Aaron Wildavsky was Professor at the University of California, Berkeley and Dean of its public policy school. He wrote an insightful book on public policy titled ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ in the year 1979.  It has become a catchy line since then, “Speaking Truth to Power.” So, what is earth shaking or intimidating about speaking truth to power, implying mighty leaders? Are mighty leaders’ intransigent or do they lack the quality of listening? One CEO of an MNC once said that, “I want everybody to speak truth to me, even if it means they lose their job.” It means this behaviour is common across organizational types like corporates, political parties, armies, or even cultural organizations or civic societies. In public policy, it is said that advising policy makers is about advocating or negotiating policies through the realms of power. The threat comes from the fact the messenger himself could become the target.

So, how should one communicate unpopular policies to rulers? One alternative, if a policy advisor has to communicate bitter pills to powers that be or a consultant to his high-net-worth client, is to be altruistic. Altruism is doing a noble act or an honest job even if it is at the cost of oneself. In my more than two decades of advisory role in the public policy field, I find that altruism has steeply declining diminishing returns. At best, I get sympathetic ears and at worst, I get dismissed as being too academic which means of no value. Pro bono advisory services get treated as ‘it does not cost or harm to listen’.

Alternatively, by observing global consulting firms and high paid electoral advisory firms such as IPAC, I suggest acting pricey if you want to be heard. High budgets and hefty fees can get intent ears which altruistic advice cannot. I hypothesize: Speaking Truth to Power for a Fee is more effective and impactful than Speaking Truth to Power unsolicited or pro bono.

Why Speaking truth is tough?

Why is speaking the truth difficult? It is not that leaders like sycophancy all the time. Leaders at the top are generally alone and filled with self-doubts. They would like to listen to the truth, but they are invariably surrounded by people with their own agenda. In the close circle of cabal, truth is an exception and ‘groupthink’ is the norm. While they are careful not to get fooled by sycophants, they are wary of truth-tellers who could be blunt. The odds are also against the truth-tellers who are always in the minority. Getting access and belonging to a close circle is another challenge which gets further complicated with leaders changing their confidants. There are stories abound of how Birbal and Tenali Ram used to communicate to Kings.

Wildavsky talks of challenges policy analysts face in confronting decision makers with truth.  He says, “The purpose of analysis is to connect knowledge with power, not ignorance with weaknesses” (p9).  He asks this question, “Are policy analysts’ “hired guns” paid to do the bidding of their clients, whatever that might be? Should they subvert their superiors for a higher cause?” (p13). He writes, “Whatever the combination, speaking truth to power remains the ideal of analysts who hope they have truth, but realize they have not (and, in a democracy, should not have) power” (p13). He cautions, “No one can do analysis without being aware that moral considerations are integral to the enterprise… I have never been sympathetic to the view that facts and values, except as intellectual constructs, either are or ought to be kept separate in action” (p13). That said, how does one wade through this dilemma? He advises, “…designing problems is an art but justifying solutions is a craft amenable to various conventions: some distinguish work of quality and others select forums for securing agreement on what counts as evidence…. To be sure, there can be no guarantee that truth will be discovered or, if it is, that it will make mankind free or even increase agreements rather than conflict. But maintaining acceptable standards for convincing others (including not lying to oneself) is surely superior to doing the opposite” (p14). 

In this, I had been driven by the misimpression that if I provide advisory services pro bono, I will be free of obligation; and will have the space to tread the middle path and be faithful to myself as well as the client. I believed that the leader or client will have no lever to manipulate or dictate. But I have been misled on this.  The reality is, truth hardly mattered where even half-truth would suffice. I find that men of power may of course listen, but may choose to ignore as he has made no mental commitment. It is here that I realized he makes an express commitment if he is willing to spend for the advice and put his bet on it. 

Steep Fees and Manifest Commitments

The trigger for my reaching this conclusion was the news that IPAC charged DMK hefty fees for providing electoral advisory services in the recently concluded election in Tamil Nadu. I consider DMK victory as a spectacular success and IPAC did have a significant role in that. In Tamil Nadu, DMK did have a good chance, but a majority on its own is spectacular. I would count the victory of TMC in the West Bengal election also in a similar way. Again, TMC had a good chance of winning, but 200 plus was beyond everybody’s projection. Experts do credit IPAC with a major share for these victories.

In Tamil Nadu, there were lots of rumours in the media about the hefty fees that IPAC was supposed to have charged DMK.  Its leader Stalin was in fact ridiculed for it. If we go by publicly quoted fees, it is steep even by global standards. If we go by the electoral outcome, its fees is ‘value for money’. But, I am coming from another angle. In the process of advising DMK and TMC, I am sure IPAC and Prashant Kishore (PK) would have run into several rough weathers. PK and his team would have presented several uncomfortable choices. He would have helped set the narratives, in choice of party candidates, in coalition strategies, in the design of messages, etc. DMK is a century old party with its own thought leaders and ideologies. There are several veterans in the party and outside, who would have loved to advise the leader but they were obviously kept at bay. Stalin, in spite of biting criticisms and ridicule from the critics, stuck to his choice of IPAC and their guidance, and it did pay him ultimately. It will be worth knowing how he stuck to his choice despite resistances, but that is for another day. So, what can we attribute to the continuing success of IPAC in recommending choices to the leaders which are against their grains? This is the role which many other party leaders and advisors have yearned but never commanded. I feel it is the ability to command the respect and being able to communicate bitter advice and unpalatable ideas to the clients in the face of the threat of getting debarred that marks a winner from the advisors. Wonder how many senior administrative officers could have had that comfort level with such strong leaders as Mamata or Stalin of being heard and adhered to. This is the question that attracted me to reflect on this.    

