Many years ago, I was encouraged to put my name forward to chair a significant government board. It seemed like a long shot to me, I wasn’t in anyone’s club, but my supporters were insistent. I agreed to let my name go into the mix.
It was a surprise then when the chair of the selection committee called a few weeks later and said with an apologetic tone: “Sorry Julianne, it’s just not your turn.”
I felt as though I’d stepped back into the school yard. Once again it wasn’t my turn to bat, bowl, kick, be the captain or whatever. No reason was needed, skill and knowledge didn’t come into it, there was no trial or audition, a decision had been made.
Even then I could see the pattern, it was always less likely to be a girl’s turn.
Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the US Congress used the phrase It’s not your turn like a motivational mantra in countless speeches. She’s a few decades older than me, and much more ambitious, so no doubt heard it more often than I did. Her response was to keep pushing, to argue that decisions should be made on merit, not favours, gender or age.
Reading the reports of Lynelle Briggs’ mates for jobs report that the government released last week after a long period of consideration, this memory of not-your-turnism came rushing back.
The experience seemed odd at the time. The chosen candidate, whose “turn” it was, was highly respected, well qualified and had gravitas. By some measures he probably also counted as a mate, or possibly even as someone who was owed a favour.
What surprised me was the apparent lack of close scrutiny of what the organisation itself actually needed, the lack of deep critical curiosity about the complexity of the issues it was grappling with and how they might be tackled.
At some level the conscientious, non-partisan folk making the recommendation worked from a sense of secondhand familiarity with the organisation, buttressed by adherence to basic process.
Process and transparency are important, but they are not sufficient.
I have since chaired a number of boards and know that there is a human dynamic at play that is not simply defined by ensuring all the boxes in the skills matrix have been ticked. These matrixes ensure there is expertise in law, finance, governance, marketing, ethics, communications, technology and (imagine this) the industry sector itself.
The most effective boards are more than the sum of their parts – they have a human dynamic that determines success, shaped by respect, expertise, trust and wisdom. These attributes transcend the skill set and are harder to capture using routine processes.
I have sat on boards that have been at war with themselves, and on boards where a generosity of spirit has been transformative. The worst have been those stacked with political appointees, who regarded the organisation as a proxy battleground for other struggles. Yet some of the best board members have been former premiers and ministers who had long left their party allegiance behind.
The tension between meritocracy and favours is always present. Mates can also be people who merit appointments. Prior associations, professional relationships and shared work histories can help flesh out selections.
We are encouraged to think that it can be automated, that LinkedIn, with its AI-aided tick boxes, can somehow capture the full complexity of a career. But it’s that feeling you get when you look someone in the eye and have a direct conversation about a difficult subject that matters most.
When I started working in journalism in the late 1970s there was a mantra beloved by the older men in newsrooms. If you had been to university, worked in journalism and spent some time in Canberra you probably knew everyone or could get to everyone who mattered, they said.
It was arrogant and silly but, with a population half what it is now, at a time when about 5% of people were graduates and the old hierarchies of class, ethnicity and gender held strong, it also had a flicker of truth.
Australia today is not only bigger but more diverse, smarter, more competitive and bound much more rigidly by process. Process designed to ensure access and transparency is important but not enough.
At a time when Australia’s segregated school system works to keep people in their lane, when membership of political parties has plummeted, when the shared spaces of an old mass media, clubs, churches and community organisations have shrunk, it’s arguably harder than ever to ensure that people from different worlds interact so that the talent pool becomes deeper and broader. This is why Briggs’ recommendations matter.
If there is a pervasive, not surprising and very human expectation that turnism prevails then the new meritocracy may look rather like the old world of mates, leaving many talented people wondering what they must do to crack the system.
