Do think tanks need a rethink?

Yeah, you know, I think people respond to their own experiences.

So my obviously strong views on this were really shaped by an experience.

I was working at the Center for Global Development, and I found myself in the State Department.

And, you know, when we were at CGD, this was in the early 2000s, all the rage were cross-country growth regressions.

And everybody was working on these statistical studies and doing these regression tables.

And that was like the thing that everyone was doing.

And then through a total accident, I wound up being a senior official at the State Department.

And in my entire time there, not once did I ever see a regression table.

And it would actually be almost like ridiculous to put a regression table in front of a senior official.

They wouldn't even know what to do with it, you know.

So when I reflected on that when I left, you have to present information to officials in ways that they can absorb it and that is tied exactly to their existing priorities.

And that means that the tactics really have to start starting with the problem identification.

What problem are you going to try to solve? That has to start with a give and take with the people on the inside, or else you're completely wasting your time.

You're solving a problem that nobody cares about.

And if you solve it and then you try to present it in a way like a 270 page report that they will never read, you're not actually helping them solve that problem either.

So, you know, I very much built like the Energy for Growth Hub model on building relationships inside government.

And then everything that we do needs to be short and to the point.

And much of what we do is on our website.

And people are, you know, you can look at that.

But a lot of what we do are private one page memos.

that are structured after US Treasury decision memo, because what we want when somebody sees it to recognize, oh, this is a decision memo, this is for me, and this is going to tell me what I need to know, what I should do, and what do I do next.

So there could be a 270-page report behind it, but you need to get that cover memo right first.

And why don't more other think tanks do that? I think people just get in the mode...

They get in the mode of, OK, we've got a grant to work on this problem.

Let's hold an event and do a report.