Prashant Kishore created Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG) in 2013 and made a good beginning in the general election in 2014 in which he provided marketing and media strategic initiatives to BJP. But, post 2014, he split with BJP and supported Nitish Kumar and JDU in the assembly election in 2015. Post the successful election outcome, the CM made him his advisor, but later he quit owing to some differences. In 2016 elections, he supported Congress in Punjab, and supported YSRCP Andhra Pradesh in 2019, AAP in Delhi in 2020, and DMK in Tamil Nadu and TMC in West Bengal in 2021. All these elections were great successes. These successes could be due to many factors but reality is that the winning parties themselves are willing to concede his contribution. He has repeated buyers also with the Congress and Capt. Amrinder Singh engaging him for the forthcoming assembly election. His only failure was the case of supporting Congress in the UP election in 2017, which again could be due to more than one reason. The leaders he has worked with are all powerful regional leaders who are mercurial. What explains his acceptability to them? We can advance several propositions for this.

One reason he has their ‘buying in’ is that they are fighting their elections and there is dire necessity to win. If that be the case, why wouldn’t they listen to their own veterans. It could be because the leaders know the potential of their teams and they could be looking for fresh approaches. Also, IPAC carries strong credentials in this turf even though each party and state are new to them. So, it is in the party’s interest to listen to them, if they want to win.  We mentioned that winning an election involves many critical aspects like narrative setting to designing messages to selection of candidates. It is worth pondering how the experienced leaders and grand old parties outsource these functions to third parties.

There are also other agencies which offer these services. These days we even have psephologists making predictions in a way that molds public perceptions. But, they don’t command the respect and complete commitment that IPAC commands. This is where priciness and steep fees come into play. Of course, IPAC justifies the fees with professional resources and key inputs. With every election, IPAC has been building its own credentials also. Probably it does a preliminary assessment and decides which party is worth backing. It goes for a comprehensive strategy unmindful of the budget. Since it has built its credibility over the years, it is able to command a price. Here is where stakes are created. If it is a meagre budget, probably parties might take it as a hit or miss strategy. By committing to hefty fees, it commits itself to being open to its suggestions and engaging with what is now popularly called ‘skin in the game’. This is a critical aspect which is missing in the freelance and pro bono services, and even well-intentioned advice by party veterans because they come with some baggage and winning is only one of the considerations. They play with no stakes in the game. With heavy budgets, the buyer of services plays with skin in the game, because if they fail the cost is too high to be paid. For the vendor of services, winning is important to maintain their credentials. The commitments get deepened and there is a sense of shared fate between both the principal and the vendor.

What about global consulting firms?  

Consultants from global consulting firms are in between. They do charge steep enough, but they limit their thinking with L1 boundaries. The consultants are mostly evaluated on the process of implementation than on the outcome. There is less skin in the game to that extent. For the government, especially the bureaucrat, their job is not at stake, unlike the scenario in the elections. So, they are again operating without skin in the game or with partial commitments. So, they can be selective about accepting and implementing the recommendations. Consultants work with quarter-on-quarter pressure and they do not have the patience for championing their advice and working for results. Consultants do have the ears of the policy makers more than the freelance advisors from academic or civil societies, but can only push incremental reforms and not go for any characteristic changes which are unpopular but make immense sense. They stop short of suggesting reforms which can threaten the very relationship. If they do play a transformational role, it could be for reasons of ‘hired gun’ as Wildavsky puts it, which means these are preordained. These are more negotiated solutions than deterministic solutions.    

So, what works?

In general, we can safely say that all polity and all politics are election and constituency driven. Politicians throughout their reign evaluate their moves at the altar of winning elections and building their constituency. In the making of public policy, this is where political masters take over in the final stages from the technical and policy advisors. When it comes to elections, a political leader antenna gets even more tuned. He is rightfully focused on winning and is immersed in strategies that will get him power. Such a scenario is tailor made for consultants who think he can offer better strategies than what the leaders or their party could contemplate or what competitors could be planning. Faced with the threat of election outcome, a leader should be willing to listen to advisors but within certain boundaries and with a few ‘no-go’ areas. But, IPAC and PK go one step further. They seem to tread almost all areas like even selecting and dropping candidates or drafting manifestoes. Their head PK has been successful because he has fairly well delivered on their promises. He commands his price because he carries credibility. He carries credibility because he charges value-based pricing which is a bomb (if we go by the press reports), which makes both the client and vendor committed to the findings and recommendations.

This comfort level and penetration into decision making processes, experts who give pro bono services do not obviously command. As Wildavsky says, experts do not wield power and they should not also in democracy. IPAC is envy of career bureaucrats who do not command a degree of control. Could be because policy and administrative decisions are not career threatening or do not pose existential crisis for the politicians and bureaucrats unlike elections. In fact, even PK has not been effective post-election and after the party has captured power like in the case of JDU in Bihar. Probably, it is one reason why he has to look for a new party every election.   

 

Ref: Aaron Wildavsky, Speaking truth to power : The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis, Little, Brown, and Company, Boston. 1979.

 

Image Credits: flickr.com

 

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