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Surviving the minister

Martin Stanley on the importance of communication skills for civil servants

BOTH ministers and officials live or die by our communication skills. We civil servants often have no other weapon at our disposal. But we are not communicating with machines. We are trying to achieve things by influencing the behavi our of other human beings. Our communication, therefore, has to be alive, and for this purpose it needs emotion, energy and intelligence. It also needs to be planned.

Emotion

We should never neglect the need for emotion and humanity when we speak and when we write, either for our own or for Minister's signature. Emotions make a very clear impression on those with whom we are communicating, and contribute greatly to the effect iveness of our communication. They should, therefore, form a small but vital part of almost all communication, including inter-ministerial correspondence, ministerial submissions, letters to the public and speeches -- indeed any communication in whic h you are trying to persuade or leave a lasting impression. Dry, official-sounding texts are simply less effective in these circumstances.

We must also always be polite and, if there is anything to apologise for -- including a late reply -- then apologise generously, using the word `sorry' (as ever, a short Anglo-Saxon word is the most effective).

Always try to avoid jargon, officialese, legalese, foreign or Latin phrases, acronyms and abbreviations. And please avoid insincerity. I distrust rounding off sentences at the end of letters -- for example, ``I hope you find these comments helpful. '' These words are entirely inappropriate if the letter conveys unwelcome news and the recipient might suspect you of insincerity, even if this charge is unwarranted.

Energy

To be effective it is also necessary to impart some sense of motivation, commitment or direction. For instance, it is not enough to demonstrate, in a ministerial submission, that you are familiar with the facts, and are concerned about them. You also hav e to show that you intend to do something about the issue. Only then will a Minister be happy to leave you to get on with your job.

Similarly, a Minister, when writing to colleagues or the public, needs to demonstrate that he or she appreciates what is troubling the correspondent and, demonstrate his or her determination to deal with the point at issue.

After you have drafted a letter, take a good look at it to make sure that it passes the above tests.

Intelligence

Your approach to the draft will depend, of course, on whether you are still at the stage of designing your policy, or whether you are implementing or defending it. But, whichever applies, it is essential that the contents are logical and accurate, whethe r we are communicating within Whitehall or with the public. Many of our communications deal with subjects which are important either to our ministers or to sections of the public, or to both. None of us will get very far unless we learn to write accurate ly and unambiguously, and indeed all experienced civil servants have real skill in this area. It is also essential that we properly explain the considerations which underlie Minister's policies. It is a real cop out to use phrases such as ``It is the Dep artment's policy that...''. The obvious retort is `Why?'

The structure of written text can make all the difference, especially if the subject is a complex one. Do not hesitate to make full use of side headings. `Background' and `Next Steps' or `Action' are particularly useful. Also make full use of annexes to reduce the length, and improve the flow, of the main document. If you are asking more than one question, or dealing with more than one issue, consider giving each a separate section and a separate heading. And remember that one table of figures, or one g raph, can often do the job of several pages of words.

Also, we sometimes have to deal with people who are highly stressed or obsessive or worse. Such people need to receive very clear unambiguous information and advice, or else you will get absolutely nowhere. It is always a mistake to be rude or to show an ger or frustration. Such reactions (a) raise the emotional temperature, and so get in the way of clear communication; (b) immediately make people dislike you, and (c) lay you open to criticism. All these severely reduce your effectiveness.

Planning

Before you turn to your keyboard, dictaphone or pen, take a little time to decide:

* What you expect the recipient to do once they have read it;

* When you want them to do it, and (if appropriate)

* How much work you expect to create.

The answers to these questions are not always obvious and, if they are not obvious to you, they will certainly not be obvious to the recipient. It is particularly important to think about the amount of work that you are creating. You may think you are as king a simple question, but the recipient might be able to answer it at a number of levels after varying degrees of research. So do you want them to spend 15 minutes, or 15 hours, on the reply?

The question is particularly relevant if you are addressing a request to several people. For instance, if you send out a request for briefing or information to the heads of only 10 divisions, but they each pass it out to four branches, and if each branch then has to do three hours work, you have created 120 hours of work. Even more work can be created by ministerial correspondence and letters to trade associations and the heads of large companies. Do you really intend this? Could you not target the requ est more carefully, or write to a sample of recipients?

Once you have answered the above three questions to your own satisfaction, you should include the result in the first few sentences of your letter or minute. There is no need for this to appear as an order. You can add plenty of words and phrases like `p lease', `I should be grateful if...' and `it would be helpful if...' But do not disguise your expectations. The recipient needs these to be crystal clear.

If you are simply seeking agreement to a proposal, phrase your minute in such a way that a simple `yes' or `no' can be given by the recipient -- for example, finish the minute: `Do you agree please?'.

A few final points

First, remember that telephone communication is notoriously unreliable, for you lose the visual clues that add texture to face-to-face communication. You should certainly not rely on oral statements when important principles, or large amounts of money or careers or reputations are at stake. Get everything written down, either in the form of a contract or as your record, copied to them, of what they said.

