the next one? Oh, so yes, evidence-based led. Evidence-based. Where are we up to?

Working Across Systems Without Silos

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Recommended actions have to be implementation ready. Well, and so this gets to the need to uncover the many different aspects of a proposal that make it more or less likely to be agreed by decision makers and then implemented well. And so there's lots of tacit knowledge by those that work in an area about what makes something implementation ready in a given time and place. So Jason went to some of this knowledge about whether there's already commitment to the kind of change needed by those that would be delivering a service, or does that commitment need to be built? Whether the people that need to do something will or won't have capacity because of all the other things they're doing. And if they don't have capacity, can we put some of those other things aside? What takes the most time in the process you're looking at? Who's actually the most important to success? Whether a proposal has the kind of evidence in the form needed to meet all of our business case and budget rules or our cabinet rules, or in the case I was working in, our joint decision protocols. There's a dozen more things in that tacit knowledge. So, for example, to kind of bring it home again in that closing the gap example, the evidence globally would say there's this thing called privacy preserving technologies, and they exist, and they could, in theory, allow agencies to share more data with Aboriginal communities, given for smaller communities, privacy is a real issue.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

That is important to both Aboriginal communities and to government data custodians. But that doesn't, that's not enough. That's a kind of evidence-based proposal that we then need to do the work to test where specific tools can be used in practice and can be used in a way that makes it transparent because we were concerned about trust. So there's also really important tacit knowledge in the community. What sort of data capabilities do communities have? And that would inform a decision about whether this particular proposal on privacy-preserving technology is implementation ready. So it's just really important. I mean, you could argue the TOSS and say implementation ready or tacit knowledge is another form of evidence. But we really broke it out to say a proposal can respond to community needs in an evidence based way and still not be a good idea to recommend at a given time. Because what we're talking about throughout, you know, Jason and our conversation today is that proposals need to be assessed for being ready now in this. Place. And this is where test and learn approaches are really great because they can practically test implementation readiness.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

So when you say, like, did you literally like so this is you you are suggesting if we're doing a big reform, like you should actually say to everyone you're involved in the reform, right? We are going and we're thinking about what's here, what's our community, what's our community-led need? Right, yep, we've got this. Here's what the evidence is here, and then now we're going to do an implementation. Ha! And of course, I imagine people feel comfortable because one of the things I notice when you start talking about evidence is it often shades into, well, sure, it works in that particular context, but I can tell you now you can't scale it because da-da-da-da-da. And like those are really important points. And but it gives you a way of keeping separate the anxieties about different things. Like, so some things you actually just disagree about the evidence. You're like, no, that's good or that's bad. But some things you're disagreeing about, are we able to do that in the way that we would want to do it? Okay, all right. This is very helpful, Francis. Sorry, you may continue.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Well, I think Caroline, you've got to maybe the value of separating those discussions because the discussion you'll have about what is the more or less relevant and robust evidence for this issue is a discussion that thinks about different practice origins of different kinds of evidence, right? Whereas the implementation ready discussion is a different kind of information intelligence that you need. And so the value of the try, test and learn, or you know, learn, test and test, learn and grow rather, you know, that we talk about in the UK now, is that you actually start testing implementation readiness. And what we found when we did that is for these kinds of cross-cutting programs, the answers differ between agencies or between jurisdictions or between community partners. Of course. So you get this huge amount of intelligence that says, okay, so the work then becomes to figure out what to propose in a way that can adapt to those differences while still pushing for the needed change. And if anything large and complex, what is implementation ready will involve assessments of how to sequence the elements of reform, as we keep saying. So some things could start as soon as they're agreed. You know, we've already been testing it through a pilot or a prototype. Some things might have a one to two year setup time. Some things can't start until the other elements are in place. And as I think we've really got to, in my experience, this is where a lot of the discussion between different public servants and partners is needed. Because it goes to what can be done in practice and how quickly, but also it goes to starting to trust each other enough that we're listening to the practical advice that people have, the wisdom from experience piece, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Oh, I love that. Like and the trust is baked in along the way as well. Because one of the things I observe in some of the um conversations uh I'm having around Thriving Kids, for example, is that people are so worried that you're not listening to them about one part of the conversation, um, then you know you can't ever get to the other part of the conversation. And so it's like I like this idea of kind of pulling it out in this kind of explicit way and being like, this is where we're having this bit of the conversation, here's where we're gonna do that. Very, very helpful.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Um it's like you pull out your reform map and you say we're here on the map today for this meeting, this discussion.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

