Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be regulators: but if they do - 10 survival tips.

• Author: Levin, Blair
• Position: Cover Story

But if they do--10 survival tips

During my four years as chief of staff to Reed Hundt, the recently departed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC was involved in a flurry of high-profile policy battles. From the first auctions of spectrum to the deregulation of both the global and domestic telephone markets to the Republican Congress' attempts to dismantle the commission altogether, the FCC found itself constantly under attack and on the attack. Along the way, the chairman's team learned a few lessons.

First, the basic physics of policy making. Every significant policy debate involves politically powerful private interests. Where those interests are consistent with good public policy--and they often are--the good policies easily prevail. Unfortunately, when private interests are contrary to good policy, the interests are still likely to win. As a general rule, powerful forces beat powerful ideas--unless an intervening actor takes up the cause. For public officials, this means that, if they want to make a difference, they have to arm themselves for battle. The fight does not have to be mean or unfair. But it's not a lovefest.

So how to do it? The rules of any business apply. Hire people smarter than you and give them incentives to play like a team, know more than anyone else about the forest and the trees, figure out the leverage points, have a plan but stay flexible, and whenever possible use humor. But above all, understand the nature of the fight. When I started at the FCC, I thought government officials had the luxury of simply deciding on the right policies and coherently explaining their decisions, much like judges. I was wrong. You can't make a difference by waiting for a policy matter to come before you and simply reacting. You have to create a climate in which the right policy has a chance to succeed. Typically, these battles have three phases: defining the issue, gathering support, and then orchestrating a resolution. What follows are 10 rules for aspiring government officials who--as unrealistic as it may seem--hope to guide their policy battles toward a Disney-style happily-ever-after ending.

1. You can't be good at politics if you are only about politics.

   For most Americans, the term "politics" connotes achieving a goal through connections, not merit, and slick rhetoric, not analytic rigor. For us, politics meant creating enough support to adopt and sustain good public policy objectives.

   But if you expect a policy battle to be waged on the merit of your ideas--not the speed of your spin--you had better thoroughly test your positions before advancing into the field. Even though these ideas eventually get boiled down into simple slogans, you must first think through, and be prepared to address, all the implications and ambiguities of a policy recommendation before you put it out there for public scrutiny. Which brings us to the invaluable Rule Number Two ...

2. Listen to your adversaries.

   We discovered that one of the best ways to fine-tune our ideas was to test them on the folks most eager to uncover the flaws in our logic-our critics on the right. We read conservative criticism of communications policy and welcomed opportunities to speak at conservative think tanks. Of course, those on the right still disagreed with much of what we did. But when we went public with our positions, we had already vetted and strengthened the intellectual...