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Advice for a future regulator
WW, a loyal MR reader, emailed me a request:
My friend recently accepted a fellowship at REDACTED and will be starting in a few months. I was wondering what advice or reading suggestions you might have for a future component of the regulatory regime.
I am assuming this is not a "policy level" position. I suggest these pointers:
1. Ponder whether you actually wish to move up into a managerial position over time. Your job will change a lot and your headaches will increase. Inertia will push you in this direction, but don't take it for granted.
2. Figure out in advance what kinds of cognitive capture you will be subject to, and whether you wish to fight or embrace them.
3. Watch Kurosawa's movie Ikiru, about a dying Japanese bureaucrat and his final quest for meaning.
4. Keep on reading within the field you work on. There will be a tendency to assume you "know it all," but the perspectives of outsiders will remain valuable, even if they commit stupid blunders on some of the details.
5. If you don't already know, learn the value of ambiguity and how to build alliances in the workplace. Many people remain bad at these skills.
What else can you all think of?
Addendum: David Henderson has more.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 2, 2011 at 11:40 AM in Economics, Political Science | Permalink
Comments
#4 is great, I'd expand slightly to say that when outsiders make those stupid blunders, you may be tempted to disregard their work entirely. Instead, sincerely test whether the blunder changes their overall insight - make yourself lay out the logic of why the error makes them wrong. You may find they aren't, and even if they are the exercise will be useful.
Posted by: Andrew edwards at Jan 2, 2011 12:09:06 PM
Ambiguity is a true survival skill in any organization. Learn how to say things like, "We will optimize the procedural environment so as to further enhance operability." Sounds like you said something important, but all you really said was "We'll get better at doing things."
Study the public appearances of Alan Greenspan for a master class in ambiguity and opacity. He kept his job for quite a while.
Posted by: DaveyNC at Jan 2, 2011 12:10:04 PM
I love the reference to Ikiru, and the message to keep passion in your professional, as well as personal, life. But unlike Watanabe, you are just starting out on what will hopefully be a long career. Remember, therefore, that "career" doesn't mean a straight line from novice to retirement. If you are lucky, the path will take unexpected turns, and you will see things you did not intend, nor imagine.
If order to be prepared to take advantage of what you find just 'round the bend, here are some seemingly trite, but nonetheless useful, principles:
a. No assignment is too trivial to deserve your best effort.
b. Network. Whatever you're doing today, there may be somebody tomorrow who will know about it and who might be important to you next week.
c. Never burn a bridge. No matter how frustrated you are, remember that your [professional] actions should always be calculated, not merely for emotional relief.
d. Most important, and well served by the foregoing, remember that each job is most likely a waypoint along the route to the next. William Howard Taft knew that.
Posted by: Ken Rhodes at Jan 2, 2011 12:12:58 PM
Probably:
-Do your best to fight for freedom by attempting to combat any proposed new regulations and undermine already existing ones.
Posted by: Spock at Jan 2, 2011 12:15:00 PM
I also liberally give advice in fields I am not a part of and have no experience in.
Posted by: Wimivo at Jan 2, 2011 12:30:02 PM
How about: show some balls and bring the agency down from the inside.
Posted by: dirk at Jan 2, 2011 12:58:14 PM
Read Kafka.
Posted by: RR at Jan 2, 2011 1:00:25 PM
I would add that no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to save the world. Also, never mistake an outlier for the norm. Some regulation appears to be a response to an event that happens just once, never to be seen again. Remember, perfect is the enemy of good.
I would also recommend reading "Rework" (Fried and Hansson) and "Simple Rules for a Complex World" (Epstein). Both these books should help him better understand the general tradeoff between freedom, safety, and systemic efficiency. Perhaps also Bastiat's "What is Seen and What is not Seen." Regulators should at least be able to consider what unintended consequences may arise.
Posted by: Simon Grey at Jan 2, 2011 1:13:14 PM
@dirk- alternatively, channel your inner Ron Swanson.
Posted by: Simon Grey at Jan 2, 2011 1:15:00 PM
The agency cannot possibly do good, so sabotage it from within.
(said mostly tongue-in-cheek)
Posted by: Noah Yetter at Jan 2, 2011 1:45:05 PM
@Simon, I was thinking more along the lines of the The Good Soldier Svejk. Follow all the rules to the letter, no matter how stupid, and you will bring the system down.
Posted by: dirk at Jan 2, 2011 2:16:09 PM
I work for a regulatory agency and I can certainly say Tyler's advice holds well. (I am curious as to how it would differ though if it were a "policy level" position.) Also, what is cognitive capture?