That's right. And if you think we're in a different spot, like let's talk about that too, right? Like very open to that chat. Um, okay, so you also wanted to talk about how we work across systems. Uh, look, every speech, like literally every speech I've been to uh in the last, I don't know, six months, from you know, ministers through to public service leaders through to community reps, all talk about our problem is uh we don't work across silos on cross portfolio problems. And yet, uh and I'm always sitting there like, yes, excellent, someone's about to tell me how we do it. And then they're like, Yeah, that's a real problem. And then they walk off the stage. So, Francis, how do we do it?

Systems Diplomats And Second Track

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Yeah, so step one is we recognize that the kinds of issues we're dealing with more and more now are these cross-cutting issues. So we actually do have to work over across beyond our own agency, across jurisdictions, with community and cross-sector partners. And we work in this way when we're required to. So when responsibility, when levers, when knowledge are dispersed. Like it's about kind of separate, like really diagnosing when are we working in this way and why. And of course, like not to state the obvious when you're listening to those speeches, but to state the obvious, we are in a federal system. We are in a Westminster system. Many of the outcomes we're working on are cross-cutting, but those remain the fundamental building blocks of our system. And in areas like closing the gap, disability, place-based work, governments have also committed to working in partnerships and to sharing decision making. So, in my experience, when this kind of a work succeeds, it can be the most rewarding work we do. You come up with better options because you really do have more minds to work on the problem. And if agreed by decision makers, the options are then more likely to work in practice. Because we've got all these people who are really committed to making them work. But I do think working in this way means we need to think differently about how we personally act and how we interact with others and then develop new skills and daily practices. And so I think it's worth unpacking that because it's not just we should all do better.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

You are about to tell me that like I shouldn't have a pet name for my least favorite department that we use in practice behind their um backs. That's a I sense this is where we're going. What does it all mean? What what should we do instead of being rude about our partners?

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Yep. Caroline, I'm definitely going to get to that point. Um first I would say if you are the leader of reform, you need to understand that you're gonna need to engage with dozens of people. And each of those people could make a difference to whether you succeed at developing those community-led evidence-based implementation options and whether many different forums then agree to them or not.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

And that means you also need to support your teams to collaborate with colleagues and partners, not just to have meetings, but to actually collaborate in knowledge sharing, in sense making, in problem solving. Because that's the core of the work. So, what I've come to kind of try to crystallize this is when we're addressing issues where we each have some part to play, everyone is a colleague when we're in shared spaces, everyone has valuable knowledge to share, and each of us is responsible for doing as much as we can in our own spaces.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Oh, I love that. And like I'm sure we'll unpack it in parts, but in particular, that we're we don't just come and share, we're responsible for doing when we go back to our little worlds. I love that. All right, so everyone is a colleague. Talk to me about this.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Yeah, so I reckon this is the most powerful change I've made in how I try to think about the actual people I'm working with as colleagues. So we often talk about anyone outside our immediate team as abstractions. Yeah. You know, we might say, we are meeting with the Commonwealth. Yes. Or if we work for an Australian government agency, we say, we are meeting with states and territories.

