The 3 Best Things I Learned at Policy School

I’ve reached that stage of life where I’m good at giving out advice, bad at receiving it from others, and worst by far at taking my own. Experts call this condition early onset Indian Uncle Syndrome—sadly a terminal condition. Occasionally, however, my advice is solicited.

Every year I do these ‘career panels’ for current Masters’ students at Yale’s Jackson School for Global Affairs, alongside some fellow alums. It’s a 1-hour facilitated discussion where you explain the meaning of life. It got me thinking. The two years I spent at Jackson were among my happiest. My Masters at Yale was sweet redemption for high school and undergrad, when I was lazy, distracted, and underachieving. At Jackson, my work ethic, my ambition, and my self-belief went to another level. I will never be the same. If graduate school changed who I am, studying public policy changed how I think. Here are three big ideas that have shaped how I approach the world.

1.     1. Difficult problems do not have simple solutions

Complexity is so irritating. We want a problem to be solvable by one action executed by one actor. We crave simplicity. We wish a prime minister could fix poverty with a phone call; we want our CEOs to solve pollution by corporate decree. In our intro stats class at Jackson, taught by the peerless Lloyd Grieger, we learned the world doesn’t work like that.

We learned why intractable problems are made up of many, smaller problems. And each of those smaller problems contribute, in varying degrees, to the bigger problem. And each of those smaller problems are addressed by different stakeholders. And none of those stakeholders agree on what to do. So, before one can begin solving a complex problem, one has to understand it. Welcome to “multivariate analysis”.

I remember Lloyd teaching us multivariate analysis using a demographic data set from South Africa. We had stats on a big group of South Africans’ race, gender, education level, and income. We used a software tool to change one variable and hold the others equal; if you compared the average 40-year-old, high school-educated Black South African man to the average 40-year-old, high school-educated White South African man, the Black South African would have a much lower income than his White countryman. If you took a 25-year-old, college-educated Black South African woman and a 25-year-old, college-educated Black South African man, the male South African earned slightly more than the woman. Something like that. You get the picture.

Lloyd taught us to quantify complexity. Suddenly, I could know things about big, scary, structural problems I had previously only felt. Poverty—a systemic problem in South Africa and much of the world—was caused by many different factors. Some factors worsened poverty more than others; some factors worsened it more for some groups than others.

So. How should we, class of 30 naïve public policy students masquerading as would-be South African policymakers, use our limited government budget to improve incomes as much as possible, for as many of the neediest people as possible? Lloyd helped us run the numbers. I think I remember, for example, that helping girls graduate high school yielded the biggest overall net increase in incomes. Maybe the best thing we could do to solve poverty in South Africa was to invest in teachers, build & maintain girls’ toilets, train principals and social workers, fund campaigns on female health and family planning, and so on.

Stats class changed how I saw the world. I realized that basically all social problems are intersectional: if there’s a problem facing society, the most vulnerable social groups would inevitably be worst impacted. Air pollution? Low-income women are usually hit hardest. The “best” solution, therefore, probably centers on them. And even that is only one of many complementary solutions to a tough problem.  

Now when I look at a complex “systems-problem”, like climate change or energy access in my day job at RMI, my mind wanders back to Lloyd’s stats class. When I’m at a big family dinner and verbose Indian uncles explain how Delhi’s smog or Bombay’s slums can be solved by the simple sacking of this bureaucrat or the appointment of that minister, my mind wanders back to Lloyd’s stats class. I wish everyone could take Lloyd’s stats class.

So many other ideas have flowed from that first set of realizations about the complex state of the world. I suddenly saw that in the “real world”, policymakers never have perfect options—only least bad options. Democracy may not be perfect, but it’s the least bad; liberal economics may not be perfect for developing countries, but it’s the least bad. The best leaders use idealism to set direction and pragmatism to steer the way; everything is a compromise and doing something is usually better than doing nothing; policymakers must make the tough decisions that bring the most benefit to the most people in the long run, while somehow staying in office; the best leaders know what to optimize for and that everything is a trade-off—they know how to thread that needle between politics and policy. Meaningful change is hard-fought and incremental.

Each of those ideas are essays/motivational posters unto themselves, but all they flowed from Lloyd’s gospel of multivariate analysis.

2.    2. Any solution starts with empathy

Tim Snyder—as in the historian Timothy Snyder—taught Jackson’s intro history class by making us pretend we were different world leaders approaching an oncoming war. Through this class, he taught me strategic empathy: the idea that to know what to optimize for, you have to know what your counterparts are optimizing for.

Whether it’s financing a nuclear power plant or negotiating peace talks between nuclear powers, it starts with putting yourself in the other sides’ shoes. It’s about understanding their motivations and then figuring out the areas of the most alignment and starting there. And when you’re dealing with a bad faith actor or someone who only interested in being an adversary, you have to be ruthless. You don’t want to use that option, but you must always have it. Just having power changes the dynamic. Tim Snyder’s history class showed me that understanding your allies is as crucial as understanding your adversaries; it starts by learning to think like them and then realizing why they feel what they feel.

Strategic empathy shapes how I think and how I work. As a journalist and marketer, I positioned my stories and messages for my readers and audiences because I knew what they wanted. The stuff I research today—the dire stalemate in international climate finance—makes sense when you view the complex equation from each side’s perspective. If people are not getting what they want, they’re not going to do what you ask them. Strategic empathy has helped me navigate every job interview and every dinner party conversation; when I’m meeting someone for the first time, I try to frame what I’m saying in terms they’ll resonate with. It’s made me a better listener and that’s made me a better thinker.

3.      3. Grad school lasts 2 years; grad school friendships last a lifetime

I’m still alive so maybe this one’s premature, but it’s I think it’s most valuable one of them all. In the five years since I graduated Jackson, my connection with my closest friends keeps getting stronger. Those friendships have sustained me in tough times—especially since I live thousands of miles from my family. Grad school friendships are magical, and I think I know why.

Policy school the most concentrated group of idealistic pragmatists you’ll ever find. The people who select into your policy program are probably more similar to you in acumen and aspiration then the people who selected into your company, undergraduate program or high school. You fit together. The admissions officer has filtered you into a tight little group of fellow nerds who look at big problems in the world hoping we can actually solve them. Though classmates come from vastly different backgrounds—I loved the ex-Marines as much as the ex-human rights activists—they all want to make a difference. They’re generally as curious as you, as well-read and well-traveled, and as passionate about fixing society. So, they can see you. They can really see who you are, what drives you, what scares you, better than almost any other cohort of colleagues you’ll find yourself in. They push you to be better because they know you can be, and they care for you when you’re down because they know you need it.

Then you graduate and you go to their weddings and hold their newborns and watch each other become adults. You help each other get groceries and like you help each other get new jobs. When I was lonely and sick last winter, a Jackson friend brought soup to my apartment. She brought soup! To my apartment! No matter how prestigious your company, they’re probably not bringing you chowder when you’re miserable. They’re not who you call after a bad break-up. Your friendships are more valuable than any policy seminar you’ll take; that love is more precious than any employer can give.

                                                   

There are other useful things I learned too, I’m sure. There are probably useful things I’ve forgotten. I think back to policy school and realize just how lucky I’ve been. If you have the chance to go—especially on a scholarship—you should. Your Lloyd, your Tim, your soup await.