For instance, if someone comes in for a meeting (with you or a Minister) as a result of which the Minister might make a controversial decision, ensure that there is an accurate record of what is said, and send it to the person before the decision is made . He or she will not then be able to deny it, or claim that they were misunderstood.

Second, it is useful to know that:

Those honoured by the Queen become `Sirs', `OBEs', and so on, on the day of announcement. But it takes two or three weeks before a new Lord or Baroness is properly created. Until then they retain their former status.

Only Privy Counsellors (that is, all current and former Cabinet ministers and a few current or former senior non-Cabinet ministers) are `Rt. Hon.'.

It is best to refer to Baronesses as `Baroness X' rather than `Lady X', so as to distinguish them from women who become `Ladies' when their husbands become `Sirs'.

Speeches

I guess that most people are born able to write a good speech, just as they can learn any language. Unfortunately, the ability is usually knocked out of us as we become self-conscious, and over-dominated by the written word. The following tips are intend ed to help those who wish to re-learn the ability to write an interesting speech, whether for a Minister, a colleague or themselves.

To begin with, you must first be absolutely clear whether the speech needs to be delivered in the first place. Speeches are very time-consuming, both in their preparation and in the travel time to and from the venue. Remember that ministerial speeches ne ed to tread a fine line between being dull and dangerous. Are you sure that the Minister will have something interesting and/or original to say, and will not be unnecessarily controversial? If so, is the audience the right one? Will there be an opportuni ty for publicity?

Unfortunately, all too many invitations are from organisations that need to fill an after-dinner slot or something of the sort. The last thing they want is a thoughtful speech about the weighty issue of the day -- especially if the content might be cri tical of the community to which the audience belongs. Let's face it. Half the audience will be tipsy -- or worse -- and the majority will certainly want to be entertained. Leave these challenges to professional after-dinner speakers. And if the Mi nister wants to appear for political reasons, or to raise his or her profile, then let the Special Adviser write the speech. He or she will know more jokes than you do.

But of course a properly prepared speech, delivered at the right time to the right audience, can be highly effective. As ever, planning and preparation are the key.

First, decide what mode you are in. Is the Minister going to talk fairly freely about possible policy developments? Or are you in defensive or implementation mode? Each will require a quite different approach.

Second, you also need to identify those one or two key messages that you and/or the speaker want to leave in the minds of the audience. What do you want them to do differently after hearing the speech? What do you want them to remember some days afterwar ds?

Third, you should also find out what the audience wants to get out of the speech. The easiest way to do this is to ask the event organiser what will go down well, what information needs to be put over and what will please the audience. Your one -- or at the most two -- key messages can then be nicely wrapped so that the audience is first made receptive to the key messages -- especially if they are likely to be unwelcome or surprising.

Take particular care correctly to define and describe the nature of the speech. A `keynote address' should include the key points -- which will be the main topics for discussion for the rest of the conference. An `opening address' will set the sce ne or set out the Governments position as a prelude to more detailed speeches. In this case you should take care that the Minister's comments will not duplicate any other opening remarks by the Chair or host.

When you have decided what you want to say, then plan your structure. You can do much worse than stick to the traditional:

* tell them what your main message will be, then,

* deliver the message, and then,

* tell them what the message was!

There may be other ways of structuring a speech, but no other way works every time, or leaves such a clear impression.

Drafting: Actually, the worst thing you can do is either `draft' or `write' a speech. If a speech reads well, especially to colleagues, it will sound stilted and boring. You should simply pick up a dictaphone, put your speech structure on the table in fr ont of you, and start talking. If you get stuck, think about the audience and talk about them and the issues that face them. Use plenty of anecdotes and illustrations, avoid long lists and let detailed statistics give way to easily grasped facts (for exa mple, `last year we doubled our exports to X' rather than `in 1998 our exports to X were 92 per cent up on 1997'). Above all, get some emotion into it, and some power. The result will be much more interesting -- and more natural.

Then check the typed text for unclear or misleading phrases, remove platitudes and generalities, and check that it consists only of sentences which are less than two lines long. Finally, read the whole thing through out loud, to make sure that it trips o ff the tongue fairly easily. Do not, as has happened, ask a minister to describe how he has `instituted an epidemiological survey'.

You will of course need to show the draft to colleagues affected by its content. But unless it contains a major statement of Government policy, try to avoid showing it to senior colleagues. They will only start fretting about the colloquial language and the split infinitives, and turn the whole thing into an essay which will read well, but sound awful.

On the day always check the technology. Is the speaker familiar with the microphone and/or teleprompter, and does it work? Ditto the video player. Does he or she know how to switch on the overhead projector and is it focused? Are the slides the right way up, the right way round and in the right order, and does the speaker know how to control them?

It is also worth listening carefully to the speech, even if you know every word off by heart. Try to tune into the Minister's speech patterns, sense of timing, and so on. You will never mimic them exactly, but it will help you when you next settle down t o dictate a speech.

And afterwards check how the speech was received. If it went down badly, you can blame the speaker. Either way, you will learn something for the future. But do not fret if the speech really bombed. It happens to us all.

Edited extracts from How to be a civil servant. Book courtesy: The British Council Library, Chennai.)