unknown 47:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Which emphasizes that we are meeting across a divide with another. Or when we're working within our own jurisdictions as public servants, we often say, we are meeting with education, or we are meeting with cabinet office, or in a partnership, we say, we are meeting with Capo, we are meeting with government. And actually, like when you step back and think about it, I am meeting today with Peter and Aruna. We are meeting other people. And if we try to are trying to do something together, those people are all best thought of as colleagues.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Well, like I just love this, not least because the weight of being your institution stops you from being a good colleague as well. Like if you're like thinking like, I am here as cabinet office, not I am here as Francis from Cabinet Office with a range of percent. Like there's something kind of um stops you from being able to create that connection both ways. I love that. All right. Uh so everyone's a colleague, everyone has valuable knowledge to share. Do they? Do they? I mean, honestly, like I don't know if you've met my 19-year-old, but he has uh well, I guess he can tell me a lot about stuff. All right, okay, fine. Everyone has valuable knowledge to share.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

About how don't tell him you say that at times.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

Nope, nope, nope, nope. Anyway, yep, everyone's got it.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

But look, seriously, like as humans, the temptation is to think that the knowledge that we've personally worked so hard to develop is more important than that in some way than that.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

I mean, I think it is. Sorry, sorry, I may have just thought with my 19-year-old. I shouldn't be bringing this. Yes. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

But look, when I'm at work, what I've noticed when I'm listening to some knowledge that I didn't have is that the temptation is especially strong to discount the other person's knowledge if what they're telling me is that is basically going to make something more complicated than I wanted to achieve. Yes, yes. So often then we listen and we think, you would say that because you're a state or a central agency or a lawyer or whatever you can be charactered as in a given conversation. And what I found really funny and frankly pretty illuminating working in lots of cross-cutting programs over recent years is that different people can characterize me in opposite ways on the same day. And as you say, I am in fact Francis turning up from Cabinet Office with the same knowledge to share across those different meetings. Um I think really what is crucial to recognize is that no one person will ever have all the knowledge needed to develop these community or needs-led implement, evidence-based, implementation ready proposals. So, for example, in the closing the gap program I spoke of, we realized for those issues, we needed cultural and community knowledge, we needed technical knowledge, and we needed policy and implementation knowledge. And that all needed to come together in for us for us to actually deliver for communities. I certainly didn't have all the required knowledge, neither did my co-executive directors from Aboriginal Affairs and the Coalition of Pete's or any member of our team. And what that all meant was we needed to turn up each day with the mindset that everyone has valuable knowledge to share. And most of us then need to upskill in the listening and talking respectfully across different skills, even with the 19-year-old boys in our lives.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

Thanks, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

And so at work, going back to everyone being a colleague, it is way easier to listen respectfully if you're thinking this is my colleague I'm talking to.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

I love that. And then I really loved this last one. Each of us is responsible for doing as much as we can in our own spaces.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

Yeah. So what crystallized this for me was experiences where I've worked on com state issues, where a bunch of state colleagues will get together and I'll be there and they'll talk about all the things they can't do because the Commonwealth won't do something.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

That's pretty common.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

Yep. But like on the same day, I'll be in this in a meeting with a bunch of Commonwealth colleagues, and they'll get together and talk about all the things they can't do because of something states and territories won't do. And Ditto whole of government reform programs, we do that across agency stereotypes, community government partnership programs, we can do that. And so what it made me reflect on is that reforms generally fail when we end up in blame games. So if a reform really does require real change to get from the situation we are in today to the objective that decision makers have decided or are considering, it will require each of us to do something differently. And so for this reason, I really try to focus now on that classic framework of each of us identifies what is within our sphere of control or what we can advise decision makers on, and that's what's within our sphere of influence. And essentially what I'd say to everyone involved in this kind of reform work is bring that insight to the meeting. You will find that if you do that, it often encourages other people to do so too. And then we can see what we can advise decision makers could change if we all did all of the things that each of us could commit to.

