There are a lot of women on Capitol Hill these days. Many focus on the number of women holding office in both the Senate and the House – as they should. But just as important are the countless career women who have stormed the hill in recent years and assumed roles as legislative directors, chiefs of staff, and committee counsels. If you walk the halls of congressional office buildings (when we re-open post-COVID that is) you’ll see that, often, the decision makers driving national policy development are whip smart, highly driven, 20 and 30 something women who know they are carrying an immense burden in public service.
The Ohio delegation is especially blessed in this arena. Because it’s an election year, I’m not going to focus on a single office or name staffers, but you should know that the staffer I’m about to describe to you would fit in any role across any of our delegation’s legislative teams. She is, frankly, a hard hitting, no BS leader whose actions in one realm reflect an incredibly important lesson: you owe it to your team to invest in your own replacement.
More than anything she conveyed in her base of policy knowledge (and trust me it is voluminous), this staffer – let’s call her Staffer 1 – has made a point to demonstrate the need to mentor her teammates at every stage of their respective careers. And her reasoning is simple, turnover on the Hill is incredibly high, and each of those mentees will one day be in a position to help your agenda.
This is that common thread you’ll see time and again on this blog; advocacy is relationship building and relationship building is a long game. But, let’s drill down into what that means for Staffer 1’s work on the Hill.
In addition to managing her specific issue portfolio, Staffer 1’s leadership role within the legislative team gives her oversight of everyone on the team. She becomes the funnel of information from the staff to the member, and has to depend on those teammates to prepare her as much as she prepares the member. This requires developing her subordinates to a point that they anticipate the member’s and her needs and deliver in an incredibly rapid-evolving environment.
Session days on the Hill are intense. Staffer 1 will be in 5-15 minute meetings for the entirety of a 16 hour day. In between those rapid fire sessions, she’ll be preparing the member for votes and dealing with caucus leadership. At any point, she needs to be prepared to return to the member’s side for decisions that are happening in real time. Needless to say, it’s overwhelming, thus the high turnover rate.
But what has made Staffer 1 different in her time as a leader? She’s used the non-session days for constructive recovery and planning. Not just playing catch up, because you never really do, but looking for opportunities to train her team to understand her thought process, develop a common understanding of her and the member’s goals, and allowing those staffers to step out of their comfort zones and fail.
What has been the effect of this approach? She’s developed a vast network of current and former staffers who 1) trust her; 2) support her member’s agenda; and 3) can execute their own members’ agendas more successfully.
How does she do it?
– Annual Training: she consciously invests in staff development through an annual retreat that provides training removed from the stressors of daily legislative work. No matter how long your team has been together, these retreats allow you to re-assess priorities and re-evaluate your political action plan (I’ll be talking about action plans in November).
– Strategic Planning & Scheduling: she sets realistic goals built around the congressional calendar to accomplish measurable outcomes: X number of co-sponsors on a piece of legislation; thoughtfully timed communication that drives the member’s message instead of reacting to circumstance; participation in networking events with key stakeholder groups. These are generic examples, but they point to helping her team develop habits of reaching outside of their immediate circle and prompting opportunities to discuss the members’ agenda.
There is nothing earth shattering about either of these core concepts. What makes the wave is that she intentionally executes both and reinforces the importance of them with her team. They become pillars of the staff dynamic. And when you can get a team to execute brilliantly in the basics like she does, they become immeasurably more impactful. You’d be baffled to know just how many teams fail to do this.
The beauty of both is that they are immediately transferrable to your own advocacy program. You too need to set time intentionally to create space for your team to train together, including cross-training in knowledge areas. Train your team to do each other’s jobs and eventually they’ll be training to your level. Those core competencies will not go away, and you’ll find you’ve created a truly effective advocacy nucleus for your organization.
When I’ve spoken with Staffer 1 about her approach, and why she’s so intentional, her responses are reminiscent of a character from the West Wing. “I’m only here and able to do what I do for so long. The people back home need help, and if I’ve got a great team, we can do more in two years together than we may ever accomplish in life after the Hill.”
Invest in your people. Train them to replace you. Your advocacy will outlast you.
Part of the Possible 