Doing Big Things in Policy

A guide, of sorts

This post originally appeared in ChinaTalk.

“We underestimate how many really important things don’t have enough talented people working on them.”

Want to do big things? Today we’re providing a guide of sorts. Joining me is Remco Zwetsloot of the Horizon Institute for Public Service and Kumar Garg of Renaissance Philanthropy.

We discuss:

• Why achieving goals in policy is more possible than most people think and that the real bottleneck is ambitious, mission-driven talent,

• How successful policymakers think differently — how they focus on outcomes over “portfolios,” learn the system deeply, and work backwards from impact,

• Why policymaking rewards immersion, sensemaking, and coalition-building more than raw technical or academic brilliance,

• The importance of peers, persistence, and “water on stone” stamina in sustaining long-term policy and public service careers,

• How writing, public ideas, and the “posting-to-policy” pipeline are democratizing access to influence in Washington.

Optimizing for Impact

Jordan Schneider: Kumar, what is RenPhil, and Remco, what is Horizon?