Better Meetings, Not More Meetings

SPEAKER_01 52:16

Oh, I really love that. Um, when we've talked about this stuff before, Frances, you've also talked a little bit about some of the special roles, well, not special roles, but some of the kind of functions that you see emerging sort of almost organically when groups of people work together in this way. And the one I really loved is you talked about you sort of find system diplomats like people who are kind of doing. Can you talk to us about a system diplomat?

SPEAKER_00 52:42

So, systems diplomat is language that comes from the systems change literature. And to be clear, effective public servants have been system diplomats forever. But I have found it really helpful to explain to others what this kind of work looks like. So, what system diplomats do is they talk to all of those dozens of people who might have an influence over the outcome, regardless of title, level, organization. They focus on listening for practical ideas and talking through how to frame things in ways that resonate with everyone. And they're often the people that drive the thinking on how multiple ideas can be bundled together into reform options. So, what does a daily life in a system diplomat look like? They are the ones who have lots of one-on-one chats before any meeting. They have really learned from DFAT colleagues about second-track diplomacy. So the conversations with counterparts that occur before the formal discussion and ideally before the papers with the options that have been sent out. Yes. Yep. The conversations where you figure out what matters to different people, where are the interests going to align, you figure out what everyone may be able to agree to, and you also crucially find diplomatic ways of pointing out in those one-on-one conversations that a reform could fall over if the other person can't move their position on X.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

And so if you're leading a reform, you probably should consider yourself a system diplomat, according to all the research on this stuff. And you have to start organizing your diary so that you have time to prioritize this kind of work.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Oh yes, because of course, like often the people who have the opportunity to do this are also like incredibly busy doing other things. And so, and it could feel like not real work, couldn't it? It could feel like this is the this is the kind of chatty bit, but like also I need to do all the meetings and I need to do all the, yeah, right. All right. What other what other tips do you have?

SPEAKER_00 54:43

So if you're not the leader of reform, but you're one of those dozens people, let's think about what it's within your sphere of control to do. So always pick up the phone when the person who is the system diplomat calls you, is step one.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

Try to share whatever you can with them within the bounds of your professional obligations. Try to figure out in that conversation what practical options can you agree to support, and then be really obvious where you won't be able to move. Because we do come to these conversations with roles and you might be representing an organization or a jurisdiction. The key to joint problem solving is that it's not the same as a negotiation context. So we need to work differently, even if later that day you're going to some other meeting with exactly the same colleagues where you are in negotiations. What you need to do is identify on what you can agree to, what are practical problems. And then where you can't share information, you know, we all have confidentiality obligations, something's classified. Just say to people straight, I can't talk about that. And what I tend to find is that colleagues often respect that you have shared the information you can share relevant to the problem you're jointly working on.

SPEAKER_01 55:56

I really, I love this. Uh, and I was just thinking, as you're like, when you said you've got to pick up the phone, I was thinking there are people like uh, so Professor Sharon Goldfeld is a classic system diplomat, I would say, in early childhood. Like she's someone who walks around and talks to all the different parts of government and all the different kinds of specialties and whatever. And it's like I always pick up Sharon's call because I know she's trying to do exactly this function of trying to like, how do I find the common ground that we can all agree on that gets us through the next step and the next step? And I just like that is such a compelling definition for me.

SPEAKER_00 56:27

Um literally pick up the phone, trust one another as people while you're still being the professionals that we all need to be. And that's what's crucial to this kind of reform work.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

Amazing, amazing.