Within my cubicle I've posted part of the following quote from William Galston. Conflict is inevitable and the this can serve as a convenient moral compass in difficult times.
"In the end, public service is a moral calling. Good public servants have the courage to speak the truth as they see it—and the humility to recognize the limits of their understanding. These virtues are not innate; they must be acquired over time. Academic economists often do their best work when they are young; public servants tend to peak much later in life. For most of them, as for the rest of us, it takes the memory of suppressing one's best thoughts for fear of offending those who outrank us to stiffen our spine later on; and only the experience of confidently recommending a course of action that generates bad results can sensitize us to the possibility that we might be mistaken."
Posted by: Anon at Jan 2, 2011 2:53:31 PM
Take a personality test. Bureaucracy drives some people insane, apparently bureaucrats.
Posted by: Andrew at Jan 2, 2011 3:39:23 PM
As you will likely be inundated with input from those who 1) have interests before your agency and 2) can afford to have them professionally presented, remember to understand the interests of stakeholders who don't meet the second test. Think of this as an extension to Tyler's #2 and #4 above.
Posted by: Jim M at Jan 2, 2011 4:04:52 PM
In the spirit of Tyler's advice to learn the value of equivocating instead of saying clearly what you actually think:
1) Kiss ass. Smooch, smoochy mooch that big brown eye.
2) When your friends stop being useful, don't hesitate to stab them in the back.
3) Never give a sucker an even break.
4) You will spend a lot of time lying to yourself to justify your own existence. The best way to learn to lie to yourself is to practice on others.
Posted by: dirk at Jan 2, 2011 9:47:33 PM
While I don't agree with dirk's 2 or 3, 1 is pretty accurate if you can stand it and can do it without it being annoying. (I can't.) The gist of 4, that you will need to figure out how to justify your work to yourself, is also likely correct, although lying to yourself is a completely different skill than lying to someone else for most people, I think.
Posted by: Nate at Jan 2, 2011 10:54:16 PM
I am in a similar situation, albeit at a large oil and gas company. My work gives me significant insight into how organizations do succession planning for future leadership and key technical/professional roles. My advice would be to:
1: Information is king, so keep your mouth shut. Avoid talking bad about people AND the organization. Listen, but offer only ambigious feedback when someone else is ranting or venting. Develop the skill where it appears that you're sympathetic, even though your not verbally confirming it. People will open up and give you lots of information.
2: Don't pass on information/ideas that are freely given. Save it and use it to your advantage. Lots of people have great ideas. Be the one to follow through on them.
3: Find out who are the short-term or long-term employees. If they're long-term, find out if they're potentially competition. Don't tear them down backstab them, experienced leadership will see right through it. Instead, take opportunities to outperform them in specific areas, even if it's not in your day-to-day responsibilities.
4: Keep your cool, even when you're extremely frustrated. In meetings where senior people are present, this is important. Seeing that a relatively young individual keeps their composure even when the other is losing it will go a VERY long way.
5: If you want to be a manager, find out how to cut costs and improve efficiencies.
Posted by: Sean at Jan 2, 2011 11:52:40 PM
Now that this has become about general career advice I can say that the number one thing for success in a large firm is... (I was successful, I speak from experience): act like a baby. Acting like a baby got me everywhere. The guys on the top floor scream and cuss and act over-emotional over meaningless crap. Do that. Again and again. It worked for me. I started out by trying to get fired and the more I tried to get fired the more I got promoted. Do that. Come in late and hungover every day and raise shit with everybody about everything and for some crazy reason people will think you deserve to be calling the shots when in fact you don't give a shit. That works.
Posted by: dirk at Jan 3, 2011 3:18:14 AM
Basically, I disagree with Sean. Don't keep your cool. Raise hell. But not about important stuff. Pretend to care passionately about trivialities. Management digs that. Cussing is important. Executives cuss. Make sure other people hear you say the word fuck. It makes them think you care.
Although, Sean may be right in the sense that you shouldn't actually lose your cool. If you actually lose your cool, it probably means you actually care in which case you are doomed. But assuming you are normal and don't really care your best bet is to often pretend to lose your cool. Fake anger = executive material.
Posted by: dirk at Jan 3, 2011 3:30:55 AM
As someone in these shoes, I have three more pieces of advice:
1. Always look for the counter-factual: do not get wedded to your preconceptions
2. It is often more informative to "play dumb" and ask a lot of questions than to try and impress folks in the industry with your knowledge: junior folks often want to appear more knowledgeable than they are.
3. Remember, the industry will lie to you sometimes, and will frequently "talk their agenda" either explicitly or implicitly.
Posted by: Carter the Examiner at Jan 3, 2011 10:24:27 AM