Red Flags And Keepers Of The Flame

SPEAKER_03 56:40

Yes, Francis. Because I I feel like um that's like I completely agree with all of the system diplomat concept. And I'd probably go even further. One of the things that I think we don't do enough of is just sit in rooms, and that's not the same as pick up the phone. And and um I hark back to some of the times Intergov world where I would literally spend time in the premier's department of another jurisdiction for days, kind of just hanging out. Yeah, and what that does is all of the stuff that you've talked about, but you get to meet all of the other characters that maybe don't pop up on the telepresence machine. Yes, and the people that come are at the more junior levels. And you'll actually realize through that one, there's this really powerful interpersonal empathetic component that comes just from being. But also that that there is no monolith, there's no standard view or opinion, there's actually internal disagreement, and people have different views, and their treasuries also don't, you know, there's so much going on, that rich texture and nuance that we all know exists. It all is going on for us. But until you kind of put yourself and avail yourself of just random opportunity to be to be there and hearing it through the voice of the you know, the grade four as a you know, or someone who's kind of in the service in the line area or what have you, you're you're not gonna then see anything more, I think, than just that kind of the the your equivalent counterpart, right? Because I also think that's the other thing about the get on the phone, is you're still in the public service mindset. You can call your counterpart who's the most equivalent to you in that role, but you're not gonna speak to someone who it's almost like a power imbalance that you'd prefer not to do is to speak to the more junior person because you know that's a little bit unethical, maybe. But in reality, there's there's there's depth, there's texture, there's nuance, there's insecurity, there's openness, there's all that, what I would probably call more public sector entrepreneurialism that you can you can kind of see, right? And so you're answering a question in a brief, what is the position of other jurisdictions? Yes, that's why I'm there, and I've got to understand it. But there's a there is more a rich rich tapestry to that that I think is um that comes, and we don't do that as much as we used to, right? And I think about when all of the officials' meetings around the coag processes, where then sure the the first ministers would meet, then the secretaries would meet, but then everyone else just goes out for dinner, right? And yes, that was an a real you know, you go and that's different. And yeah, it does. I almost now I can hear myself talking like I'm some sort of relic from the 1950s, where you would but in reality there is a human component of that that is critically important. I really that just jumping on a Zoom call or making a telephone call replicates all of that. There is something to it that I think is is worth us thinking through, both in terms of the interpersonal stuff, but also breaking some of that hierarchical structures that we often find ourselves defaulting to, whether we whether we really articulate that or not.

SPEAKER_00 59:31

And I think that goes to kind of, you know, now that we've opened up the opportunity to add some more things to the list, um, you know, it is absolutely having problem solving workshops and conversations rather than meetings. And what I'd observe, Jason, about those conversations is more people are in the room together, right? So you are combining those different knowledges, different levels, different organizations.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

And then it does often become more comfortable. And I think this is. When I've worked on kind of four-year reform programs where we've had really joint teams, that's when you're able to talk to far more people. Because you're absolutely right. When you're in some of those more formal calm state worlds, there are protocols and the power imbalance is real, and we need to be really reflective about all those things. But I think that opportunity to hear directly from different people, however you curate that in the reform you're working in, totally crucial for you getting your own head around problems, but also for that joint work to happen when you interact with others.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

I love that. There's something for me as well about the kabuki, I'm going to say it wrong, theatre of meetings. Like I feel like meetings now are so scripted and in a kind of particular format, especially those kind of big intergov meetings, that there is no space for kind of spontaneity. It's positions, not interests. It's all of the things that we kind of know cut against thinking through in a more collaborative way. And there's something about literally like when I see post-it notes and textures on a table, like you see people cringe and they're like, oh God, not post-it notes and textures. But also then they're like, they are in a different place and you can feel it. And the number of times I have dragged very reluctant people into a kind of post-it note and texter space. And at the end they're like, oh, actually, I really, I kind of really learnt something in that, and that was really interesting. But I like there's something you have to physically disrupt the way of working because the habits of a meeting with an agenda and items is just so difficult. In fact, maybe that gets us beautifully to a quick fire round of questions at the end. Um, because one question I was gonna ask, I'll throw it to either of you to jump in. What's one meeting type you'd abolished to free up energy? And it can't be coag or whatever it's called now, national cabinet.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

I would just jump in and say any process update meetings. So that is the classic stuff that you can put in a really efficient visual form and send it to someone. I think you replace process update meetings with meetings where you do one of two things. You either say, This is the problem we need to unpack together today, or and you know, sometimes I'm the more senior person in these meetings, it's a meeting that is the chance for my team to say, This is the barrier we need you to remove, yeah, or this is the barrier we need you to activate, our boss or our boss's boss to remove. And those are really generative, productive conversations.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

But it requires an excellent team who knows how to frame that. Jason, uh, one meeting type you'd abolish?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:36

I I'd go the opposite direction. I reckon there's meetings you should do to get energy. And I like so it almost one of the ones we just talked about was go to another jurisdiction, just you and listen.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

And put yourself out there, you know, in that kind of sense that we just talked about, to say, well, how can I hear this differently? What am I bringing to this? What do I what what are the ways in which this there's another way of thinking about this? And how did I, how can I bring that back with me to go, look, great, this is this is something that's going to help us really move forward, right? So it's not all about doing less, in my view. There are things we could do. And then another version of that is also about the system and the front line, right? I think as people, and I think we're all talking kind of often in these conversations from central agency reform leadership perspective. But when you kind of go back to connect with the why about why we're doing this, that's another meeting, but it's important. And it's not the thing that we do, that we make enough time for. It's not even sometimes even kosher to do that. It's seen as, oh, that's the job for the minister or the staff to go do that, or what have you. And really, really challenge that and really kind of get to the point where you're connecting with the what is it that we're doing here. And I would say, you know, how can you create space in your day to do the meetings that give you energy? Uh and I feel like maybe um, you know, you're not you're not then kind of thinking, Jesus, what can I cut here? But what can I add?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

And I think that really goes to there's lots of literature about working across difference that talks about how much you unintentionally offend one another just because you don't understand wrong language, the piece about just going and hanging out with people, it's amazing how much less you walk into that because you picked up those theses. And then my tip, Jason, would be if you're going to go and visit someone else, you know, particularly across those sort of policy delivery lines or hierarchy lines, ask to be reverse mentored by a person about what they do in their job. And that puts a title on the thing that is actually teaching you what does this look like in practice and transferring the tacit knowledge from that expert in that job to you as the person who's thinking about the reform context.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

I really like that because you keep, I think, trying to drag us, Francis, to the idea that we have to like you have to intentionally remake your way of working. You can't just kind of like, ah, now I've got a meeting out in a school. No, like I need to say what is this thing that I'm doing. I'm out here learning from you about what that is. That's gorgeous. Um, all right. Uh Jason, maybe start with you. One early sign a reform is in trouble that you trust more than polling.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:16

Yeah, I I'm not sure that I trust polling as a as an indicator for whether the reform's in trouble, but right.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:22

So anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:24

No, well, for me, I feel like with any good reform, there are one or two keepers of the flame. They could be um a minister, uh, even in a different jurisdiction, sometimes senior staffers, uh, it can be senior public servants. There is a sense about the guiding light. They're not often not in the trenches with you. They've got other stuff to do, but they've got a sense about this North Star, about what it is we're trying to do. And often they can articulate the two out of three super, super clearly. That's actually one of the ways in which you know that they exist. But my red flag or the kind of idea that, you know, with something's going wrong, is when that role isn't being played, it isn't being played with clarity, or it isn't, or you don't have access to it, right? It's somehow there's a barrier, right, that you you don't get to. And for me, it's when we lose the ability to kind of reattach to that North Star, to kind of go, you know, I know that we're on track here, this is working or this is not, and get that kind of feedback from often a senior person, but it can be like a wise counsel too. That that is the thing where I start going, great, well, are we on safe ground here? What do I need to do to recalibrate? How do I know that I'm still driving in the right direction? Have I been looking up and around enough as well as down and in on delivering the reform? So for me, that's the that's the thing that I start to worry. And when governments change or when ministers get replaced or when staffers move on or senior people move to another important project, that happens to us all. That's the opportunity for us to kind of go, look, hold on, where is that source of advice coming from? Do where is that uh that where is that North Star? And and you know, do we need to kind of have a bit of a check that we're on track?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Oh my god, that is so wise. Like you are so right that there are those, and and they can't be in the trenches on it, right? Because then they're like they're boiling as the frog as you are, right? You need someone who is out of the out of the hot water who can see what's happening. That's brilliant. Uh Francis, uh, early sign of reform in trouble or big red flag for reformers.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

Yeah, probably a public service classic, but it is a reliable red flag, which is senior people stop turning up to the meetings, they get delegated or they get pushback. And there is that piece, right? Which is like time is the most precious thing we can give to one another's reform efforts. And so if I'm ever leading a reform, a key metric for me actually, as the leader of that reform is are my lateral colleagues turning up to the meetings when I'm asking them to? And can my can I support my deputy secretary or my secretary to engage with their lateral colleagues when they need? And you know, I think working with the coalition of Aboriginal Peaks, you know, I had chats with colleagues, really similar thing about how do we, in incredibly busy community leaders' lives, create the space and momentum around engaging in different reforms.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:17

Oh, I really love that. And it also reminds me of the comments about earlier about prioritizing the time as well, because sometimes I think when I'm inviting people to things, I worry I'm wasting their time because it's light, but actually, no, of course, people are getting so much from these things, and you kind of need to value that time you spend together, which of course comes back to don't do it in the stupid meeting way, do it in a in a more constructive way. Wow. Well, that was amazing and beautifully insightful. Any final thoughts from you guys you want to share with the pod crew?

Short‑Term Pessimist, Long‑Term Optimist

SPEAKER_03 1:08:51

Maybe one thing I'll add, Carolyn, is you know, these types of reforms can um, you know, appropriately crowd in a lot of people with energy to get stuff done. That's why we're here, and that's what motivates us as public servants. I would say it's important to keep cynical people around. Um and and I and I it maybe even cynical isn't the right way to think about it. No, no, no. People who's um who aren't necessarily involved and incentivized to get this thing done and have the freedom to tell you, you know what, you do this, you go and smash it, it's gonna be great. But when we look back 20 years from now, I don't know, have we created a coalition of outsourced providers now that are gonna make this unchangeable forever? Uh, have we created a group of losers out of this um reform that um are gonna be so bitter and we're never gonna be able to deal with them and it's gonna cause a policy log jam in 20 years' time? That type of stuff where the the advice is not um the the incentive on the advice provider is not to give you to make you feel better, but to actually give you a sense from the future or from an alternative perspective, a different political perspective, a different government, whatever it is, of another way of viewing what's a really, really important reform to you, what's a really, really important reform to your stakeholders, but you do need that sense of that person with it. It could be someone in your team, could be someone who's an outsider, could be a friend or colleague. Uh but my take is that it's important to have that around, right? And I don't know that we always cultivate and seek out that voice, but that's something else I would pop for reform leaders to do is to make sure you've got that within your network one way or another. As I think that's critical in terms of thinking about the long-term public value.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

That's incredibly wise. Uh, Francis?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:39

So when you think a lot about foresight as a kind of community of practice, Jason, just to dovetail on a really useful and insightful comment, you also are meant to turn the gaze back on yourself and say, What are my tendencies? And so often reformers, for example, and I count myself in this, have optimism bias. You see the possibility for change that others don't have. But that means that you absolutely need the kind of people that Jason is talking about to ground you in. You know, particularly going back to our theme of today, proper robust advice about sequencing. Those are the people that can see both the long-term impacts, but also the real things that might mean that your optimism needs to be tempered. And so a colleague of I've worked a lot with on reform talks about one should be a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist to work in these spaces, which I love.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:33

I really love that. That is a beautiful note to finish on. Uh, so obviously, our mug winners for uh this episode are you two lovely guests. So uh I look forward to you receiving your Westminster Tradition pod mugs in the mail. And to everyone else, thank you so much for joining us. Till next time. And I've